No one gets in; Helton rising
Shut out.
For the first time since 2013, and for only the ninth time in history, no player was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame when the votes were announced Tuesday.
Rockies fans, however, can take heart. Todd Helton, the only player in franchise history to have his number retired, made a significant jump in voting, something that bodes well for future induction.
Right-hander Curt Schilling came close to election Tuesday, garnering 71.1% of the votes by
eligible members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. A player needs a minimum of 75% to reach Cooperstown.
Helton, the iconic first baseman who played all 17 seasons in a Rockies uniform, received 44.9% of the vote. In 2019, his first year on the ballot, Helton received 16.5% of the vote, followed by an increase to 29.2% last year. Only three players in the history of Hall of Fame voting had a vote percentage of 29.2% or higher in their second year on the ballot and were not subsequently elected. Those players: Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Schilling.
“It’s a nice jump,” Helton said from his home in Knoxville, Tenn. “I’m pretty excited to be where I’m at right now.”
That said, Helton added that it’s difficult to look into the future and conjure up his induction into Cooperstown.
“It’s still so far out there that it’s really hard for me to wrap my head around it,” he said.
Helton, a five-time allstar, posted a career slash line of .316/.414/.539. Only six players in major league history have posted equal or higher averages in each category: Jimmie Foxx, Lou Gehrig, Rogers Hornsby, Stan Musial, Babe Ruth and Ted Williams. All six are in the Hall of Fame.
Helton is not about to tout his Hall of Fame credentials, but he said he’s especially proud of the 592 doubles he hit, which ranks 19th in major league history.
“I thought of myself as a gap-to-gap hitter,” he said. “I wasn’t just slapping singles around the yard.”
Schilling, in his ninth and penultimate year on the BBWAA ballot, was a World Series star with the Boston Red Sox and Arizona Diamondbacks, won 216 games and struck out 300 batters in three seasons. But Schilling’s social media behavior, which includes a 2016 tweet apparently endorsing the lynching of journalists that he later deleted, cost him support among some writers who previously voted for him. The 2021 ballots were cast before Schilling’s Jan. 6 tweet showing apparent support of the mob that rioted at the U.S. Capitol.
Schilling, who fell 16 votes short of induction in a year in which a record 14 voters left their ballots blank, made his displeasure with the BBWAA known in a letter he sent to the Hall of Fame, requesting that his name be removed from the ballot next year.
“I will not participate in the final year of voting,” Schilling wrote. “I am requesting to be removed from the ballot. I’ll defer to the veterans committee and men whose opinions actually matter.”
The only other years when no players were elected via a vote by the BBWAA were 1945, 1946, 1950, 1958, 1960, 1971, 1996, and 2013. Helton, however, was not bothered by the fact that no player was elected Tuesday.
“That’s why the Hall of Fame is so special,” he said. “They just don’t take people in to take people in. It’s a tough place to get into.”
Meanwhile, time is running out for slugger Bonds and right-hander Clemens, who are considered two of the greatest players in baseball history, but whose reputations have been tarnished by their suspected use of steroids. In their ninth year on the ballot, Bonds got 61.8% and Clemens 61.6%, minuscule increases from a year ago, making it highly unlikely they will climb to 75% next year in their final appearance on the writers’ ballots.