It's just human nature. All things being equal, are you going to vote for a prick or an articulate good guy who helped you do your job well and made it easier? It's not like it's a crime he got the most percentage of votes. It's not like his appeal made him skate in by a thin margin.Originally Posted by Tony Cloninger
He was a HOF and first ballot one at that..... a crime against humanity? No.
I never knew Mays and Aaron to be overly prickly guys.... and considering some of the BS they had to put up with, understandable.
That's why I always have had Maddux or Rivera pegged as the ones most likely to top him. I thought Maddux would. Perhaps Mo will have an edge with the NY media behind him...but I don't have my hopes up. (And frankly as dominate as Rivera was, there are many others deserving of a higher % than him).
I think the problem with the Football Hall of Fame is that advanced statistics in football have only recently been developed to evaluate players on a non-counting stat basis. So how do you evaluate players who weren't QBs, RBs, WRs or defenders without guady sack or interception totals? Basically it's been by relying on things like being part of a championship team, the eye test, and colorul anecdotes by contemporaries. As statistical evaluation of non-skill players evolves and Hall Voters begin to understand those new methods of evaluating players, maybe the more egregious snubs will be rectified.
Wear gaudy colors, or avoid display. Lay a million eggs or give birth to one. The fittest shall survive, yet the unfit may live. Be like your ancestors or be different. We must repeat!
IIRC reading correctly, Joe DiMaggio didn't make it in until the third time around. It was a thing back then not to vote players in their first or 2nd time on the ballot. It has only been in recent years that silly ritual has been put to bed.
Also for the football HOF if you have played in and won Super Bowls you have a far better chance of being voted in if are in any way marginal. Of course, that doesn't explain Wherli. I think there is much more prejiduce in voting in the football HOF. If you are on the outs with any of the voters or they just didn't like you for some reason you aren't getting in.
Reds Fan Since 1971
Of course I have no clue but I have to wonder if racism was part of the reason Mays and Aaron did not receive a higher percentage (the same BS you mention occurring after their careers were over)). Although it was past the Civil Rights Act and all that, it was still not long after it.
By then, probably not. One big thing to consider is that this isn't a one and done deal. If you polled all those sportswriters who voted for Mays and Aaron and asked them yes or no if they were HOFers all of them would say yes. As it is, if you don't get in the first year of eligibility, as long as you get a minimum percentage of votes you can stay on the ballot for a while. Since there was no danger of them not being elected, sportswriters could not include them on their ballot for some reason like Babe Ruth wasn't a unanimous selection so neither should this guy or the writer was snubbed by the player in the locker room once or another stupid reason.
It's also not the same electorate that are voting on these guys. The guys that elected Mays aren't all the same guys who elected Aaron or Seaver or whomever. Old guys retire or die and new guys take their place or the electorate decreases or it increases if no one retires or dies.
RedFanAlways1966 (01-10-2014)
From 1982
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html...rts/01.13.html
And yet nine voters chose to ignore Henry Aaron. Historically, of course, it wasn't surprising. Three years ago 23 voters chose to ignore Willie Mays; in 1966 there were 20 who ignored Ted Williams; in 1969 there were 23 who ignored Stan Musial; in 1955 there were 28 who ignored Joe DiMaggio. In this year's election there were 45 who ignored Frank Robinson, too. With 312 votes necessary for election, he received 370 votes, a landslide by Hall of Fame standards.
Jack Lang, a baseball writer for The New York Daily News and the secretarytreasurer of the B.B.W.A.A., would not divulge the names of the nine brethren in keeping with the tradition of a secret ballot. But he did describe some of the ballots, each of which permits a voter to select as many as 10 of the 42 candidates.
"One ballot was from a Latin-American writer who voted only for Luis Aparicio," Jack Lang said. "Another was from a writer in a Midwestern city who voted only for Juan Marichal."
One or two ballots omitting Henry Aaron would be understandable. Perhaps a member of the brethren was weary. Or hungover. Or in a hurry. Understandable, but not excusable. But nine votes? Never.
Before his gambling on baseball came to light I read speculation that Pete Rose would gain admission to the HOF on the first ballot with an even greater percentage of the vote than Seaver, in part because Rose was a quote machine who generally treated sports writers very, very well.
As for the NFL HOF and Ken Stabler, Stabler's candidacy has been hurt by an incident in the late 1970s when drugs were planted in a writer's car while he was in Alabama to interview Stabler. Stabler denied any involvement and nothing was ever proved against him, but some writers, including SI's Paul Zimmerman, lead a vendetta against Stabler and were able to blackball him from Canton.
It is also ridiculous that Dan Fouts is in the HOF while Stabler and Ken Anderson are not, and that Jerry Kramer was on the all time NFL team but not in the HOF.
"Hey...Dad. Wanna Have A Catch?" Kevin Costner in "Field Of Dreams."
Yes I do remember that very well. I had the SPORT magazine article about it...... and also how Stabler said Al davis wanted to bury the hatchet after a lackluster 1978 season where Fred Biletnikoff was pushed to the side because they said he lost speed...that Kenny said he never had, John Madden had ulcers...all because of Al Davis, who Stabler said he would love to bury the hatchet with, right between his shoulder blades.
That was a direct quote.
I do remember a San Diego writer who disliked Ken Anderson because he was "Not very nice and forthcoming with me" and held it against him since 1981! Forget his name but he was the head beat writer of the San Diego Tribune.
No Braves cap for Maddux on his plaque?
Kinda surprised to see that.
http://mlb.si.com/2014/01/23/greg-ma...tion=si_latest
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