You are this close to immortality in your profession, but it will first require the collective nod of approval from a bunch of people you don’t know — most of whom have never done for a living what you did to get this far.
Welcome to Hall of Fame season, where the gatekeepers to Canton, Ohio, and Cooperstown, New York, are a bunch of ... of journalists!
Hey, nobody said life was fair, player.
So the National Baseball Hall of Fame just released it 35-man ballot for 2019 induction, with some 450 members of the Baseball Writers Association of America (me among them) set to ponder and vote.