many of you may have already heard this. or you will read this posting after 2 pm, when the national hall of fame announces who's in the class of 2013, and so the edge will be off.
but if the news i heard on the radio tonight holds, the hof vote will be a surprise.
early indications, according to polls in the ny times and ap, are that bonds and clemens will each get about 45 percent of the baseball writers' of america vote, which will be well short of the 75 percent needed for induction. sosa, palmiero, piazza, bagell and mcgwire are expected to fall below the 45 percent. only craig biggio appears to have a chance, but the polls put him at about 63 percent.
so what's the surprise here? if the polls hold, it's not only that these stars won't get plaques, but that no one's going to be voted into the hall of fame from the class of 2013. zero. they'll be honoring crickets on induction sunday.
that shouldn't happen for the class of 2014, which includes, with these and other guys, greg maddux, tom glavine and roberto alomar.
if we all had votes for this year's class, wonder how we'd vote? biggio would get mine; but not too keen on the others, not this year anyway.
i'm with you there, mike, murph's a good one; i'd also have gone with jack morris and don mattingly. (mattingly's numbers, btw, are almost exactly equal to kirby puckett's, and mattingly has more doubles than mickey mantle.) wish we could get gil hodges in.
i like piazza, too, ralph, and if in two or three years, no steroid stuff comes out on him, i'd say get the plaque ready.
One last chance next year for Jack Morris. If you were to ask Sparky Anderson to whom he'd give the ball when the Tigers needed a win, he would say Morris every time. Craig Biggio will get in eventually. Lee Smith should but won't. Same with McGriff and Murphy. I once had the opportunity to watch Fred McGriff do a session in the batting cage when I lived in Tampa. I've never heard a sound like that in my life. And he DESTROYED his bat. He didn't break it like we understand a broken bat, but I saw it when he came out. There was nothing left of it. Read Shepherd
