19 newcomers to the ballot; 36 overall; Jack Morris' last year on the ballot Results Announced Jan. 8, 2014. Chron: Numbers game could work against Biggio's Hall of Fame chances CBS: Analyzing the crowded 2014 Hall of Fame ballot
Moises Alou Jeff Bagwell Armando Benitez Craig Biggio Barry Bonds Sean Casey Roger Clemens Ray Durham Eric Gagne Tom Glavine Luis Gonzalez Jacque Jones Todd Jones Jeff Kent Paul Lo Duca Greg Maddux Edgar Martinez Don Mattingly Fred McGriff Mark McGwire Jack Morris Mike Mussina Hideo Nomo Rafael Palmeiro Mike Piazza Tim Raines Kenny Rogers Curt Schilling Richie Sexson Lee Smith J.T. Snow Sammy Sosa Frank Thomas Mike Timlin Alan Trammell Larry Walker My non-existent ballot
At least we know KKen Rosenthal voted for Bagwell & Biggio. This year will be interesting to see who still stands by the stupid "no first-timers" argument when it comes to Maddux. He should be unanimous but some dumbass will most certainly stand by his principles because someone 70 years ago didn't get in on the first ballot. If I was voting this year... Biggio Bagwell Maddux Glavine Thomas Raines Piazza Kent L. Smith
Mussina is probably under-rated (82.7 career rWAR), but if your making a list of 10, it makes sense to leave off a guy on his first ballot. We know unanimous won't happen. It won't be one guy either. At least that crap shouldn't stop Biggio this year.
I will be really interested to see how voters treat Bagwell/Thomas. I think that Bagwell brings just as much to the table offensively even though he played for a few less years, but he also played defense unlike his career counterpart. It would be weird to vote for one and not the other in my opinion.
I'm not sure why people assume Frank Thomas is clean and Bagwell is dirty. For reference [rquoter]The boxes next to these 10 names will not get an X: Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Eric Gagne, Paul Lo Duca, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Mike Piazza, Sammy Sosa. These non-exes won’t get my vote because they were proved to have cheated, admitted they cheated or are strongly suspected of having cheated. I have not voted for any player in those categories and am not prepared to start doing so now.[/rquoter] These guys are ruining the HOF. I don't want to reward cheaters, but there are already cheaters in the HOF, so why deny someone who is possibly innocent?
Never. Or about as many times as Greg Maddux or Frank Thomas. Heck even Bagwell has never had his name on one of these steroid lists other than guilt by association. He uses the words strongly suspected of cheating which is comical. If you're going to completely leave off the ENTIRE steroid era, fine. But to randomly select players is unjustifiable. How are Biggio and Bagwell accused and not Frank Thomas? Very frustrating to see people like that with a vote.
I think there are a lot of people with poor memories that forget the initial Mitchell report list that "leaked" was actually a fake. Bagwell's name was on that list but ultimately it was a fabrication. This far out from the actual event, I could see older, stupider journalists forgetting that fact.
What I don't get is I read one article recently that the Astros had more connections to steroids than any team. It was like the writer took "The Bagwell Conspiracy" seriously. There isn't much on players actually using roids in Houston. Lots of players using after leaving Houston, and several more before getting to Houston (not saying that they weren't using in Houston, just that the info that came at was based on other teams).
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>at least he is consistently awful <a href="http://t.co/gRI1pVcMej">pic.twitter.com/gRI1pVcMej</a></p>— jasoncollette (@jasoncollette) <a href="https://twitter.com/jasoncollette/statuses/417309779799732224">December 29, 2013</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The whole guilt by association thing with Bagwell is mind numbingly stupid. He has never been linked to steroids either directly or indirectly by anything more than suspicion and conjecture. None of the players ever gave Bagwell's name when the guilty are selling out their friends. There is zero basis to hold Bagwell as a steroid user.
