Questionable Claims from Howard Bryant

The latest from Howard Bryant on the Baseball Hall of Fame's ongoing debate about its induction process. Howard is defending the status quo because, well, because... the sun keeps rising. Most of it is a long explanation, but it breaks down when Howard tries to get specific:

Those results were the break from baseball's history. Instead of horrible injustice or gross negligence, Alomar fared no worse and much better than other great players. Here, for posterity, is a short list of players not elected on the first try: Cy Young (511 wins), Joe DiMaggio, Eddie Collins (3,315 hits), Jimmie Foxx, Whitey Ford, Eddie Mathews, Rogers Hornsby, Robin Roberts and Roy Campanella. Yogi Berra (67.2 percent in 1971) was not a first-ballot inductee.

1. Cy Young did not make the first ballot because HE WAS ON THE FIRST BALLOT. Howard, you can't throw these names in there with no context.

2. It's an absolute crime that, somehow, the 1955 BBWAA elected a man with an 82 OPS+, 28 career home runs and unspectacular fielding stats over Joe Fucking DiMiaggio.

3. Robin Roberts did lose 245 games, including an abysmal 1961 season which MIGHT rank as the worst-ever season by a Hall of Fame pitcher. It's not like his numbers make him some kind of guaranteed first-ballot lock!

Alomar cannot claim superiority over anyone on that list. Each was eventually inducted, and the free world survived.

QED! The status quo should never be changed!

Also, Howard printed this:

During college football's biggest week, the start of the NFL playoffs and the week of the Winter Classic, the hottest topic in sports was the Baseball Hall of Fame and who would be worthy of enshrinement.

Really?