With Tom Zuppa’s help, APBA fans hold mock balloting for HOF

For most of you on Facebook, this won’t be news but I thought it was worth bringing to the wider audience. 

It started as a simple post on the APBA Baseball group by Tom Zuppa last week linking to an article about this year’s candidates for the Baseball Hall of Fame.  Tom Zuppa (left) simply wanted to know if “APBA fans were smarter than the BBWAA”.  Who would WE induct to the Hall of Fame if it were left to us??

What ensued was probably one of the longest threads I’ve seen on Facebook let alone on APBA Baseball group.  Almost everyone chimed in with their opinion plus some very entertaining discussion.  All told, there were over 150 comments to his post. 

I believe it was Bob Haider who initially came up with the idea that Mr. Zuppa total the responses and see what the APBA community’s ballot would look like if we had the power to vote in the inductees.  Tom thought it was a fine idea and agreed to this arduous task.  This Wednesday, Tom came out with another post with the final results. 

With his permission, I’m re-posting his official announcement:

“Thank you to everyone who took part in our group experiment on Wednesday’s Baseball Hall of Fame announcement. The real results will be announced at 2 p.m. Wednesday.
The results were audited by Dewey, Cheatam and Howe, CPAs. Forty-two ballots were cast. Two people voted for players who are not eligible; those votes were not counted, although other votes on those ballot were. (Notably, Pastor Rich did not vote for the infamous Lou Gehrig card with the 15-6, even though he believes it deserves a special display in the Hall.)

The results show:
• Much like the sportswriters and general public, our group has strong feelings about what does/does not make a HoFer.
• Not much love for those believed to be steroid users.
• A whole lot of us are Detroit haters

Drum roll ……
Elected to the Hall of Fame (75%, 32 of 42 votes required):
Greg Maddux 41 97.6%
Craig Biggio 34 81.0%

Not elected to the Hall of Fame
Frank Thomas 31 73.8%
Tom Glavine 31 73.8%
Mike Piazza 25 59.5%
Alan Trammell 18 42.9%
Jeff Bagwell 17 40.5%
Tim Raines 17 40.5%
Jack Morris 14 33.3%
Barry Bonds 14 33.3%
Roger Clemens 13 31.0%
Mike Mussina 12 28.6%
Edgar Martinez 9 21.4%
Lee Smith 9 21.4%
Don Mattingly 7 16.7%
Mark McGwire 6 14.3%
Curt Schilling 5 11.9%
Jeff Kent 4 9.5%
Larry Walker 3 7.1%

Not elected to the Hall of Fame and removed from future ballots:
Fred McGriff 2 4.8%
Eric Gagne 1 2.4%
Hideo Nomo 1 2.4%
Lou Whitaker 1 2.4%
Rafael Palmiero 1 2.4%
Sammy Sosa 1 2.4%
Receiving no votes: Moisés Alou, Armando Benítez, Sean Casey, Ray Durham, Luis Gonzalez, Jacque Jones, Todd Jones, Paul Lo Duca, Kenny Rogers, Richie Sexson, J.T. Snow, Mike Timlin.

Now … let the debate begin…

 

Tom Z also noted that Thomas and Glavine both missed OUR Hall of Fame by just one vote. 

I’d like to personally thank Tom Zuppa for doing this.  There was some great discussions going on in both threads.  I think that this should be an annual thing.  I mean we all know we’re better managers and coaches than what we see in the pros.  Who says we can’t out-vote the BBWAA?

But seriously, just one more vote is all Glavine needed.  :-)