| 06 January 2010
Well, I didn't expect to writing about the Hall of Fame vote so soon after it was announced, but I think this is something that others might want to be made aware of.
First, let me say, I have nothing against Andre Dawson making it into the Hall. I don't think I would've voted for him (I didn't in my Hall of Fame vote last week), but his induction does not seem ridiculous to me. He's pretty much right at the in/out line in my mind. I do think Roberto Alomar missing the cut is a travesty - as far as baseball Hall of Fame votes can be called a travesty - and I'm plenty disappointed over the Larkin, Edgar, and Raines snubs. Bert Blyleven got oh-so-close, but missed induction by five votes. Most people seem to agree that this means he'll make it in next year, but to that I say "not necessarily." Here's why:
In the 1988 Hall of Fame balloting, in a weak ballot year, Jim Bunning received 317 votes, only four votes shy of election (for a 74.2% vote). It was his 12th year on the ballot. You can only imagine how tantalizing that was to him. To make it even worse, nine writers independently turned in blank ballots as "protest votes" (see here and here). If those nine writers had not sent in their blank ballots, or if the blank ballots were not counted, Bunning's percentage would have jumped up to 75.8% and he would've been inducted. Instead, he had to wait another year, while Willie Stargell took the stage in Cooperstown by himself.
Except "next year" never came. In 1989, with Carl Yastrzemski and Johnny Bench newly eligible and in Bunning's 13th year on the ballot, he plummeted to 63.3% of the vote. In '90, up against Jim Palmer and Joe Morgan, he received only 57.9% of the vote. And in 1991, in his 15th and final year on the ballot and now up against Rod Carew, Bunning managed only 63.7% of the vote. He fell off the ballot, but was lucky to be picked up by the Veteran's Committee only three years later; he was inducted, by VC, in 1996.
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I bring this up because the election of 1988 and this year's election are awfully similar. Blyleven is in his 13th year on the ballot and he fell five votes shy of election (74.2% - the same percentage as Bunning). There were five blank ballots cast this year. In this case, unlike Bunning's, Blyleven would still have been one vote short if the blanks were ignored, so at least we don't have that to rail against.
But, despite that difference, the '88 and subsequent elections should be a warning to Blyleven and his supporters: falling less than one percent short of election one year is not a guarantee that you'll get voted in the next. Especially for a pitcher whose had trouble marshaling support over the years. Maybe Blyleven can take some solace in the fact that there are no Johnny Benches or Carl Yastrzemskis or Joe Morgans on the ballot in the next two years, but nothing is set in stone. Sadly, that just might mean that we're going to be subjected to the same level (or more) of hysteria next year as we were this year by Blyleven supporters trying to argue his case, but I do understand their concern. It's a tough thing to watch so many privileged people ignore what seems like rock-solid evidence year-after-year.
As for the blank ballots themselves, I don't like that they were cast, but I have to accept the voters' rights to cast them. If a writer truly believes that no one deserves enshrinement that year, then he has every right to vote "no" on all the candidates (which is what a blank ballot does). However, if that writer is casting a blank ballot for self-serving reasons *cough*Jay Mariotti*cough* or to support his "not on the first ballot" belief, then we should take issue with him. Thankfully, those five blank ballots didn't actually have an effect this year, but they can and sometimes do. I just wish the BBWAA did a better job in making its writers respect the ballot.
