There will be no Class of 2021 in the Baseball Hall of Fame, as voters closed their doors on Tuesday, rejecting all 25 candidates for consecration in Cooperstown.
The situation: 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 is he saying: Schilling, who had only 16 votes less, shared a letter on Facebook tearing baseball writers apart and asking to be removed from the polls in 2022.
- “I will not participate in the last year of voting. I am asking to be removed from the ballot,” wrote Schilling. “I will refer the matter to the veterans committee and the men whose opinions really matter and who are in a position to really judge a player.”
- Schilling has faced backlash in recent years for the political views he espoused on social media, which appear to have limited his support for the vote, according to ESPN. Among them was a 2016 tweet in which he appeared to support lynching journalists and, more recently, his support for the January 6 pro-Trump mob attack on the United States Capitol.
Top voters:
- Shilling: 71.1%
- Titles: 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 importance: This is only the ninth time that the Baseball Writers Association of America has not elected a candidate for the Hall of Fame, and the fourth since the rules were changed to eliminate the second round of the 1968 election.
What is the next: Voters have 10 years to consider candidates, and Schilling, Bonds and Clemens remained in the vote for nine.
- So next year’s election it will be the writers’ final referendum on the three controversial players.
- If they are not elected, his fate will fall on a panel of 16 people from the Hall of Fame, team officials and historians known as the veterans committee.
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