|
Class 12 Hall of Fame – Voters Find None Worthy of Entry John
Waits; Grimes Denied |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
No Hall for Burleigh Grimes
TJ Still Waiting for a Hall of Fame Ticket |
Voting for the TCBA
Players’ Hall of Fame concluded this week, with unanticipated
results. For the first time in the history of TCBA Hall of Fame voting, the
voters rejected all of the candidates, including Burleigh Grimes, who had
missed out on induction by a single vote in Class 11. For Grimes it was a bitter pill. The old spitballer had racked up steadily increasing voter
support through his first three elections, rising from an original 472 to a
Class 11 total of 713, one shy of the needed total. Grimes continued to be a
popular choice, but his vote total in Class 12 of 482 was far short of entry.
Because his vote total did not reach the 50% level, Burleigh’s hopes for a
Hall plaque have been relegated to the boneyard. So
close he came; but it was not to be. Tommy John received the most support from
voters in his second election, accumulating 687 votes. He was trailed closely
by George Sisler (649) and Pete Rose (632). All three saw their support improve and
each of the three will get one more try at the gates to the hallowed Hall. Among the others, Dave Winfield, Robbie
Alomar, Kevin Brown and Tim Raines Sr. all ran strongly and will reappear on
a future Hall of Fame ballot. A
player, who, like Grimes, saw his last chance at Hall immortality fade away,
is Gary Gaetti. In the Top 50 in Doubles, Homers and RBI, Gaetti attracted
significant votes in each of his four tries, but peaked at 459 and then faded
to 279 and irrelevancy. In
analyzing the vote totals, observers noted the frequency of pitchers being
ignored by voters, if not totally, then at least significantly. “All
pitchers are fascists,” noted Ken Sajdak, perhaps
explaining the low regard for pitchers. Sajdak,
however, did find five pitchers worthy of Hall of Fame consideration that he
included on his ballot. Hall
of Fame curator Red Braun pointed out that voters identified a balanced list
of candidates, but that support for any one of the pitchers was generally
less than what was given to the batters. “Typically,
pitchers receive 20% less support than batters do,” said Braun, who has led
TCBA through eight of the twelve Hall of Fame ballots. “It’s not unusual for
a voter to completely ignore pitchers on the ballot; but that never happens
with the batters.” Braun
rejected suggestions that maybe the Hall classes were too large. “There
have been some large classes, no doubt. But I believe the voters are astute
enough to find the pearls. In time, the classes will shrink. Only nine of the
recent nominees will get another shot. Voters purged forty-nine others who
will no longer appear on any ballot.” The
next class of Hall of Fame candidates will be Class 13, currently scheduled
to be announced on December 31, 2014. The vote totals for Class 12 are listed
below: CLASS 12 Voting Totals:
Source:
TCBA Encyclopedia |
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
