Nope.
In the Baseball Hall of Fame balloting announced today, those who elect baseball’s greats to its shrine of heroes failed to give anyone the requisite 75% ballots required for election. That’s too bad: Craig Biggio, Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines and Mike Piazza are deserving candidates.
The writers also did not elect unrepentant cheater, record thief and game-corrupter Barry Bonds, however, who was on only 36.2% of the ballots, slightly less than suspected steroid cheat Roger Clemens (37.6).
Ethics Alarms 
What’s your opinion of voters who refused to vote for Biggio simply because it was his first year of eligibility? I know that first-year inductees are rare and something of a special honor, but I don’t really get it – either he deserves it or he doesn’t. It’s not like his stats are going to change in another year. It would be one thing if the decision was to prioritize inducting someone who had been waiting longer instead, but as Biggio finished highest, that clearly wasn’t the case for the majority of voters.
It seems like he’s being told to wait just for the sake of having him wait. All I can hope for is that he and Bagwell make it in together next year.
I agree. The tradition of making worthy players wait has never made sense. If a player is a Hall of Famer, vote for him the minute he’s eligible. I think it makes the writers look dumb and arbitrary.. A middle infielder with 3000 hits who plays his whole career with one team should be slam-dunk. So should the greatest power-hitting catcher of all time, in Piazza.
I’ve never dedicated that much attention to the wider world of baseball outside of my Astros, so that’s my clear bias…I’ll take your word on Piazza.
Bags belongs too, of course. I wrote about the smear campaign against him last year. Looking like you might have used steroids is a really unfair reason to vote against someone.
36.2 is slightly less than 37.6.
Right. When I wrote “more” I meant “less.” Honest.
Looks like we now have plenty of time to focus on the only former player being inducted this year: Deacon White. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deacon_White
Very deserving. Also dead.
A big fan of baseball, but ESPN pointed out a trend that the leading hits, home run leader and a few other notable leaders have been ignored as well. Mixed feelings.
Hardly “ignored.” Just condemned.