My long-time Chicago Tribune colleague Phil Hersh wrote about losing his Baseball Hall of Fame vote. Hersh has been making his selections since 1983, but a new regulation requires the voters be active baseball writers within the last 10 years.

I know Phil put considerable time and effort into his vote even though he hasn’t covered baseball on a regular basis for years.

Hersh writes:

That move will delight the anonymous Twitter trolls who have hectored me every year to give up my vote because they apparently are upset that I roundly dismiss the candidacies of players like Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, whose use of PEDs was apparent, admitted or both.

My only regret in losing the vote now is not having a further voice in shutting that crowd out of Cooperstown until their 15 years of eligibility is over. One can only hope that 26 percent of the 520 or so remaining voters will continue to bar the door.

“My only regret in losing the vote now is not having a further voice in shutting that crowd out of Cooperstown until their 15 years of eligibility is over.” Players are only eligible for 10 years now, a change made on 7/27/2014. If you can’t even keep up with changes like this,…

Truth be told, excluding those who are not covering Major League Baseball on a regular basis seems a reasonable move, even if many of us in that category devoted considerable time and thought to the task.