The Baseball Hall of Fame announcement is coming on Wednesday live on MLB Network at 2 pm for the HOF class of 2014 that will be getting into Cooperstown and after no one was voted in last year, it looks as if Greg Maddux will be getting the nod and up to three or four players could be getting inducted when the ballots are counted and officially announced.
Maddux will not be a unanimous Hall of Famer though, because BBWAA votes seem to make the event about themselves rather than the players and one writer left of Maddux in protest for a litany of dumb reasons, but he at least will get into the Hall of Fame. It's a travesty that some players will not even be voted for who are deserving, as writers can only vote for 10 players and that grossly limits the players that can get in when there are so many on the ballot. Like many of baseball's rules, the way the voting goes is archaic, stupid, wasteful and totally discredits players that have a right to stay on the ballot, including someone like Jack Morris, who is about to fall off.
The voting needs a huge overhaul, but like everything else in baseball, it will take forever and now the celebration for these players is a bit marred by the process, especially the idiot who left Maddux off his ballot for no good reason at all. According to ESPN.com, one writer did not vote for Maddux and only voted for Morris, saying that he would not vote for anyone who played in the "ped era" even though Morris was in on the tail end of that and now he is taking it out on Maddux.
Players that have the chance to get in and may include Maddux and his Braves teammate Tom Glavine, as well as Frank Thomas and Craig Biggio, who was close last season when he got 68 percent of the vote and now it looks like he could get in. Maddux was a consistent performer for his entire career and won 355 games and four Cy Young awards and many people feel he is a lock and should have been unanimous and likely would have if some idiots didn't act selfishly and now he still could break the record of 98.84 percent that Tom Seaver had when he got in.
Check here for live coverage from MLB.com about the Hall of Fame voting and it is live at 2 pm.
Jack Morris is in his final year on the ballot and many think that he will finally get in with the two 300-game winners in Maddux and Glavine. Over 500 members of the BBWAA voted for the Hall and while they likely will not ever vote names like Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds in, players like Morris are hoping for a shot and Maddux looks like a shoe in. Bobby Cox, Joe Torre and Tony La Russa were selected in already and now Morris awaits his final chance after winning 254 games and that is a great number considering he led wins for players in his generation and he came close last season, getting 67 percent out of the 75 he needed.
This year there was controversy about Maddux on the ballot and hopefully that will spark some changes, but it likely will spark nothing from these blowhards who act like they are the only stewards of the game and are also the moral police. They really need to get their ish together. Cooperstown is mad cool though, been there over 10 times.
