Shut Out: Nobody Elected to 2013 Baseball Hall of Fame Class

Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame will not add a new member to its 2013 class.

This was the first year steroid users like Barry Bonds, the sport’s single-season and career home run king and only seven-time Most Valuable Player, and Roger Clemens, the game’s only seven-time Cy Young Award Winner, were eligible to go to Cooperstown.

Players have to receive at least 75% of the votes from nearly 600 voters to get into Cooperstown. This season, former Houston Astros great Craig Biggio received the highest share of votes (68.2%). Clemens and Bonds received 37.6% and 36.2% of the vote, respectively. Clemens, Bonds, Mike Piazza, Biggio, and others who appeared for the first time on the ballot this year have 14 more years to get elected by the writers. 

There are nearly 600 eligible voters from the Baseball Writers Association of America who are eligible to vote. Voters have to have been members of the organization for 10 consecutive years at any point in their careers. 

These were the ten players who received the most votes on this year’s ballot:

Craig Biggio – 68.2%
Jack Morris  – 67.7%
Jeff Bagwell – 59.6%
Mike Piazza – 57.8%
Tim Raines – 52.2%
Lee Smith – 47.8%
Curt Schilling – 38.8%
Roger Clemens — 37.6%
Barry Bonds – 36.2%
Edgar Martinez -35.9%

According to the Associated Press, since 1965, the only years in which baseball writers did not elect a new member to the Hall of Fame were in 1971 and 1996.  Yankee great Yogi Berra topped the 1971 vote. Knuckleballer Phil Niekro topped the 1996 ballot. Both got elected the next year.

Last month, three inductees were chosen by “the 16-member panel considering individuals from the era before integration in 1946: Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert, umpire Hank O’Day and barehanded catcher Deacon White.”

All three are deceased, which means there will not be a living person who will be enshrined on July 28 in Cooperstown.