As was first reported this morning by Al Yellon of Bleed Cubbie Blue, former Cub Greg Maddux will not be voted into the Hall of Fame unanimously because of his omission on at least one ballot. However, the writer’s explanation for why he left Maddux off the ballot is ridiculous.
Dodgers beat reporter Ken Gurnick says that he will only vote for Jack Morris for the Hall of Fame. His explanation? He won’t vote for anyone that played during the Steroid Era.
The 6′ 0″, 170-lb Maddux is being cost the first unanimous Hall of Fame induction because of the missteps of his peers. If anything, Maddux deserves more recognition for dominating during the Steroid Era without juicing himself.
To compare Maddux with known steroid-user Roger Clemens, Maddux had 355 wins compared to Clemens’ 354 in his career while playing one less season. Additionally, both players had almost identical ERAs for their careers; Maddux’s career mark was 3.16 while Clemens’ was 3.12.
Basically, without juicing, Maddux was able to produce similar career results to that of a known steroid user. Therefore, not voting him in on the basis of playing in the Steroid Era is absurd.
Baseball Think Factory confirmed that Maddux wouldn’t be voted in unanimously as it reported results at 12:35 pm CST today and Maddux had 99.4 percent of the 155 submitted ballots.
While it’s possible that Gurnick won’t be the only writer not to vote Maddux into the Hall of Fame, his explanation for keeping The Professor out of the Hall is trivial. A man who overcame the Steroid Era and didn’t succumb to it doesn’t deserve to be left out because of a culture that he didn’t adopt.
If this vote has made anything clear it’s that if Maddux doesn’t get into the Hall of Fame unanimously, nobody ever will.
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