Cooperstown Chances examines the Baseball Hall of Fame cases of former players each week. This week: Ken Griffey Jr.
Who he was: It might actually happen. With 112 ballots made public so far in the BBWAA vote for the Hall of Fame, Ken Griffey Jr. has been named on all of them. While around 350 ballots remain to be seen, there’s a chance one of the finest baseball players of his generation could go into Cooperstown, for the first time, with 100 percent of the vote.
To someone who studies voting only casually, it might seem like Griffey’s sure to get every vote. While he didn’t have the perfect career, particularly during the injury-riddled second half of it, Griffey retired with 630 home runs and was perhaps the most likeable player of his generation, one of the few greats of his era untouched by scandal. In the hearts of many fans and writers, Griffey’s long since been a Hall of Famer. I sure enjoyed watching him play.
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Griffey’s more or less guaranteed to be standing on the podium next summer in Cooperstown, and that’s a good thing. But if history is any guide, when the BBWAA reveals its results on January 6, Griffey will be at least a few votes shy of unanimous.
Cooperstown chances: 100 percent chance Griffey gets in, 50 percent chance of getting every vote
Why: It’s hard to believe, but since the first BBWAA election for Cooperstown in 1936, no player has been unanimously selected. According to Baseball-Reference.com, Nolan Ryan and Tom Seaver share the record with 98.8 percent of the vote each. Babe Ruth got 95.1 percent and wasn’t the top player on his own ballot in 1936, tying Honus Wagner and trailing Ty Cobb’s 98.2 percent. Mickey Mantle didn’t crack 90 percent of the vote. Jackie Robinson came in below 80 percent. Joe DiMaggio wasn’t even a first ballot selection, nor were any other players between the first five selections of 1936 and Robinson and Bob Feller in 1962.
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Unanimity has always been a challenge for the writers, for a variety of reasons. All players were initially eligible, with the five-year waiting period introduced in 1954 in conjunction with DiMaggio’s confusing candidacy. (The Yankee Clipper retired in 1951, and some voters consciously overlooked him so they could focus on players who’d waited longer for the Hall of Fame. I took a longer look at this era of voting for the National Pastime Museum). Writers also didn’t get a list of candidates for each election until 1958, and there wasn’t a screening committee to pare the ballot until 1967. Thus, confusion reigned in the early days.
The writers’ voting process has worked better for getting players in quickly in recent years, with 26 of the 50 first ballot selections in Hall of Fame history coming since 1990. But unanimity remains a tall order. In the 2014 election, for instance, Greg Maddux got 97.2 percent of the vote. One voter, Mike Berardino, famously left Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson off his ballot last year so he could vote for Alan Trammell and Larry Walker. Another writer refused to vote for Maddux or Tom Glavine because of their success in getting outside pitches called as strikes.
Could things shift this year with Griffey? Perhaps. There’s more pressure than ever from fans for writers to vote a certain way, with social media quick to offer shame over perceived wrong, illogical or just plain dumb Hall of Fame votes. Voting privileges are also becoming increasingly restricted, with more than 100 former writers unceremoniously purged from the voting rolls before this election. Put it another way, I wouldn’t want to be the writer known for not voting for Griffey this year. But there’s a good chance someone could do it. Ken Gurnick of MLB.com, for one, said a few years ago he wouldn’t vote for any player from the Steroid Era.
Baseball blogger and retired New York Times columnist Murray Chass toyed with the idea of sending in a blank ballot, writing recently:
“If I adopted that strategy, I realized, I could use my ballot to help block the election of players I don’t believe merit residence in the Hall of Fame. I am sure some readers will find that thinking repugnant, but if I can vote for a candidate – Ken Griffey Jr. this year, for example – I should be able to vote against a candidate and not simply by failing to vote for him.”
For others, unusual Hall of Fame voting practices are more about strategy than retroactive morality. The writers ballot remains crowded, with my friend Ryan Thibodaux noting in his Hall of Fame vote tracker that the average voter so far this year has selected 8.66 players. Many writers have been using all 10 spots and would use more if allowed. The Hall of Fame refused a request from the BBWAA to allow 12 votes per ballot. So there remains potential motivation for a voter to leave a sure thing like Griffey off the ballot and throw support behind someone like Billy Wagner or Jim Edmonds who could use it.
Bottom line, BBWAA voters remain free to more or less do as they please. So long as they keep covering the game for a recognized outlet and don’t go the route of Dan Le Batard and sell their vote to Deadspin, they’ll probably get to keep their voting privileges. I’m personally OK with this. I like Hall of Fame voters working as independently and freely as possible. It makes for more interesting voting results, and with enough people voting, any individual shenanigans come out in the wash.
None of this bodes particularly well for Griffey’s chances at unanimity. But it’s also somewhat of an empty honor. Vote totals are easily accessible at Baseball-Reference.com, but they aren’t listed on plaques at Cooperstown. Whether a player gets in close to 100 percent of the vote, squeaks by at 75.2 percent, or falls short with the writers and is randomly inducted years later by Hall of Fame committee, the honor is all the same.
Cooperstown Chances examines the Baseball Hall of Fame case of one candidate each week. Series author and Sporting News contributor Graham Womack writes regularly about the Hall of Fame and other topics related to baseball history at his website, Baseball: Past and Present. Follow him on Twitter: @grahamdude .