Baseball Twitter blew a gasket Sunday after blogger, J.G. Taylor Spink Award winner and annual Hall of Fame troll Murray Chass revealed he had submitted a blank ballot, selecting nobody for election to Cooperstown, despite multiple worthy candidates for the 2017 class.
“This ballot is intentionally blank,” Chass writes as he concludes his explanatory column.
Yes, submitting a blank ballot is dumb. It mocks the spirit of the vote. It's just lame. But here’s the thing: If the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, which votes for the Hall of Fame, and of which I am a second-year member, uses a system that allows for a blank ballot without repercussions, then people probably shouldn’t get so upset about Chass or anyone else who intentionally seeks to mock the system with a trolling, under-voted ballot.