Last Sunday the Baseball Hall of Fame had a vote to determine which players from the contemporary era (1980 on), who weren't already in the Hall, might deserve the honor. There were 16 voters, and you needed 12 of them, 75%, to get in. I think each voter got three votes. This is how it went:

• Fred McGriff, 16 votes, 100%
• Don Mattingly, 8 votes, 50%
• Curt Schilling, 7 votes, 44%
• Dale Murphy, 6 votes, 38%
• Albert Belle, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Rafael Palmeiro, fewer than 4 votes.*

* I guess they do this not to embarrass anybody? Because I can't find any news sources with the actual vote totals for these guys

And these were the voters:

PLAYERS

1. Chipper Jones**
2. Greg Maddux
3. Jack Morris
4. Ryne Sandberg
5. Lee Smith
6. Frank Thomas
7. Alan Trammell

** He called in sick and was replaced by Darryl Hall, CEO Diamondbacks

EXECS

1. Paul Beeston (Blue Jays, MLB)
2. Theo Epstein (Red Sox, Cubs, MLB)
3. Arte Moreno (Angels—owner)
4. Kim Ng (Marlins)
5. Dave St. Peter (Twins)
6. Ken Williams (White Sox)

MEDIA/HISTORIANS

1. Steve Hirdt (Elias Sports Bureau)
2. LaVelle Neal (Mpls. Star-Tribune)
3. Susan Slusser (SF Chronicle)

As others have stated, this ballot, and this committee, could not have aided Fred McGriff's chances more. Braves and Blue Jays were well-repped, and all the other nominees didn't have the careers McGriff had, or they were PED-suspect. Or they were Curt Schilling.

Could there have been other candidates from this era? Of course. Dwight Evans or Lou Whitaker barely got a chance from the Baseball Writers Association of America (Dewey lasted three years, Lou one), and modern stats, particularly bWAR (67.2, 75.1 respectively), indicate they're worthy. Basically they were good at a lot of little stuff that was difficult to measure; and now we can measure it. Or believe we can measure it. It's right there in that number.

But let's talk about the ballot as constituted.

The bottom four (Belle, Bonds, Clemens and Palmeiro) are all PED suspects, and the committee was full of players who have long denounced players who used PEDs, and apparently they haven't changed their minds. Goom-bye.

Murphy and Mattingly are interesting, similar cases. At different times, both were considered the best player of the '80s (Murphy was NL MVP in '82 and '83, Mattingly AL MVP in '85), but both got injured early in their careers. Neither made the World Series—and heartbreakingly so. Murphy was an Atlanta Brave until August 1990 when he was traded to the Phillies, and then the Braves went on a World Series run, appearing in '91, '92, '95, '96 and '99. His new team, the Phillies let him go in April '93 and then they went to the World Series. Meanwhile, Mattingly was Mr. Yankee during the Yankees longest Series drought since buying Babe Ruth. His first year was '82 and the Yanks went in '81. His last season was '95, and the Yankees went in '96, then '98 through '01. So it goes, as the man said. 

Both had better primes than McGriff, but he hung on longer.

If you look at these numbers you wonder how Mattingly could be preferred to Murphy, but he's probably getting points for his managerial career, which—now that I look at it—is similarly heartbreaking. He managed the Dodgers to three straight postseason appearances, but after losing the 2015 NLDS to the eventual pennant-winning Mets, he was let go with a year left on his contract. The Dodgers went to the World Series two years later. Mattingly was immediately swooped up by the Marlins, and in 2020, as a wild card, they made the postseason for the first time since 2003. They parted ways after this season, and Mattingly was recently hired as a bench coach for the Blue Jays. One assumes Paul Beeston voted for him.

As for Schilling, he's got an 80.5 bWAR, the best strikeout-to-walk ratio for any pitcher with more than 3,000 Ks (3116/711), postseason performances that mere mortals only dream of, and a big fucking mouth. I still would've voted for him. But Joe Posnanski highlights the irony:

Schilling's seven votes is a rebuke, no question about it. Schilling had been yammering for a couple of years now that he didn't even WANT to get elected by the writers, that he would prefer to be judged by players and executives, you know, people who KNOW THE GAME.

So the irony must sting that he got WAY closer to being elected on the BBWAA ballot than he got on this veterans ballot. In fact, if he would have not spent his spare time joking about journalists getting murdered and asking people not to vote for him, he certainly WOULD have been elected by the writers.

Now, if this ballot is any indication, the players and executives and such seem to think he's a lot more trouble than he's worth.

Anyway, I'm glad McGriff is in. I always liked him. He was cool, had a cool nickname (The Crime Dog), and as a lean, mean, baseball machine he hit 493 career homers. Seven more and he would've made the Hall 10 years ago.