The way it went today was no real surprise. From all the possible permutations the ballot could have gone, there was probably only one other result that realistically could have happen and that was Henderson getting in by himself. Fortunately for Rice, the BBWAA saw things his way.
The Hall of Fame ballot results do provide an angle for the media. Henderson, who gets in on his first try and Jim Rice who finally was deemed good enough on his last try.
One prediction I made came true… Bloggers were out in force questioning the members of the BBWAA with some of their crazy voting. That was a safe bet, though.
In a way, I’m glad Henderson got in but didn’t get in unanimously. It would be a shame if Rickey Henderson, who, let’s face it, prolonged his career to up his career numbers, got in with a unanimous ballot in his first year of eligibility while true superstars like Aaron and Ripken did not.
And congrats to Jim Rice who certainly deserved to be voted in all along. Rice suffered a love-hate (but mostly hate) relationship with the media while he was playing with Boston. I would think most of that animosity had dissipated by the time he was up for Hall of Fame nomination but who knows.
Read The Baseball Zealot’s HOF ’09 profiles of all the 2009 candidates for the Hall.