Today is the big day when the new class of Hall of Famers will be announced sometime around 1:00 PM EST. I say Hall of Famers, but my gut tells me only one player will be elected today; Roberto Alomar.

Of course Alomar should have gotten in last year, but he fell a few votes short. This time he should get in with a solid majority. Unfortunately, other deserving players like Bert Blyleven, Jeff Bagwell and Edgar Martinez will probably be shutout. I hope I’m wrong.

This morning we learned that the BBWAA website had been hacked, but has since been restored. Who cares, it’s a terrible site anyway and they have yet to update it with last year’s Hall of Fame vote. It just goes to show you how little they really care about baseball’s most hallowed institution.

I’m really concerned about the way some players’ reputations are being dragged in the mud simply because they played in the steroid era, and not because of any existing evidence that they used any banned substances.

I’d hate to see Mike Piazza get punished in the same way Jeff Bagwell has, when Piazza makes his debut on the 2013 HOF ballot. Christina Kahrl of Baseball Prospectus does a nice job of conveying that possibility in a very well written article.

Hopefully by 2013, the Commissioner of Baseball will have come out of hiding to inform the BBWAA that their job is solely to elect those players whose lifetime of achievements are worthy of the HOF, and not playing the parts of judge, jury and executioner regarding “suspected” or “alleged” steroid abuse.

The fact that so many of these baseball writers believe that they can act as criminal prosecutors would be laughable if it weren’t so sad. Too many of them are on some hellish crusade that is all too reminiscent of the Salem Witch Trials.

Don’t get me wrong. I know that most of the members of the BBWAA are solid people who do the right thing, but it’s the few that don’t that really give the entire organization a bad name. I wish the BBWAA would police themselves instead of policing the Hall of Fame ballot.

Anyway, enough about that.

Speaking of Mike Piazza, he and Angel Pagan will both be honored at the 31st annual Thurman Munson Awards Dinner on Tuesday, February 1st, at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City. I’m very excited to meet and hopefully speak with both of them as I will be attending the charitable event as I have in the past three years. I’ll share my photos with you as well as any interesting quotes or rumors.