The Hall of Fame announcement is going to be a disappointment to all the social scientists who lose their skulls at this time every year.
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Tom Haudricourt covers the Brewers and Major League Baseball.
Halladay’s tweet didn’t sit well with Clemens, who again, like Bonds, fell short of the 75 percent vote necessary to gain enshrinement. He was checked off on 315 of the 440 ballots cast for 71.6 percent, up from 55.7 percent in 2015.
But the cry for more orthodoxy in voting swung both ways, and metrics-only bullies and the get-off-my-ballot bullies yelled at each other until their punched themselves out – or, more like, until everyone else watching the fight walked and said to themselves, “I’m not drinking with those killjoys any more”.
As both Rosenthal and Olney point out, no one can be sure who was doing what and how much that impacted their games.
McGwire off ballot Mark McGwire, who captured the nation’s attention with his battle with Sammy Sosa to break Roger Maris’ single-season home run record in 1998 and then later admitted to taking performance enhancing drugs, received 54 votes in his final year on the ballot. If there were no cap, I probably would have checked off the names of Lee Smith, Fred McGriff and Alan Trammell as well. Hoffman came in at 67.3 percent and will likely be a Hall of Famer next year.
The Hall lowered the years of eligibility from 15 to 10 in July 2014, partly because the issue of PEDs has created a crowded list of candidates.
The Veterans’ Committee is comprised of three sub-committees representing a different era: the Pre-Intergration Era, the Golden Era and the Expansion Era.
Bagwell and Raines’ impressive jumps in their percentages might have been aided by the elimination of about 100 baseball writers from the electorate who are no longer active BBWAA members.
Following the board’s decision not to accept the BBWAA’s recommendation that voters be allowed to select up to 12 candidates rather than 10, next year’s ballot could force more tough decisions. He garnered 34.1 percent. Clemens would need 131 more votes and Bonds 135 more votes. Also in the clean category, Curt Schilling had a modest rise to 52.3 percent and Mike Mussina had the biggest increase of all, going from 18 percent to 43 percent. “I thank the writers”. I certainly didn’t expect to be elected today, but it is always a little disappointing when it becomes official.
But now I sound like a scold in defense of my own position, so let me put it this way: Ken Griffey is getting in.
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In their first three years of eligibility, the pair was stuck in the mid-30s percentage-wise.
