Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz and Craig Biggio were elected to the Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers Association of America, it was announced Tuesday.
Johnson and Martinez led the way with 97.3 and 91.1 percent of the vote, respectively. Smoltz was next with 82.9 percent of the vote. All three were on the ballot for the first time.
Biggio, who missed being elected to the Hall of Fame by just two votes last year, received 82.7 percent of the vote. Mike Piazza was the first player out, so to speak, with 69.9 percent. You need 75 percent to make the cut.
Anyone who didn’t vote for Johnson or Martinez is just trying to be different or is probably one of those writers who makes a huge deal out of voting for players on their first ballot. Johnson is one of the greatest left-handed pitchers of all time and Martinez dominated the game like no other during the height of the steroid era.
Of the performance-enhancing drug bunch, Roger Clemens (37.5) and Barry Bonds (36.8) received the most votes. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa came nowhere close, as expected.
As Big League Stew noted, this is only the third time in history that the BBWAA has elected four members in one Hall of Fame class. That is the most inductees since 1955.
