Earlier tonight, the National Baseball Hall of Fame finalized its induction class for 2019. The Today’s Game Era Committee elected Harold Baines and Lee Smith back in December, but Mike Mussina, Edgar Martinez, Roy Halladay, and Mariano Rivera joined the ranks a few hours ago.
Not only did Rivera make history as he is now officially the first player in history to be unanimously elected to the Hall. Ken Griffey Jr. was elected with 99.3% of the vote, but until tonight, no player had ever been elected with 100% agreement. Another bullet dodged, the Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens were not elected. In the modern era, steroid usage has become a major issue in determining a player’s worth and how deserving they are of immortalization in Cooperstown, New York. Every year, it looks more and more like offenders such as Bonds and Clemens, who blatantly violated Major League Baseball’s substance abuse policies, will enter the Halls in Cooperstown, tainting their heavenly glow. Finishing sixth and seventh in the voting, Clemens being sixth and Bonds being seventh, these steroid users are not the only users who will remain on the ballot for the following years. Manny Ramirez, Gary Sheffield, Andy Pettitte, and Sammy Sosa, who are all known to be steroid abusers, will remain on the ballot for next year. Sosa acquired the least amount of votes among the aforementioned steroid users at 8.5%, Pettitte got 9.9%, Sheffield earned 13.6%, and Ramirez attained 22.8%. The top seven vote-getters go as follows: Hall of Famers:
The cutoff to get into the Hall is to acquire 75% of the vote. If a player receives less than 5% of the vote, then they will not be eligible in the following years to be voted into the shining Halls of homy Cooperstown, New York. Nowadays, while players used to have 15 years of eligibility to be voted into the Hall of Fame, they have 10, so if a player does not receive 75% of the vote, but still receives above 5% for those 10 years, they will also no longer be eligible. These are high qualifications, and only 1.2% of all Major League Baseball players has ever gotten into the Hall of Fame. The Hall’s Plaque Gallery, itself, is a little smaller than a football field. This is very little space for anyone but the honest-to-goodness best. There is no room for underachievers, mediocrity, or cheating. Bonds and Clemens (and the others, including probably Robinson Cano) will probably have their day at the grounds outside the Clarks Sports Center, the green fields where the induction ceremony takes place, but thankfully, they are closer to missing out on the honor they do not, by any means, deserve. Jesse A. Cook “Baseball Hall of Fame Survives Steroids Again” January 22, 2019
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