Tampa Bay Rays news and links: On the sanctity of the hall

There is no Rays news. Not really any baseball news, either. There hasn’t been real baseball news, other than the Atlanta Braves being cheats and their former GM being banned for life, in this “Supposedly Hot Stove Season” for a week.

MLB.com writer Chad Thornburg is dealing with the drought with a synergistic Black Friday tie-in: GMs like to cash in on Black Friday deals too. Points for the shamelessness.

I’ll be even more direct. Here’s a picture of a sweet hat.

You can get 25% off today from the MLB.com shop.

This is the best thing today, for real though. Joe Morgan sent a letter to the Baseball Hall of Fame voters campaigning against allowing in players form the steroids era, and it pushed Jeff Passan’s buttons.

He will not fill out his ballot this year, and he would like to tell you why. Give him a read:

The most sacred place in baseball? Nah. It’s just a museum. That’s all it ever was. That’s all it ever will be.

I didn’t have a super strong opinion, and I rarely care about the Hall of Fame, but now I agree with Passan. Get rid of the character clause. It’s a joke, and an insulting one.

Patrick Dubuque is in the same camp:

What we have now, this gerrymandered collection of racists and heroes and drunkards and men named Rabbit, is just sponsored content, a wall full of bronzed #facesofmlb.

I’ll still go some time, but cutting the sanctity, in most areas, is generally the right call.