Wiped clean off the ballot
This year, it took 409 votes to become elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn got in easily, with both players receiving over 530 votes. However, the results at the bottom of the list deserve some attention too. For example, are there really six people who believe Jose Canseco belongs in the Hall of Fame? And four voters think that Tony Fernandez deserves his own plaque in Cooperstown?
While the voters may have screwed up by not voting in Goose Gossage and Mark McGwire, they got it right by not voting for Scott Brosius, Wally Joyner, Devon White, and Bobby Witt…at all. Those guys came up 409 votes short, and have been wiped clean off the Hall of Fame ballot. They finished in last place with a combined total of zero votes — as many as you and me. They have appropriately been removed from all future ballots, along with 11 other players that received less than five percent of all votes.
Pete Rose, the all-time hits leader, who has never appeared on the ballot received four write-in votes. That’s more than Dante Bichette, Eric Davis (3) Bobby Bonilla, Ken Caminiti (2), and Jay Buhner (1), who all were on the ballot.