Today, the results of the much-discussed Hall of Fame balloting for the 2014 class was released by the BBWAA, and, to the surprise of none, Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and Frank Thomas got the call, each on his first year of eligibility.
If Glavine’s enshrinement was a no-brainer – and it was – then Maddux’s was some kind of super, robot-level no-brainer. Although there were dings on Thomas – he spent so much time at DH, he missed so much time in his later years, some other stretch of a thing someone can come up with – he, too, was a clear Hall of Famer. Among his amazing stats? How about 1667 career walks against just 1397 career strikeouts?
Maddux received 97.2% of the vote (meaning Ken Gurnick was not the only person who omitted Maddux – there were 16 writers who did it. Though I’d bet that most of the rest of the folks who didn’t vote for Maddux didn’t vote for anyone). Glavine was at 91.9%, and Thomas was at 83.7%
Missing from the list of honorees, once again, is Craig Biggio, who was named on 74.8% of the ballots. The cutoff for enshrinement is 75%. He missed by one vote. Ouch.
Biggio remains an interesting case, even moreso now with new-ish whispers of a PED connection, which seem – right now – to be specious and unfair. Biggio didn’t do many things great, but he did everything well, and he did them for a very, very long time. Did you know that he stole 50 bases at age 32?
Other bits of note: