Having finally gotten a look at the voting, one of the biggest surprises is that Rafael Palmeiro failed to garner 5% of the vote, and fell off the ballot. He’s the first of the players with Hall of Fame statistical qualifications but a PED stain to fall totally off the ballot.
A good story would be on where he is now. He’s largely vanished from sight in all of this. His lasting legacy will forever remain his finger wagging at congress and his Viagra ads.
I hear he’s going to blame having fallen off the ballot on Miguel Tejada.
With lifetime earnings of 89 million I guess he will do fine w/o being in Cooperstown.
When an ex college football player in the late 80’s who was mainly a DH and who is built like a brick house can make it to the HOF on the first ballot with nobody suspecting steroids, I am for the first time wondering if there is an anti-Latino bias. Only 7 Latino players in the HOF seems low.
See? The system works!
As for Frank Thomas, pft, he passed his drug tests. Palmiero didn’t. No anti-Latino basis by that evidence.
I suspect that Palmiero’s situation is a combination of the PED situation with the fact that writers were already making “compiler” type arguments against him before he ever tested positive–the tone of those arguments reminded me of the guys who complained about Don Sutton and Phil Niekro “not seeming like Hall of Famers.” With a second argument to bear against his candidacy, he was doomed as soon as the ballot got really crowded. If some of McGwire’s voters lose heart at this point, he and Sosa might drop off in next year’s vote, as they are the poster children for “wouldn’t even be considered if they hadn’t added all those homers due to PEDs” arguments among writers and fans.
Palmeiro’s an interesting case. His career numbers look like a Hall of Famer’s numbers, but I never thought of him that way. He was never the best player in the game and he only once finished in the top-5 in the MVP balloting. He’s got shockingly little “black ink” for someone who compiled his career numbers, leading the league in an offensive category just three times (hits, doubles and runs, all in different years).
He was up young, but not as a power-hitter at a power-position, so the initial impression, which is hard to overcome, is that of a light-hitting, defensive first baseman. When he did start hitting with power, in his late 20s and early 30s, he was hitting for power in one of the game’s great offensive power eras, and he was only one of many doing so. In his best offensive season, he was a first baseman who was comparable offensively to three short-stops and a right fielder in the same league.
There’s no question that the PED suspension affects him badly. I think that the 1999 Gold Glove actually hurt him, too, as he won it while only playing 28 games at first base, which devalues all of his Gold Gloves.
I wouldn’t vote for him. (The PED use would not affect my vote – the suspension would, but just a little.) I want more peak in my Hall of Famers. But he was a very good hitter for a very long time…