Henderson Hall Update
Not long ago I wrote a post on Rickey Henderson becoming possibly the first unanimous hall of fame entrant. Well, now we know this is not going to be the case. With a tip of the hat to ESPN’s Rob Neyer, BBWAA member Corky Simpson left Rickey off this year’s ballot. He does, however, vote for Tim Raines. WTF?
As Neyer points out:
But you also know that Raines, as great as he was, wasn’t nearly as great as Rickey Henderson.
Another oddity: Simpson couldn’t be bothered to explain his non-vote for the greatest leadoff man ever. Here’s the only mention:
Others honored with nomination this year who may well be voted into the Hall of Fame include Harold Baines, Jay Bell, David Cone, Ron Gant, Mark Grace, Rickey Henderson, Jack Morris, Dale Murphy, Jesse Orosco, Dave Parker, Dan Plesac, Lee Smith, Greg Vaughn and Mo Vaughn.
Obviously he is taking this vote personally, which is of course his prerogative, and a single voter can not skew the entire voting process. But what is one to make of the credibility of someone who votes for Tim Raines but not Rickey Henderson? What does this do for the credibility of the BBWAA and the HOF balloting process in general?
Tags: BBWAA, Hall of Fame, Rickey Henderson
January 7th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Oh yeah, he also voted for Matt Williams.
January 7th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
I could see this fool using this as a publicity stunt to get his website over to the public. Is he allowed to change his ballot before hand?
Matt Williams is an awful pick.
As I’ve said before, with Rickey’s spotty record with the media he won’t get the 100% love. It will be interesting to see if he’s about the 97-98%. Of course he deserves 100%, still…
January 7th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
I could see this fool using this as a publicity stunt to get his website over to the public. Is he allowed to change his ballot before hand?
Matt Williams is an awful pick.
As I’ve said before, with Rickey’s spotty record with the media he won’t get the 100% love. It will be interesting to see if he’s about the 97-98%. Of course he deserves 100%, still…
January 8th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Re: credibilty It only affects this guys credibility. this particular instance does nothing to discredit the rest of the process as seen by the other voters…. his idiocity is overwhelmed…..
Presumably the process accounts for guys like this.
If credibility is an issue it has more to do with more of who is in and who is not in and arriving at the magic number (75%??) to get in.