2025 Baseball Hall of Fame Class

Results of the Classic Baseball Era Ballot (12 votes needed for election):
Dave Parker (14 votes, 87.5%)
Dick Allen (13 votes, 81.3%)
Tommy John (7 votes, 43.8%)
Ken Boyer, John Donaldson, Steve Garvey, Vic Harris and Luis Tiant each received less than five votes.

 

Allen was criminally underrated as a player and should have gotten much more support. The Phillies were the most racist organization in the National League, Gene Mauch was an idiot who blew the 1964 pennant and the white Frank Thomas deserved to get punched in the jaw for his Cassius Clay aside.

Allen played his ass off in Philadelphia and the fans booed him anyway because he got the reputation as a "difficult" player, mostly from Mauch (Let's call him Richie and make him play third base) and Bob Skinner (owner Bob Carpenter never got over uppity Allen wanting to get paid star money). The team was terrible in spite of Allen, not because of him, but Skinner wanted to make an example of him and basically got the press to go along with it.

Even after he suffered several major injuries, he was still far and away the best player on most of the mediocre teams he found himself stuck with the rest of his career.

Hate that he died before he rightfully earned his place in Cooperstown.

 

One a Pirate, the other a Western PA legend.

 

Steve Garvey gets routed in another election. You hate to see it.

 

Garvey loses another election [/crossthread].

 

EDIT: h/t @BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo

 

HA! Good timing, great minds, etc etc.

 

Wish I could have seen Dick Allen in his prime.

Allen was idolized by the former mayor of Trenton who was inducted into his college HOF for baseball last year so he was pretty giddy with the news tonight.

 

I'm pretty much out of childhood heroes who deserve to be in the Hall who haven't already gone in. Dave Parker was the last one I thought was kind of unfairly left out.

Would be thrilled if Dwight Evans made it, but if anyone else from my childhood gets in? Good for them, but not essential.

 

Allen should have been a Hall of Famer 40 years ago.
What a ballplayer. Struck fear (and awe) in every team in the other dugout.

 

A guy like Parker getting in helps someone like Evans -- there's a lot of similarities but the problem is how much does something like WAR factor in for these types of voters?

veterans voting is so inconsistent because the electorate changes every time. I was hopefull that at a minimum Allen would finally cross the line. The fact they put anyone else in is a bonus -- I think everybody but Garvey deserves to make it at some point. That there are two open spots now is interesting to see who gets added in three years. I assume an outfielder is in the mix because now there isn't one left in the holdovers. I could imagine they give someone like Munson a shot to add a catcher.

 

It's early on the tracker but through 13 ballots:

Ichiro is unanimous
Sabathia is on 12 of the 13
Wagner, who fell five votes shy, already has two flips.
Beltran's continuing rise off to a promising start with two flips (missed by 69 last time)

At worst it is looking like a class of Ichiro and Wagner. At best Sabathia sneaks across on his first try.