A few hours from now, we’ll know who will be included in the 2019 Baseball Hall of Fame class. It looks like it will be either three or for players — Mariano Rivera for sure, Roy Halladay and Edgar Martínez likely, and Mike Mussina maybe. Last month, we published our annual community ballot. Like the official one, the Purple Row community gave four players the 75% minimum for election. They just weren’t the same four. Here are the players selected on our community ballot:
Larry Walker (94.2%)
Todd Helton (86%)
Roy Halladay (83%)
Mariano Rivera (83%)
Not bad! This year, the election comes from 171 ballots cast. It’s down from last year, but this year we required a Google sign in to reduce duplicate ballots and instill a little more voter accountability. That worked, even though there was still that one vote for Darren Oliver.
As far as Martínez, who should get in this year, he received 65.5% of the vote, which is far short. Mussina, who may get in this year but who is still well on his way if he doesn’t, only received 49.5%. That sat behind Roger Clemens (53.8%) and Barry Bonds (53.2%).
Overall the vote turned out pretty well. We voted like partisans should while also giving the nod to two other deserving players. It was a huge improvement over the last time we did this, when Walker fell short with just 66.4% of the vote.
So, nice job, Purple Row. Let’s hope the people with real ballots are listening.