Dawson Voted In – Blyleven Kept Out

by BigGreek24

Wednesday January 6, 2010 

Dawson Voted In – Blyleven Kept Out thumbnail

In the tightest vote in Hall Of Fame history, Andre Dawson is the lone electee for this year.  Dawson, who starred for the Expos and Cubs at the height of his career in the 1980’s, received 77.9 percent of the vote to gain admission to the hall on his 9th try.  Dawson was a fleet-footed centerfielder when he came up with the Expos who had a cannon arm and hit for power as well as stole bases.  Dawson was a regular 30 homer, 30 steal player back when those numbers really meant something as the league homerun leader would hit less than 40 more often than not.   Dawson is possibly most famously known for giving Dallas Green, the GM of the Cubs, a blank contract telling him to fill in the amount and Dawson would sign before the 1987 season, Dawson’s lone MVP year.

For Blyleven, who fell just 5 votes shy of election, its just another year of waiting as year thirteen proved to be as unlucky as the previous twelve.  Blyleven received  74.2 percent of the vote – 75 percent is the required number for admission.   Blyleven will have just two more shots at admission before being removed from the ballot and leaving his fate in the hands of the Veteran’s Committee.  Its a shame for the two-time World Champion who won 287 games while completing 242 and adding 60 shutouts to his resume.  Blyleven also lost 56 games by less than 2 runs and missed all but 4 games of the 1982 season.  Blyleven pitched for the Twins, Rangers and Indians at the height of each team’s futility in addition to pitching on the 1979 Pirates and on the 1987 Twins both of whom won World Series titles.  Had Blyleven toiled on better teams in the 1970’s he easily would’ve won the extra 13 games – he might’ve gotten them had he been healthy in 1982.

Roberto Alomar got 73.7 percent of the vote, the highest total for any first-year player who didn’t get elected.   Barry Larkin was the next highest with 51.6 percent of the writers vote.

Dawson, along with umpire Doug Harvey and manager Whitey Herzog, will be inducted on July 25th at the Baseball Hall Of Fame in Cooperstown, NY.

Filed Under Phillies

Comments

2 Responses to “Dawson Voted In – Blyleven Kept Out”

  1. Eric Schwartz on January 6th, 2010 5:02 pm

    Glad to see Dawson in, but I don’t get Larkin and Alomar being left out. For some reason writers make a distinction between voting for a guy in his first year and voting for him later. The truth is there is no diference between first-ballot and non first-ballot Hall of Famers. They all end up in the same place.

  2. BigGreek24 on January 7th, 2010 7:34 am

    True, and it also doesn’t say on their plaque when they finally get in how many times it took. I was shocked that Alomar wasn’t voted in – he was 8 votes shy. I wasn’t as shocked about Blyleven other than he got so close. There were five guys that turned in blank ballots which I find reprehensible.

Got something to say?