NEW YORK -- Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr. will fall short of becoming the first unanimous Hall of Fame picks, and Mark McGwire doesn't figure to be anywhere close to the necessary 75 percent when 2007 voting is released Tuesday.
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Paul Ladewski of the Daily Southtown in suburban Chicago wrote in a column Monday that he submitted a blank ballot because of doubts he had over performance-enhancing drugs in baseball.
"At this point, I don't have nearly enough information to make a value judgment of this magnitude. In particular, that concerns any player in the Steroids Era, which I consider to be the 1993-2004 period, give or a take a season," Ladewski wrote.
"This isn't to suggest that Gwynn or Ripken or the majority of the other eligible candidates padded his statistics with performance-enhancers and cheated the game, their predecessors and the fans in the process. ... But tell me, except for the players themselves, who can say what they put into their bodies over the years with any degree of certainty?"
Gwynn and Ripken likely will vie for the highest percentages ever in Hall voting. McGwire, also on the ballot for the first time, probably will draw only one in four votes, according to a November survey of about 20 percent of eligible voters taken by the Associated Press.
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| Mark McGwire's Hall chances don't look good the first time around. (Getty Images) |
But many voters have said they won't select McGwire for baseball's highest honor until he answers questions about steroids use. McGwire's refusal to address his past during a 2005 congressional hearing damaged his reputation among many of the 10-year members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America who cast ballots.
"I think I would vote for him," Gwynn said. "I think I would vote for a lot of those guys who are considered to have done it."
Tom Seaver holds the record percentage at 98.84, set when he was selected on 425 of 430 ballots in 1992.
Paul Hagen of the Philadelphia Daily News was among three writers who submitted blank ballots that year, joined by Bob Hertzel of the Pittsburgh Press and freelance writer Bob Hunter. Retired writers Deane McGowen and Bud Tucker did not vote for Seaver.
"That was the first year that baseball intervened with Pete Rose and kept his name off the ballot," Hagen said Monday. "I just felt like that was a way of protesting. It had nothing to do with Tom Seaver."
Ty Cobb was left off four ballots, Nolan Ryan wasn't on six, Hank Aaron on nine, Babe Ruth on 11 and Willie Mays on 23. Joe DiMaggio needed to appear on the ballot three times to get in, receiving 44 percent and 69 percent in his first two tries.
"I'll admit I sort of felt that sooner or later it might come my way," DiMaggio was quoted as saying by the New York Times after he was elected in 1955. "But after failing to make it during the first two elections for which I was eligible - well, I just wasn't too sure."
