Hall's Vets elect no one in 2007
You can see the vote totals at the link.Ron Santo inched a little closer to Cooperstown on Tuesday, but came up five votes short of baseball immortality.
Voting by the Veterans Committee for the National Baseball Hall of Fame resulted in another shutout as none of the candidates on the players or composite ballots received the 75 percent plurality required for election.
The former Cubs third baseman received the most votes on the players ballot with 57 (69.5 percent), followed by former pitcher Jim Kaat with 52 (63.4), former Dodgers first baseman Gil Hodges with 50 (61.0) and former Twins outfielder Tony Oliva with 47 (57.3), the only players to be named on half of the 82 of 84 ballots cast with 62 votes needed for 75 percent.
The committee, which is comprised of living Hall of Famers, Ford C. Frick Award winners for broadcasting and J.G. Taylor Spink Award winners for writing totaling 84 voters, has not elected anyone since the current process went into effect in 2003. This was the third players' ballot, which is voted on every other year, and the second composite ballot of executives, managers and umpires, which is voted on every four years.
The main story here is Ron Santo. Let's go to the Chicago Tribune for the Chicago reaction.
Santo: The bummer of 69 (percent)
Ron Santo's heart was broken again Tuesday when he was denied entrance into the Baseball Hall of Fame, leaving the former Cubs icon to wonder whether his day ever will come.
The nine-time All-Star learned Tuesday morning the Veterans Committee again declined to admit any former major-leaguers into their exclusive club, the third time since 2003 that no one made the grade.
Santo finished first on the Hall of Fame ballot with 57 votes out of the 82 cast, or 69.5 percent of the total. That was five votes shy of the necessary 75 percent for induction, making the news that much harder to stomach.
Santo was too distraught to talk to the media, and his good friend and former teammate, Billy Williams, said he probably was devastated by the news.
"I felt sorry for him because he was so looking forward to getting the call," Williams said. "I felt really good about it this year. I talked to Ernie [Banks] yesterday and I think everybody who was involved [wanted it to happen]. Maybe we were a little partial to him because we were teammates, but I really thought with the credentials he had, he was deserving."
Bleed Cubbie Blue has this post: Oh, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Just go there.
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