Because I keep a nerdy spreadsheet tracking all the ballots I find, I’m able to look back and be irritated at some of the worst Baseball Hall of Fame ballots instead of forgetting about them. I consider this a positive because it reminds me of whose opinions I should not care about later on in the year. Here are the worst of the 90 that I collected for the 2010 class in no particular order:
Marty Noble – Barry Larkin, Dave Parker
You may say that he got one out of two right, I would say that it is ridiculous to think only two people on the ballot deserve induction and that one of them is Dave Parker. This ballot simply doesn’t make sense in any context. Small hall? Then probably neither of them should be included. Big hall? If your Hall is big enough for Dave Parker it should have half the people on the ballot and you’d run out of votes.
The Jack Morris but no Bert Blyleven Crew
Murray Chass, Jon Heyman, Bruce Jenkins, Danny Knobler, Buster Olney, Dan Shaughnessy, Joel Sherman and Tom Verducci all voted for Jack Morris but not Bert Blyleven. If you don’t think Bert is a Hall of Fame pitcher and don’t buy the arguments of people like Rich Lederer that’s fine.We all have different ideas about what the cutoff for the Hall should be. But if you don’t think Bert belongs then there is absolutely no way that Jack Morris should be one.
Bert outclasses Morris in every important pitching category. Rate states, counting stats, you name it. Not even the fancy things that Shaughnessy thinks suck out all the joy of the game. The only thing he doesn’t have is a 10 inning Game 7 of the World Series shut out. On the other hand, he also doesn’t have two horrible losses in the 1992 World Series like Jack Morris.
The worst part about people citing the post season appearances Morris had is that they completely ignore what Blyleven did.
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Bert Blyleven Post Season Pitching
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| Year | Tm | Series | Opp | W | L | W-L% | ERA | G | GS | GF | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | IBB | SO | HBP |
| 1970 | MIN | ALCS | BAL | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2.0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | |
| 1979 | PIT | NLCS | CIN | 1 | 0 | 1.000 | 1.00 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 9.0 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 0 |
| 1979 | PIT | WS | BAL | 1 | 0 | 1.000 | 1.80 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 10.0 | 8 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 0 |
| 1987 | MIN | ALCS | DET | 2 | 0 | 1.000 | 4.05 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 13.1 | 12 | 6 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 9 | 2 |
| 1987 | MIN | WS | STL | 1 | 1 | .500 | 2.77 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 13.0 | 13 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 12 | 0 |
| 3 Seasons (5 Series) | 5 | 1 | .833 | 2.47 | 8 | 6 | 1 | 47.1 | 43 | 15 | 13 | 5 | 8 | 1 | 36 | 2 | |||
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Jack Morris Post Season Pitching
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| Year | Tm | Series | Opp | W | L | W-L% | ERA | G | GS | GF | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | IBB | SO | HBP |
| 1984 | DET | ALCS | KCR | 1 | 0 | 1.000 | 1.29 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 7.0 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 0 |
| 1984 | DET | WS | SDP | 2 | 0 | 1.000 | 2.00 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 18.0 | 13 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 13 | 0 |
| 1987 | DET | ALCS | MIN | 0 | 1 | .000 | 6.75 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 8.0 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 7 | 0 |
| 1991 | MIN | ALCS | TOR | 2 | 0 | 1.000 | 4.05 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 13.1 | 17 | 6 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 0 |
| 1991 | MIN | WS | ATL | 2 | 0 | 1.000 | 1.17 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 23.0 | 18 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 9 | 1 | 15 | 0 |
| 1992 | TOR | ALCS | OAK | 0 | 1 | .000 | 6.57 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 12.1 | 11 | 9 | 9 | 3 | 9 | 1 | 6 | 0 |
| 1992 | TOR | WS | ATL | 0 | 2 | .000 | 8.44 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 10.2 | 13 | 10 | 10 | 3 | 6 | 1 | 12 | 0 |
| 4 Seasons (7 Series) | 7 | 4 | .636 | 3.80 | 13 | 13 | 0 | 92.1 | 83 | 39 | 39 | 9 | 32 | 3 | 64 | 0 | |||
If Morris gets a boost for his postseason pitching, which was pretty similar except for one game to his regular season pitching than so should Bert. Maybe Jon Heyman’s eyes were closed when Blyleven was in the games, I don’t know.
Jack Morris was a good pitcher and had a good career and I really don’t want to take anything away from him, but it’s like saying you’d pick Andy Pettitte for your team instead of Mike Mussina. Then again I expect to be annoyed at people voting for Andy and not Moose in the future.
The Jay Mariotti Idiot Achievement Award
Jay Mariotti is an attention whore, I get that. This year he decided to play attention whore and send in a blank ballot. I don’t really have an issue with blank ballots as a concept. There are people who want to vote for no-one and have their ballot count because they’re very small hall type guys, for example. But Mariotti decided to use his 2010 ballot as something to get people to pay attention to him.
Now, the baseball gods can strike me down, Reali, but guess what? I didn’t vote for anybody in the baseball hall of fame this year. Ya know why? To me…the first ballot is sacred. I think Roberto Alomar is an eventual Hall of Famer, not the first time. Edgar Martinez, designated hitter, eventually, but not the first time. Same goes for maybe Fred McGriff. As far as Blyleven and Dawson…if they haven’t gotten in for years and years I cannot vote them in now. Ripken, Rickey Henderson and Gwynn. They are true first ballot Hall of Famers, but I didn’t vote for anybody, throw me out of the Baseball Writers. I don’t care.
Last year he voted for Blyleven and Dawson, so what changed between now and then? Well enough people weren’t looking at him, I guess and he needed to do something to change that. The BBWAA should take his ballot away. He wants to get kicked out or whatever and they absolutely should comply with that. He can tell the world he got kicked out but then he can’t pull stupid stunts like this anymore.
They probably won’t, however, so he’ll continue to use things like this as an opportunity to get people to pay attention to him. It’s a shame.
Windy with a chance of dingers.
How can you say that Moose is more deserving than Andy! He was 7-8 in the postseason and Andy was 18-9! (Nevermind that Pettitte’s postseason ERA is 3.90 and Moose’s was 3.42, Moose had more strikeouts than innings there and Andy didn’t, and despite pitching two games to the tune of an 0.60 ERA, Moose couldn’t get a win in the 1997 ALCS. I love Andy a ton and I don’t nearly have that unbridled love for Moose, but really.)
First off, excellent post. I’m glad you took the time to track who how these writers voted…it’s a great reference for future votes.
That being said, I think you nailed the Mariotti situation. The first ballot is sacred? That comment is asinine on so many levels. There’s nothing Alomar can do in the next year to change his career totals. Why make him wait, especially since he’s one of the 10 best second basemen of all time? I wholeheartedly agree that he should lose his vote.
[...] all of the ballots were made public, but about 70 were this year and The Girl Who Loved Andy Pettitte collected the data and came out with a list of the worst ballots submitted, the worst hypocrisies [...]