Interesting HoF / Rickey Henderson Article

[Providence A's]

Rickey Henderson should be a unanimous Hall of Famer - Joe Posnanski - SI.com

LAS VEGAS -- Baseball writing cowboy Tracy Ringolsby brought up an interesting point at the winter meetings about why Rickey Henderson should get 100 percent of the Hall of Fame vote. Henderson, of course, will not get 100 percent of the vote because NOBODY gets 100 percent of the vote*. It's one of those bizarre quirks of the baseball writers' voting, bizarre because at some point there were some among the baseball writers who started to take PRIDE in the quirk, started feeling gratified by the fact that Willie Mays and Babe Ruth and Mike Schmidt and Tom Seaver and Stan Musial and Hank Aaron did not get every vote. I guess they thought (think) of themselves as guardians of the gate.

He goes on to point out that Henderson also is #1 all-time in unintentional walks (2nd all-time in total walks). The article is an interesting read and also lists many players who missed 100% by number of votes.

I would just love to hear the reasoning for someone not voting for Rickey. What basis would a person have other than "no one gets 100%?" Henderson is one of the absolute greatest players ever, period. Of course there will be a few people that won't vote for him...probably just to draw attention to themselves for doing just that.

Oh, I also found this amusing:

You already know that Henderson holds the major league record for most stolen bases with 1,406 -- and that record isn't getting broken for a long, long time. You know who is the active leader in stolen bases? Juan Pierre. You know how many he has? Four hundred and twenty nine. The guy is about ONE THOUSAND stolen bases shy of Rickey. That stolen base record is mind-bogging.

I assume he meant mind-boggling, but you get the point. Juan Pierre

[DirtyKash]

Juan Pierre may not be a great overall baseball player, but he has 40+ stolen bases in 8 straight seasons.

[Providence A's]

I found it funny because he's about 1000 SBs behind and because I didn't realize he was the active leader.

[love_that_reefer]

Writers for Dugout Central have said they wouldn;t vote someone on the first ballot simply because Joe DiMaggio had to wait for his third ballot to get in. Dumb reasoning because the voting was different back then.

[hot_corner_gurl]

I've heard people over here at my internship at the SF Chronicle say that they might not vote for him because of his "I am the greatest" schpeel when he passed Lou Brock. Guess my boss doesn't like bigheaded people.

[Providence A's]

And the first attention whore is: Corky Simpson

Home Run Derby » Corky Simpson: The writer who didn’t vote for Rickey Henderson

But every writer was putting Henderson on their ballot, usualy followed by the words “no-brainer.” Could it be done? Could Rickey make HoF history? I was getting kinda excited.

Corky SimpsonAnd then, I got to the ballot of the Award-Winning Corky Simpson - who, you guessed it … didn’t vote for Rickey Henderson.

Here’s Corky Simpson’s ballot for the 2009 Baseball Hall of Fame:

* Bert Blyleven
* Andre Dawson
* Tommy John
* Don Mattingly
* Tim Raines
* Jim Rice
* Alan Trammell
* Matt Williams

Eight names (you can vote for ten). But no Rickey Henderson. I was dying to read Simpson’s explanation of why he left Henderson off the ballot and especially how eight other players could get his vote before he gave one to Rickey.

But there was nothing. Not a Sausage. He barely even mentions Henderson’s name …

Others honored with nomination this year and who may well be voted into the Hall of Fame, include Harold Baines, Jay Bell, David Cone, Ron Gant, Mark Grace, Rickey Henderson, Jack Morris, Dale Murphy, Jesse Orosco, Dave Parker, Dan Plesac, Lee smith, Greg Vaughn and Mo Vaughn.

Rickey Henderson is merely “honored with nomination” and “may well be voted into the Hall of Fame” ?!? Has Simpson been living under a rock in the Arizona Desert? Incidentally, the Vaughns have no shot at being voted into the Hall of Fame, let alone making next year’s ballot.

what a ****ing tool. seriously.

He says it was a mistake

The blog: Corky says omitting Henderson a mistake

Corky Simpson, the Tucson Citizen's former sports columnist, wishes he could get his Hall of Fame baseball picks back after leaving all-time steals leader Ricky Henderson off his ballot.

"I screwed up on the Henderson nonvote," said Simpson, who detailed his choices in a Dec. 10 column for the Green Valley News. "You get to vote on 10 and I only picked eight. I probably did it too quickly."

too quickly? really? you think? whatever, we knew some people would do this. we'll never see a player like Rickey again IMHO. this type of voting should never happen. there are plenty of players that should have been unanimous, but some people decide to vote against them to make themselves important and relevant.

[Providence A's]

Rob Neyer Blog - ESPN

Neyer's thoughts are towards the bottom of his blog there. It was obviously on purpose. How do you vote for Tim Raines, but not Rickey? Rickey was greater. He refused to vote McGwire due to enhancements, but voted for Matt Williams when he was listed in the Mitchell report for purchasing HGH/steroids! What a clown.

http://www.mercurynews.com/sportsheadlines/ci_11412160?

[QUOTE]"If I had properly researched the situation, I would have voted for Rickey Henderson if for no other reason than he played for nine ball teams," he said. "Imagine that. He'll be the first Hall of Famer to have a bronze bust with nine caps stacked on his head.

"Seriously, he was a wonderful player and I simply goofed. I voted for eight deserving men. I could have picked two more — and I wish to heck I had."[QUOTE]

right...because he played for 9 teams