Baseball writers are stupid

A buddy of mine asked this morning, which baseball writer knucklehead didn’t vote for Rickey Henderson into the Hall of Fame – as he received 94.8% of the vote. While I’m waaaay too lazy to actually do any hardcore research to figure out why the all-time base stealing king and runs scored champion didn’t get a unanimous vote on the first ballot, it did get me wondering how other HOF’ers faired when they were voted in.

Turns out, nobody in the Hall of Fame has received a unanimous vote. Here’s a nice chart courtesy of Baseball Almanac. I’ve heard a number of reasons as to why no player has received 100 percent of the vote. Some writers think nobody should get in on the first vote. Others vote for players who will never get in, kinda like a joke, you know? Hilarious. And some decide, “Ah, I think I won’t vote and take in a movie instead.”

So, the only answer I can come up is baseball writers are stupid. I hate to lump them all together and call them out, but if you lost your ballot or your computer crashed and you couldn’t make it to a Kinko’s to cast your vote … you’re stupid. If you created a spreadsheet and plugged numbers into some algorithm that “proves” that Rickey Henderson was no better a leadoff hitter than Joey Cora – you’re stupid.

You’re stupid if you didn’t vote for Hank Aaron, who received 97.83% of the vote in 1982. He broke, and currently holds (Barry Bonds can eat it) the career home run record – the most widely known and prestigious record in sports.

Babe Ruth, the guy who used to hold that record, received 95.13%. Stupid. Willie Mays, 94.68%. Lean into this one … stupid! In 1992, Tom Seaver came the closest garnering 425 votes on 430 ballots (98.84%).

While Bert Blyleven continues his campaign to get into the Hall, bemoaning his dilemma to any talk radio host who’ll listen, he can take solace in one irrefutable fact. Baseball writers are – well, you know.