Another thing that the new year will bring is the 2007 Hall of Fame balloting, and with it the conundrum about Mark McGwire. David Pinto has a sample of what the actual voters are thinking about McGwire, both pro and con. I have to say that I'm not particularly impressed with either person's case, even though I obviously agree with the pro-McGwire sentiment. If there's a less useful criterion for evaluating a player's Hall-worthiness than his parenting skills, I can't think of it. Frankly, I think such appeals to a player's warmth and fuzziness - or whines about lack of same - is an excellent argument for expanding the pool of Hall voters to include many, many people who did not interact with the players on a regular basis, so that they will consider their statistical merits and not their personalities. Someday, when I am tabbed to replace Bud Selig as Commissioner, I will see to that.

In the meantime, I'll make a prediction: At least one of the Chron sports columnists will pen a prissy and self-righteous piece explaining why he'll never (never!) vote for McGwire's induction. So far the only discussion I've seen on this topic has been in the Astros fanblog comments, and it's pretty decent. This is one of those predictions that I make in hopes of being proved wrong, but I have my doubts about that. We'll see.

UPDATE: Will Caroll notes the difference in perspective between baseball and football.