Baseball Hall Of Fame Balloting, 2014

Elections to the Baseball Hall of Fame for 2014 proceeded according to rules most recently revised in July 2010. As in the past, the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) voted by mail to select from a ballot of recently retired players, with results announced on January 8, 2014. The Expansion Era Committee, one of three voting panels that replaced the more broadly defined Veterans Committee following the July 2010 rules change, convened early in December 2013 to select from a ballot of retired players and non-playing personnel who made their greatest contributions to the sport after 1972, a time frame that the Hall of Fame calls the "Expansion Era".

The induction class consisted of managers Bobby Cox, Tony La Russa, and Joe Torre, elected by the Expansion Era Committee, and Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and Frank Thomas, elected by the BBWAA.

The induction ceremonies were held on July 27, 2014, at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. On the day before the actual induction ceremony, the annual Hall of Fame Awards Presentation took place. At that event, the Hall presented two awards for media excellence—its own Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasters and the BBWAA's J. G. Taylor Spink Award for writers. In addition, the Buck O'Neil Lifetime Achievement Award was also handed out; under the rules for that award, last presented in 2011, it may be presented no more frequently than every third year.

BBWAA election

The BBWAA ballot was announced on November 26, 2013. The BBWAA was authorized to elect players active in 1994 or later, but not after 2008; the ballot included the following categories of players:
* Candidates from the 2013 ballot who received at least 5% of the vote but were not elected, as long as their first appearance on the BBWAA ballot was in 2000 or later.
* Individuals chosen by a screening committee whose last game appearance was in or before 2008.

All 10-year members of the BBWAA were eligible to vote, and had until December 31, 2013, to return their ballots to the Hall.

The ballot consisted of 17 of the 18 candidates who received at least 5% of the vote in the 2013 election, plus 19 first-time candidates. (The other candidate who received 5% or more of the 2013 vote, Dale Murphy, dropped off the ballot after 15 years.) Voters were instructed to cast votes for up to 10 candidates. Under BBWAA rules, write-in votes were not permitted.

Results of the 2013 election by the BBWAA were announced on January 8, 2014. A total of 571 ballots were cast (including one ballot which supported no candidates), with 429 votes required for election. A total of 4,793 individual votes were cast, an average of 8.39 per ballot—the highest per-ballot average since 1960 (8.51 votes per ballot), the first per-ballot average of 8 or higher since 1983 (8.36), and the first per-ballot average of even 7 or higher since 1986 (7.04). According to former BBWAA president Bill Shaiklin, 50% of all voters filled out all 10 available slots on their ballots, up from 22% in 2013. Any candidate who received votes on at least 75% of the ballots would be inducted. Those candidates who received less than 5% of the vote will not appear on future BBWAA ballots, but may eventually be considered by the Veterans Committee.

Candidates who were eligible for the first time are indicated with a dagger (†). The candidates who received at least 75% of the vote and were elected are indicated in ''bold italics''; candidates selected in subsequent elections, if any, will be indicated in ''italics''.

Jack Morris was on the ballot for the 15th and final time.

The newly eligible candidates included 28 All-Stars, 12 of whom were not on the ballot, representing a total of 83 All-Star selections. Among the candidates were 10-time All-Star and 2-time Cy Young Award winner Tom Glavine, 8-time All-Star and 4-time Cy Young Award winner Greg Maddux, 6-time All-Star Moisés Alou, 5-time All-Star and 2-time MVP Award winner Frank Thomas, 5-time All-Star and 1-time MVP Award winner Jeff Kent, and 5-time All-Stars Luis Gonzalez. The field included 1995 NL Rookie of the Year Hideo Nomo, two MVPs (Kent and Thomas), three Cy Young Award winners (Glavine, Maddux and Éric Gagné). The field included four candidates with at least five Gold Glove Awards: Maddux (18 at pitcher, a record), Mussina (7 at pitcher), Kenny Rogers (5 at pitcher) and J. T. Snow (6 at first base).

As in most recent elections, it was expected that the controversy over use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) was likely to dominate the elections. ''ESPN.com'' columnist Jim Caple noted in the days before the announcement of the 2012 results that the PED issue and the BBWAA's limit of 10 votes per ballot was likely to result in a major backlog in upcoming elections:

Due to the steroid issue and a general lack of consensus, the following players will probably be on the ballot in three years: Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson, Sammy Sosa, Jeff Bagwell, John Smoltz, Edgar Martinez, Mark McGwire, Mike Mussina, Jeff Kent, Larry Walker, Alan Trammell, Fred McGriff, Rafael Palmeiro, Lee Smith, Tim Raines, Gary Sheffield, Mike Piazza, Curt Schilling and, of course, Bernie illiams That's 21 players who warrant serious consideration. And that's not counting Barry Larkin, who might be 'Ed.'' – and waselected this year, and also assuming Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Craig Biggio and Frank Thomas make it their first years on the ballot. Finding room for Bonds, Clemens, Pedro, Johnson and others means I'll have to dump more good players from my ballot than the Marlins dumped after winning the 1997 World Series.

Several other players returning from the 2013 ballot with otherwise-strong Hall credentials have been linked to PEDs, among them Mark McGwire (who admitted to long-term steroid use in 2010), Jeff Bagwell (who never tested positive, but was the subject of PED rumors during his career), and Rafael Palmeiro (who tested positive for stanozolol shortly after denying that he had ever used steroids).

Players who were eligible for the first time who were ''not'' included on the ballot were: Tony Armas Jr., Gary Bennett, Joe Borowski, Jose Cruz Jr., Mike DiFelice, Damion Easley, Scott Elarton, Shawn Estes, Sal Fasano, Keith Foulke, Scott Hatteberg, Geoff Jenkins, Jason Johnson, Ray King, Jon Lieber, Esteban Loaiza, Kent Mercker, Matt Morris, Trot Nixon, Abraham Nunez, Odalis Perez, Tomas Perez, Mark Redman, Alberto Reyes

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases