Adam Rubin, ESPN Staff Writer 9y

Globe columnist: 'No' on Hall for Piazza

NEW YORK -- Grantland's Jonah Keri is compiling Hall of Fame ballots made public by voters, including mine. So far he's tallied 17 voters' ballots. And Mike Piazza appears on all but one. The lone dissenter: Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy.

Shaughnessy writes in the Globe:

Adam Rubin

Mike Piazza is faring well in early returns for the Hall of Fame.

Objection to the Roids Boys is gradually eroding. As years pass and new voters replace older voters, it is likely there will be increased leniency. Each year there are more voters who don’t care about PEDs. The thinking becomes, “This was the era. They were all doing it.’’ Or, “Bonds and Clemens were already Hall of Famers before they started cheating.’’

Sorry, I am not there. No votes for guys caught using. And worse -- no votes for guys who just don’t look right. Bagwell and Piazza are the two players most penalized for this arbitrary crime. By any statistical measurement, Bagwell and Piazza are first-ballot Hall of Famers, yet their vote totals (62 percent for Piazza last year, 54 percent for Bagwell) remain considerably lower than their résumés merit.

A candidate needs to appear on 75 percent of submitted ballots in order to be elected. Last year, in his second year on the ballot, Piazza appeared on 62.2 percent of ballots.

Last year, 571 ballots ultimately were cast.

The new class will be announced Jan. 6 at 2 p.m.

Piazza told ESPNNewYork.com last week: "I'm a super-traditionalist. As I said many times before, the fact that Joe DiMaggio took three ballots, and Yogi Berra, I think it’s a process. And that’s part of the prestige of the Hall is the actual debates and all the discussions that go around it. I just try to step out of it a little bit and just let the experts do what they do. And I get a lot of support. So I’m optimistic. We’ll just see what happens. For me, I just let the process play itself out and just be as positive as I can be.”

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