Thanks for the New York Times for including me in this discussion. I was in some impressive company.

Here are some excerpts.

My piece continued with my theme that sportswriters shouldn’t be voting in the first place.

It’s pretty simple: Journalists cover the news. They don’t make news.

This week, journalists, specifically baseball writers, crossed the line again by not only making news, but also becoming the news with their votes for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Headlines blared, with writers’ votes and the entire process coming under intense scrutiny.

It all could have been avoided if writers weren’t voting in the first place. The basic rule of journalism should have been applied long ago, and that goes for their participation in all sports awards, not just the Hall of Fame.

Joe Posnanski of NBC Sports says the Hall of Fame problems go deeper than the voting process.

More than tinkering, though, the Hall of Fame must rethink itself and take control of its own destiny. The leadership has sat back and allowed others to define it in the 21st century. Attendance is down more than a quarter since 2000. Some of the greatest players are not represented. The Hall of Fame announcement day has become an annual opportunity to complain about an outdated process and bash the game. The museum’s stated mission is to “preserve the sport’s history, honor excellence within the game and make a connection between the generations of people who enjoy baseball.” It has past generations covered. It’s time to start connecting to this one.

Rob Neyer of SB Nation believes it is time to open vote to more than just members of the BBWAA.

For the Hall of Fame, the prescription is simple: Give someone else a chance. In 1936, when the first Hall of Fame class was announced, it probably made sense to let the writers do the heavy lifting. But all these years later, there’s just no obvious reason why Roger Angell, Bob Costas, Bill James, Vin Scully and dozens of other students of the game aren’t a part of this process. Yes, the results would be very nearly the same. But with a couple of exceptions — Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens — it’s not the results that bother people; it’s the process, and so the Hall of Fame’s credibility has taken a big hit. If the process makes more sense, fans won’t sweat the results quite so much.

Christina Kahrl, co-founder of Baseball Prospectus suggests lowering the 75 percent threshold.

Second, we need to lower the threshold for what it takes to get into Cooperstown; the 75 percent mark was reasonable 70 years ago in a smaller media environment with fewer teams (and shorter-lived sportswriters). So let’s lower it to two-thirds of the voters, rounding up. Admittedly, I’m in favor of a larger hall — it exists to honor the players, and looking back at the players voted in to represent the all-white era before Jackie Robinson, I’d argue the threshold for what was a Hall of Fame career was already set lower than the standard being applied to modern players.

C. Trent Rosecrans, the beat writer for the Cincinnati Enquirer, believes change is coming.

Despite cries saying otherwise, the B.B.W.A.A. knows its system isn’t perfect and there are movements afoot to drastically expand voting membership, increase the transparency that has helped create vitriol and also eliminate the arcane rule limiting voters to just 10 choices from the ballot.