The two guys pretty much everyone thought were going to make it this time, Bert Blyleven and Roberto Alomar, got the call to Cooperstown today.
It took Blyleven 14 tries to make it to the Hall of Fame and he finally made it. Deservedly so, I think. Blyleven was helped tremendously by the new statistical techniques that showed he was more valuable than even his 287 wins and 3,701 K's (5th all-time) would indicate. Blyleven is a deserving Hall of Famer, and he joins Jim Rice and Andre Dawson in the "What Took So Long?" club.
The only thing that makes you wonder about Roberto Alomar's election is why he didn't go in last year. Perhaps the spitting incident had something to do with it, but Alomar certainly deserves his plaque.
Steroid Era sluggers did NOT fare well in the balloting of the baseball writers. Jeff Bagwell, who hasn't been directly tied to the Mitchell Report, the 2003 testing or any other specific PED allegations only got 41.7% of the vote, nearly 100 votes short of election. Mark McGwire, who admitted to using steroids when he joined the Cardinals as hitting coach last year, dropped to less than 20%. Rafael Palmiero's positive test caused him to only get 11% of the vote.
It's pretty obvious that even suspected steroid guys are going to have an uphill battle to make it to Cooperstown.
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