This year, eight-one ballots were cast for the eighth BJOL HOF election. From a crowded ballot, one player was elected.
|
Name
|
Votes
|
Percentage
|
|
Ken Griffey Jr.
|
79
|
97.5%
|
Baseball experienced a generational shift at the start of the 1990’s, and no player represented that shift more than Junior Griffey.
I was a big baseball card collector around then, a Beckett subscriber who paid attention to the magazine’s monthly Hot/Cold lists. That magazine spent a lot of time trying to predict who the next stars were going to be. Gregg Jeffries was a big deal before he reached the majors. So was Todd Zeile. So were Phil Plantier and Kevin Maas and Chris Sabo and Matt Nokes and Mike Greenwell. Hell, I can remember Walt Weiss being on a ‘Hot’ list once or twice, because nothing gets card collectors fired up more than an all-glove shortstop with limited speed and no power.
Ken Griffey Jr. was one guy everyone was convinced about, and he was the one guy all of us got right. No one ever traded away Griffey cards, and he rewarded our fidelity with a Hall-of-Fame career.
He was our player: he was the bright star of my generation. I was nine years old when Griffey reached the majors, and his would be the first great career I saw in its entirety. I remember all of the hand-wringing in the press about how he played the game. He was a show-off. He didn’t respect the game. He spent too much time negotiating with Nike, and not enough time in the batting cage. He wore his hat backwards. He probably listened to rap music. He probably drove a sports car.
To people my age, all of that was great. Griffey was cool: at a moment when basketball and football started to eclipse baseball out as the national pastime, Griffey was the rare ballplayer who could hold his own with Michael Jordan or Emmitt Smith.
Looking back, what I think the change Griffey really represented was the change from being a ‘player’ to being a ‘professional.’ Griffey and Bonds grew up in the game, trailing their fathers into the clubhouses and learning the intricacies of how teams worked. They also learned that baseball was a career.
Baseball wasn’t game to their fathers: they did not come home from a hard day at the office, eager to have a catch in the back yard. Baseball was a career, a living. It was work.
We can flash forward a little bit and consider Griffey and Bonds in the context of Bryce Harper: a player who have been ‘working’ at baseball since before he was a teenager. Young player today don’t enter the game eager to ‘play two’: they are professionals who have been building their careers for years before they reach the majors, or even enter the draft. The work is called ‘amateur’, but it hardly seems an apt term anymore. Younger and younger kids are playing on traveling teams, or participating in tournments. They join summer teams, move to warm-weather states that have longer baseball seasons. Young players receive extensive training, extensive coaching. I’m not sure when Bryce Harper was first ‘scouted’, but he was already maneuvering his life towards the draft as a young teenager.
Griffey and Bonds were the start of this trend: baseball was their profession long before they were major league players. I think...and this is just speculation, but I’m allowed to speculate…I think that at least some of the resentment of the older generation was about that, instead of the backwards hat or the acrobatics. Griffey seemed like a joyous player, but we couldn’t know if it was sincere. Did he smile and wink because he recognized the great fortune of his life, or did he smile because that was a way to sell t-shirts and jerseys?
That is what Griffey represents, at least to me. He was the first star of a generation players that came into the game as professionals, the first generation of players who came into the game fully aware that baseball was a business first, a passion second.
All that is in hindsight, of course. When he was a young player I liked Junior because he was so easy to like: he made baseball look fun and he made it look easy. I don’t know that I’ll see a player who seems so perfectly at ease in every facet of the game as Griffey seemed. He had a beautiful swing. He played an aggressive and acrobatic centerfield. He was a joy to watch, and he is an absolutely deserving of enshrinement in the Hall of Fame. Ours and the real one.
* * *
Griffey joins the following players, elected by the BJOL readers over the years:
2016 – Ken Griffey, Jr.
2015 – Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson, John Smoltz, Curt Schilling
2014 – Greg Maddux, Frank Thomas, Tom Glavine, Mike Mussina, Lou Whitaker
2013 – Craig Biggio, Mike Piazza, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens
2012 – Edgar Martinez
2011 – Jeff Bagwell
2010 – Roberto Alomar, Barry Larkin, Mark McGwire
2009- Rickey Henderson, Tim Raines, Bert Blyleven, Alan Trammell
After two big pitcher years, we’re coming back to a ballot crowded with offense for a while….offense and relief pitchers.
