There was no doubt about whether Baseball Hall of Fame voters felt Derek Jeter deserved to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer. They did. Jeter was one of two players voted to the Baseball Hall of Fame as part of the 2020 class. Larry Walker is the other.
Jeter was voted in at a 99.7 percent clip, receiving 396 of 397 possible votes. He actually missed being a unanimous first-ballot Hall of Famer by one vote. One single vote.
BBWAA elects Derek Jeter, Larry Walker. https://t.co/XeuIE8xL0S pic.twitter.com/E2LGbD3yvN
— BBWAA (@officialBBWAA) January 21, 2020
There used to be a line of thinking that nobody deserved to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer, so some refused to vote for a guy the first time around, regardless of how deserving of induction the player was. That came to an end last year when Mariano Rivera got in unanimously. Rivera was hoping his former teammate would also get in unanimously, but Jeter came one vote short.
Now everyone wants to know who left off the shortstop and why. We know it wasn’t Patrick Mahomes:
How is Derek Jeter not unanimous???? #BaseballHallofFame
— Patrick Mahomes II (@PatrickMahomes) January 21, 2020
