Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

Let me guess. The next rick is for me to call you a name, and then we get into a pissing match and then the thread is locked.
I don't know what kind of journalist you are and you might be a decent person in person, but, aw forget it. You're not worth an insult.

 

Crushed. You win the Plaschke Award, Waylon.

Abso-smurfly.

 

DING DING DING. WE HAVE A WINNER.

 

Entertaining as hell coming from one of SportsJournalists.com's leading paste-eaters.

 

Drip is more of a paste connoisseur.

 

One thing to remember about the changing vote totals is that the electorate changes. Every year people are added and people are dropped.

I also think there's nothing wrong with re-examining guys each year. People change. They learn more things about baseball, develop different attitudes.

I have no problem with someone saying one year, "I have thoroughly examined this player and don't believe he's worthy of the HOF," and then years later looking again and saying "Upon further review, I do think he's a HOFer." It doesn't mean that he didn't give the question his most honest answer each time. Just means he changed his mind. I have done it with three players.

My problem is with someone saying -- and I believe these people are only a tiny percentage of the electorate -- "I think this guy is a HOFer, but I'm not going to vote for him because XXXXX."

 

The one thing that I've learned is that every year, the HOF ballot changes and some years, the candidates aren't that impressive. While I was big Andre Dawson admirer, especially in his prime, I never really looked at him as a true blue Hall of Famer. On this ballot, he stood out as did Blyleven. In previous years, that wasn't the case.

 

BB, those are the people I have a problem with as well.

 

Dead on all the way around.

 

LaRussa dropping some hints that McGwire may come clean when he finally meets the media.

I think it would be the best thing for him to do, like pulling off a Band-Aid.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4804082

 

It might be Dazzy Vance, who got 1 vote (0.4 per cent) in 1936 and was eventually elected in 1955.

Charlie Gehringer and Gabby Hartnett were on the ballot that first year and neither one of them got a vote, but I don't think they should count for the purposes of this discussion as both were still active players at the time - there were no restrictions then on who could be nominated for election.

Vance went up (and down) the scale thusly:

1937 - 10 votes (5%)
1938 - 10 votes (3.8%)
1939 - 15 votes (5.5%)
1942 - 37 votes (15.9%)
1945 - 18 votes (7.3%)
1946 - 31 votes (15.3%)
1947 - 50 votes (31.1%)
1948 - 23 votes (19%)
1949 - 33 votes (21.6%)
1950 - 52 votes (31%)
1951 - 70 votes (31%)
1952 - 105 votes (44.9%)
1953 - 150 votes (56.8%)
1954 - 158 votes (62.7%)
1955 - 205 votes (81.7%)