Unless, that is, you happen to be Rich "Goose" Gossage (if you do happen to be him: congrats). The journeyman fastballer finally managed to secure a spot in Cooperstown after 9 years on the ballot -- he'll be the only player inducted into the HOF this year. Good for him.
Predictably, Mark McGwire did NOT make the cut... in the wake of the Mitchell report brouhaha, he should probably be thankful that he actually still managed to weasel his way to 23.6% of the vote. Don Mattingly scored even lower in the voting. It still surprises me that Mattingly never makes the cut, to be honest. Lord knows I hate the Yankees as much as any red-blooded Sox fan should, but he's Donnie Baseball, for Pete's sake. I understand the arguments about how short his career was, but surely the fact that he was one of the most popular pinstripers of all time while racking up incredible numbers for 5 years (along with a batting title and an AL MVP award) should be taken into account, no?
My favorite part of this year's ballot is the handful of kind-of-good Yankees players who really just got lucky by virtue of playing for a dynastic team at the height of its power languishing down at the bottom with 1 or 2 votes. David Justice. Chuck FREAKING Knoblauch. The only thing Knoblauch was ever good at was having a name that conveniently rhymed with Brian Daubach (remember those days?) and looking kind of like a life-sized Rock 'Em-Sock 'Em Robot.
Oh, Rod Beck is still on the ballot too. Haha. I mean... RIP, dude. I hope they have Amber Bock and deep-fried Oreos in Heaven.
Here ya go.
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