Mickey Lolich

[Dennie Cunningham]

While surfing this site, I had ESPN on in the background. One writer for the Boston Globe was taking about who was most likely to get enshrind into the hall today. He stated Rick Henerson was a shoe in, which I beleive is 100% on. He has to be inducted. Then he stated that Jim Rice will be also inducted. I too would love to see him get in. My question is that the writer stated that Jim Rice was 16 votes short of getting in last year and that no other player was that close without getting in later. I swear that Mickey Lolich received 74.? and only was ONE vote away. That year one sports writer sent in a BLANK sheet because of the Pete Rose contervercy. If he just did not sent in his ballot, Mickey would be a member today. Poor Mickey never got closer..........let me know if I am correct. I want to write the Globe to set it straight. Thanks.:crazy

[Cowtipper]

The highest percentage Lolich ever received was 25.5% of the vote.

[Paul Wendt]

the writer stated that Jim Rice was 16 votes short of getting in last year and that no other player was that close without getting in later. I swear that Mickey Lolich received 74.? and only was ONE vote away. That year one sports writer sent in a BLANK sheet because of the Pete Rose contervercy. If he just did not sent in his ballot, Mickey would be a member today. Poor Mickey never got closer..........let me know if I am correct. I want to write the Globe to set it straight. Thanks.:crazy
Nellie Fox and Jim Bunning tallied "74.x" in BBWAA elections without tallying 75.0%. They were both elected later, by committee, as Joe Gordon from the 1940s was elected last month.

"no other player was that close without getting in later"

Of course we can't know who else will get in later and it may be misleading to mix media. Election by baseball writers (BBWAA) has been the first door without much change since the first election in 1936; meanwhile there has been a lot of variety in second and third doors that may open for a player. Many people, certainly including some of those writers, naturally consider the BBWAA election the "front door" in constrast to the proverbial "back door".

There are different ways to measure distance from that 75% threshold, such as number of votes whose reversal would have changed the outcome for a particular player (reported to be 16 votes for Rice in 2008). The baseballhalloffame.org gives BBWAA election results by year with numbers of votes and percentages for all players. The annual article at Wikipedia includes some prose that will be useful if you want to research this. For example, "Baseball Hall of Fame balloting, 2008" (wikipedia) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_Hall_of_Fame_balloting,_2008) reports that there were 543 ballots cast including three with no votes.

The annual Wikipedia articles includes a table of links for easy navigation among them. See 1985 and 1988 for Fox and Bunning at the zenith, apogee, whatever.