Telegram reporter refuses to vote for Mariano Rivera for HOF

Look: we are not fans of the New York Yankees. We always want the Boston Red Sox to outperform the New York Yankees. We are Red Sox fans. This is a fact.

However, I feel like actually defending one Yankees player for a second--which is unfortunate because we shouldn't have to be the ones to do it. But sometimes, rationality has to cut in favor of your foe, and this is one of those cases.

Some clown at the Worcester Telegram, Bill Ballou, decided to have a little fun with his National Baseball Hall of Fame ballot. So what did he do? The guy left Mariano Rivera off of his ballot. Now, Rivera will not be a unanimous Hall of Fame inductee. I don't think there's ever been one--which is ridiculous. There's always that one or two clowns that ruin it for the players.

He made the announcement in his Telegram column--which will not be linked here because it's stupid and we are not going to recommend reading it--that he will be turning in a blank ballot instead of allowing Rivera to be picked unanimously.

His rationale is essentially that Rivera did not pitch a lot of innings and that he views saves as an overrated stat. Uhh… yeah. That's freaking ridiculous...

Rivera saved 652 games and helped the Yankees to five World Series championships. Whether or not this guy wants closers in the Hall of Fame is irrelevant. The standard has already been set with Trevor Hoffman, Lee Smith, Goose Gossage, Bruce Sutter and Rollie Fingers all getting the call.

You don't even have to like Rivera to see that he is a Hall of Famer. Closing out baseball games is not easy--as the 2012 Red Sox found out when they tried Alfredo Aceves in the role. So yeah, these stupid Hall of Fame ballots for attention should stop and the people who do them should lose their votes.