Joe Posnanski writes on the history of non-unanimous Hall of Fame elections, and whether Mariano Rivera should be the first so honored.

What Needham (and plenty of others) have questioned is this: Should Rivera as a closer be the first to be unanimous?

One answer to that question is no, of course he shouldn’t be first. As stated: Ty Cobb should have been first. Joe DiMaggio should have been first. Ted Williams … Stan Musial … Willie Mays … Henry Aaron … Jackie Robinson … Tom Seaver … Cal Ripken … Greg Maddux … Ken Griffey … all of those guys and more should have been first. But they weren’t.

And there’s no going back to get any of that right.

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So Posnanski is basically saying that someone should be first, and it might as well be Rivera. That’s not going to happen, as there will be plenty of writers who believe a closer does not belong in the Hall of Fame and not vote for Rivera.

The real issue, I believe, is “why doesn’t everyone think like me?” The answer is, if everyone thought the same thing, the world would be pretty boring.

It also may be more mundane that that. In the section on Ted Williams failing to be named on all the ballots:

“The one writer who bypassed Williams in the poll,” The Sporting Newsexplained, “did so because of a personal grudge that he will never forget.”

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I bet that happens more times than one might believe. Posnanski goes on about Ken Griffey was charismatic and cool, but early in his career I heard more often than not that he was rude to the press. I can believe two or three of them left him off the ballot for that reason. Most elite athletes are not the nicest people to be around. All’s that needed is for one or two writers to really despise a player.

Of course, we have the history of the votes. The 15 people Posnanski mentions as the near unanimous selections are at the top of the Hall of Fame. We as the public understand that. We know that Ken Griffey, Jr. is well above Harold Baines when it comes to Hall of Fame standing. Griffey, and those that garnered over 95% of the vote on the first ballot are the greatest of all time. Then comes first ballot, second ballot, three to seven ballots, eight ballots or higher, and finally some kind of committee. It’s not perfect, but it works pretty well.

So let Rivera get 96% of the vote, and be amazed that a closer did that well. For all intents and purposes, a vote at that level is indistinguishable from unanimous.