There will be no Class of 2021 in the Baseball Hall of Fame, as voters threw a shutout on Tuesday, rejecting all 25 candidates for anchoring in Cooperstown.
The state of affairs: The top three candidates – Curt Schilling (71.1%), Barry Bonds (61.8%) and Roger Clemens (61.6%) – all fell short of the required 75%.
What he says: Schilling, who was just 16 votes short, shared a letter on Facebook tearing baseball writers and asking to be taken off the ballot in 2022.
- “I will not participate in the last year of voting. I request to be removed from the vote,” Schilling wrote. “I will defer to the veterans committee and men whose opinions really matter and who are able to actually judge a player.”
- Schilling has faced backlash in recent years over the political views he has embraced on social media, which appear to have limited his support in the vote, according to ESPN. This included a 2016 tweet in which he appeared to be backing lynch journalists, and more recently his support for the Jan. 6 pro-Trump mob attack on the Capitol.
Top voices:
- Schilling: 71.1%
- Bonds: 61.8%
- Clemens: 61.6%
- Scott Rolen: 52.9%
- Omar Vizquel: 49/1%
- Billy Wagner: 46.4%
- Todd Helton: 44.9%
- Gary Sheffield: 40.6%
- Andruw Jones: 33.9%
- Jeff Kent: 32.4%
Of interest: This is only the ninth time that the Baseball Writers’ Association of America has not elected a Hall of Fame nominee, and the fourth since the rules changed to eliminate the 1968 second round election.
What’s next: Voters have ten years to consider candidates, and Schilling, Bonds and Clemens stayed on the ballot for nine years.
- So next year’s election will be the writers’ final referendum on all three controversial players.
- If not chosen, their fate will fall on a 16-member panel of Hall of Famers, team officials and historians known as the Veterans Committee.
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