Greg Maddux: Not A Unanimous First Ballot Choice
The Atlanta Braves retired the #31 jersey of pitcher Greg Maddux last Friday evening. Earlier that day, Maddux was inducted into the Braves Hall of Fame.
Yes, Maddux will be also be a first-ballot selection for the MLB Hall of Fame in 2014. He just will not be voted in unanimously.
The Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA) has the responsibility of selecting the Hall of Fame inductees for Major League Baseball. I say this system is broken.
Never has a first-year (or any) candidate received 100% of the vote. This includes recent slam dunks (Rickey Henderson, 95%; Cal Ripken, Jr., 98.5%) and all-time HR leaders (Hank Aaron, 97.8%; Babe Ruth 95.1%).
Did you hear about the guy who won 511 games and did not get in on his first year of eligibility? Cy Young squeaked in with 76.1% of the votes on his second year (1937). Doesn’t the guy have some kind of award named after him? I guess he needed 600 to make more of an impression.
And even when a special election was held for the greatest defensive right fielder of all time, the BBWAA could only muster up 92.7% of “yes” votes for Roberto Clemente.
I don’t know if it is partly racism, partly self-righteousness, or partly a publicity stunt by some nincompoop writers, but I do know that the BBWAA needs to be held accountable in order for the Hall of Fame honor to be taken seriously.
My proposal: If a first-year-eligible player gets more than 90% of the vote (80% for minority players), then those BBWAA writers who did not vote for that player should be identified and stripped of their future voting privileges. What do you think?
I wholeheartedly agree that it does seem mighty questionable as to why these players did not receive 100 percent of the vote. It would be good to know what justifications and explanations writers in the “no camp” can offer for voting against the induction of these great players on the first ballot. Nevertheless, I have reservations about naming and shaming people; it sounds too Soviet.
Comment by SamM — Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 8:55 AM
Whoa! Not talking about Stalin-esque death purges here! Just saying that if you are unable or unwilling to perform a facet of your job, then you should be relieved of that responsibility. You can keep all of your civil liberties and personal freedoms. You just cannot cast your vote for who gets into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Helps maintain the integrity of that hallowed shrine. Or so goes the thinking…!
Comment by TheUmpire — Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 11:07 AM
I wholeheartedly agree with you. Anyone who would not vote for Greg Maddux should lose the privilege of voting. He is the greatest, most complete pitcher that ever lived and I would even campaign to see that he is unanimously voted into the Hall of Fame.
Comment by Sharon Perez — Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 3:04 PM
Well, one of the things about writers is that — presumably — they should be able to express themselves in a coherent fashion. Thus, I would be interested to read an argument against voting for Roberto Clemente on the first ballot.
Comment by SamM — Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 3:46 PM
Agreed — I would love to hear some the explanations for some of these decisions. I am having a very hard time coming up with any justifiable rationale for a whole lot of these numbers.
Comment by TheUmpire — Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 8:41 AM
1. If you haven’t written a published baseball article in more than 10 years, you should not have a vote.
2. If you don’t know the names of most of the players on current teams, but you can name the starting lineup of the 1941 NY Yankees, you should not have a vote.
3. If you don’t have an internet connection and do not read the major sports newsmagazines – TSN and ESPN, for example – you should not have a vote.
4. If you believe that every person that has used PEDs in the past couple of decades automatically cannot be in the Hall, but you’re OK with Mickey Mantle’s and players’ of the 50, 60s and 70s abuse of amphetamines (the PEDs of their day), you should not have a vote.
Also, we the fans should have a say in who gets in our baseball Hall of Fame. Joe Gordon gets in after 60 years? But Buck Leonard does not? I call bullsh**, and know which player should be in and which player should not be in. C’mon…I can just imagine the next time I go to the HOF…”hey honey, look, it’s Joe Gordon!” Um…not so much.
Comment by TommyT — Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 3:36 PM