Mike Piazza and Ken Griffey Jr. will be the newest members of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
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Griffey, who played during baseball’s “steroid era” yet was never tainted with allegations of cheating, fell three votes shy of being the first-ever unanimous choice but he still received a record 99.3 percent of all ballots cast by voting members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.
The previous high was 98.84 percent by pitcher Tom Seaver in 1992. The younger Griffey became a 13-time All-Star outfielder and finished with 630 homers, sixth on the career list. Also leaving the ballot are those who failed to earn the minimum five percent: Jim Edmonds (2.5 percent), Nomar Garciaparra (1.8 percent), Mike Sweeney (0.7 percent), David Eckstein (0.5 percent), Jason Kendall (0.5 percent), Garret Anderson (0.1 percent), Brad Ausmus (0 votes), Luis Castillo (0 votes), Troy Glaus (0 votes), Mark Grudzielanek (0 votes), Mike Hampton (0 votes), Mike Lowell (0 votes), and Randy Winn (0 votes). Piazza, on the ballot for the fourth time, received 365 votes.
Eventually, Murdoch would express that admiration in a song, “Piazza, New York Catcher”, which, like much of his work, is actually an amalgamation of different stories and scenes from his life – “It’s a mixture of so many different images and storylines”, he explains.
Junior Griffey and Piazza will be inducted in Cooperstown on July 24th. Playing alongside his father, Ken Griffey, Sr., in 1990, he and his dad hit back-to-back home runs for the Mariners – the first time a father-son duo had accomplished the feat in baseball history.
During a time when some of baseball’s biggest stars were linked to performance-enhancing drugs – power hitters in particular – doubters looked at Piazza’s brawny frame and questioned how a guy who initially languished so far off the radar for scouts could ascend to such heights against elite competition.
On Wednesday, the Hall of Fame announced its 2016 class for induction on MLB Network. “That for me was something they really embraced”. This year represented Mark McGwire’s 10th and final year on the ballot and he barely mustered 12% of the vote. I have chosen not to vote for them, as has been the case with, just to name two voters, Dan Shaughnessy and Bob Ryan from the Globe.
“It crystalizes how special this game is, in a sense”, Piazza said.
“They were Hall of Famers before all this stuff started”, Griffey said.
Both have 6 more years on the ballot before their eligibility expires.
“I don’t want to say it was hard”, Piazza said. Roger Clemens rose to 45 percent and Barry Bonds to 44 percent, both up from about 37 percent a year ago, but far short of the needed 75 percent. That adds up to about 100 more players any given season, new rivalries and diminished emphasis on the National and American leagues, says Alex Remington, a baseball blogger who writes for Fangraphs and edits the Braves Journal.
So there is every reason to feel good for Piazza and for Mets fans, who haven’t had a lot of opportunity to revel in tradition.
No player posted a higher year-over-year gain than pitcher Mike Mussina, who went up 18.4 percent and was named on 43 percent of ballots.
Impressed by what he saw of Piazza offensively, Lasorda, perhaps recalling what an asset Campanella’s bat had been to those “Boys of Summer” Dodgers, urged him to convert to catching.
Also joining Griffey in Cooperstown is catcher Mike Piazza.
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Trammell in his 15th and final year on the ballot (he was grandfathered in when the ballot time limit was reduced to 10 years) mustered 40.9 percent support and thus dropped off the ballot.
