Greg Maddux is considered by many to be a perfect MLB Hall of Fame candidate. But he will not become the first unanimous inductee.
MLB.com’s Ken Gurnick left Maddux off his ballot, instead voting only for Jack Morris. Maddux had appeared on all 149 Hall of Fame ballots collected by Baseball Think Factory as of 10:30 a.m. ET on Tuesday, but Gurnick went against the grain with some rather controversial logic.
Below is Gurnick’s reasoning for his ballot, according to MLB.com.
“Morris has flaws — a 3.90 ERA, for example. But he gets my vote for more than a decade of ace performance that included three 20-win seasons, Cy Young Award votes in seven seasons and Most Valuable Players votes in five. As for those who played during the period of PED use, I won’t vote for any of them.”
We’ve already seen players who played during the Steroid Era have performance-enhancing drug suspicions held against them. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens — two of the greatest players of their generation — were denied enshrinement last year because of steroid suspicions that have surrounded them in recent years. Maddux has never been linked to PEDs, though, and his candidacy thus has been considered a slam dunk among most Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA) voters.
Maddux won four straight Cy Young Awards with the Braves from 1992 to 1995, and he won at least 15 games in 18 of 19 seasons from 1988 to 2006. The eight-time All-Star finished his career with 355 victories, four National League ERA crowns, 18 Gold Gloves and a World Series ring.
Have a question for Ricky Doyle? Send it to him via Twitter at @TheRickyDoyle or send it here.
