Baseball Hall of Fame voters embarrassed themselves this year by failing to vote any players into the Hall for 2021.
This was the ninth time ever and third time in 50 years that no players qualified for the Hall of Fame, which requires 75 percent of votes. This is the first time since 2013 that no players were voted in.
The closest was Curt Schilling, who received 285 of 401 votes (71 percent). He is 16 votes away from making it.
Like Schilling, Barry Bonds (248 votes/61.8 percent) and Roger Clemens (247/61.6 percent) have one year left on the ballot to get to the necessary 75 percent.
Here are the other players who received votes.
– Scott Rolen 212 (52.9)
– Omar Vizquel 197 (49.1)
– Billy Wagner 186 (46.4)
– Todd Helton 180 (44.9)
– Gary Sheffield 163 (40.6)
– Andruw Jones 136 (33.9)
– Jeff Kent 130 (32.4)
– Manny Ramírez 113 (28.2)
– Sammy Sosa 68 (17.0)
– Andy Pettitte 55 (13.7)
– Mark Buehrle 44 (11.0)
– Torii Hunter 38 (9.5)
– Bobby Abreu 35 (8.7)
– Tim Hudson 21 (5.2)
– Aramis Ramírez 4 (1.0)
– LaTroy Hawkins 2 (0.5)
– Barry Zito 1 (0.2)
A.J. Burnett, Michael Cuddyer, Dan Haren, Nick Swisher and Shane Victorino all did not receive votes.
Schilling is a no-brainer Hall of Famer. His regular season body of work is strong — six All-Star Games, over 3,200 innings pitched, and he twice led the league in wins, innings pitched, and strikeouts. But his 11-2 record and 2.23 career postseason ERA and three World Series rings makes him the best postseason pitcher of his generation. That should make him a slam-dunk inductee. Voters need to fix that next year.
Bonds, Clemens, Rolen, Vizquel, Wagner, Helton, Sheffield, Kent, Manny Ramirez and Sosa all are also Hall of Fame-caliber players, though it’s completely understandable to keep anyone out for PED reasons.
Also, it’s an absolute tragedy that Johan Santana was dropped off the ballot. He had a peak like Sandy Koufax and absolutely deserves to be a Hall of Famer.
Photo: GoogleMan/Wikimedia via CC-BY-SA 3.0