Here’s how the rest of the voting broke down:
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Bobby Grich
|
55
|
67.9%
|
|
G. Sheffield
|
46
|
56.8%
|
|
Dwight Evans
|
41
|
50.6%
|
Our two most recent write-in candidates, Bobby Grich and Dwight Evans, each received 50% of the vote, as did the mercurial Gary Sheffield. The ballots are thinning out a bit, and a 67% showing in a player’s first year of eligibility seems a promising omen.
I’ve promised, for two years, to write about Dwight Evans, and I’ve failed both years. This isn’t for lack of trying: I’ve tried to write the article, but it spun out past any intention, and I wasn’t able to finish it. And I want to do it right. It’s not right yet, so I’ll keep plugging away on it. Next year, for sure.
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And. Dawson
|
33
|
40.7%
|
|
Larry Walker
|
33
|
40.7%
|
|
Jeff Kent
|
30
|
37.0%
|
|
Fred McGriff
|
27
|
33.3%
|
|
Tr. Hoffman
|
25
|
30.9%
|
What will we do about Andre Dawson? He continues to receive about 40% support from our readers, but hasn’t gained any real traction. The same holds for Walker, Kent, and McGriff. We’ll start knocking guys off after ten years, so McGriff and Dawson supporters should be getting nervous.
|
Jim Edmonds
|
23
|
28.4%
|
|
R.Palmeiro
|
20
|
24.7%
|
|
Lee Smith
|
20
|
24.7%
|
|
Kevin Brown
|
19
|
23.5%
|
|
Kenny Lofton
|
18
|
22.2%
|
Jim Edmonds and Kenny Lofton remain on our ballot: they are deserving candidates for consideration, though the ballot is a little crowded in the outfield. Raffy and Lee Smith hang on, but Kevin Brown didn’t show any significant gains in a year when he was the only serious starting pitching candidate on the ballot. That is a blow to his candidacy: I don’t think there’s much of a chance that he gets elected by the BJOL readers.
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Ber. Williams
|
16
|
19.8%
|
|
Sammy Sosa
|
15
|
18.5%
|
|
Billy Wagner
|
13
|
16.0%
|
|
Dale Murphy
|
7
|
8.6%
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Bernie and Sammy Sosa also hang on, though not getting to 20% is a bad sign for their future changes. Billy Wagner hangs on, so we have another year debating what a Hall-of-Fame worthy closer looks like. Mariano is a-comin’.
Dale Murphy lives to see another year. I always liked him, though I don’t think he’s getting elected.
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Jason Kendall
|
2
|
2.5%
|
|
G. Anderson
|
0
|
0.0%
|
|
Luis Castillo
|
0
|
0.0%
|
|
Troy Glaus
|
0
|
0.0%
|
|
Grudzielanek
|
0
|
0.0%
|
|
Mike Lowell
|
0
|
0.0%
|
|
Randy Winn
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0
|
0.0%
|
|
Brad Ausmus
|
0
|
0.0%
|
|
M. Sweeney
|
0
|
0.0%
|
|
M.Hampton
|
0
|
0.0%
|
|
D. Eckstein
|
0
|
0.0%
|
A couple folks voted for Jason Kendall, which is nice for him. No one voted for Dave Eckstein, which seems harsh. He was gritty.
* * *
The write-in votes were very spread out, and there is a case that we should change that process a little bit. Twenty-five separate players received at least one write-in vote, which suggests that the process needs a bit of re-jigging. Any suggestions are welcome.
For this year, we have to stick to a plurality of the vote, which means that our write-in candidate for next year’s ballot is Ted Simmons, who received eight write-in votes. Simmons finished a little ahead of Will Clark (six write-in votes) and Keith Hernandez (five). Bill Dahlen (4), Willie Randolph (3), Pete Rose (3), Minnie Minosa (3), Reggie Smith (2), Thurman Munson (2) and Graig Nettles (2) round out the multiple-vote getters.
Ted Simmons is a logical addition to our ballot: he is another one of the big ‘saber’ candidates, and it’s not surprising that he was the top vote getter.
* * *
So that’s where things stands at the start of 2016. Happy New Year, everyone.
Dave Fleming is a writer living in Wellington, New Zealand. He welcomes comments, questions, and suggestions here and at dfleming1986@yahoo.com.