1. Outstanding class this year with Maddux, Glavine, and Thomas. Great to see after nobody was elected last year. Of course, my favorite Maddux memory is him getting pummeled for eight runs in four innings during the 2001 NLCS hah. 2015 has absolute locks Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez plus the likes of Smoltz and Sheffield.
2. Yes, it's stupid that nobody has ever been unanimously voted into the HOF. However, this is an overblown criticism and some people (elsewhere, not here) seem to get way too worked up about it. I don't think there's any defensible logic as to why 16 guys did not vote Maddux for inclusion (bizarrely we know that there was one submitted blank ballot, and another voted only for Jack Morris), but nevertheless getting 97% support is incredible. In what other facet of our society is that even possible? You're not going to find very many films or albums that 97% are going to say are all time greats, so to me this is something about Maddux's career to be lauded.
3. It's strange to see that Curt Schilling's candidacy plummeted. He favors extremely well in both the classic and advances stats categories for HOF membership (except there appears to be those that think wins in a career is the only thing that matters for a pitcher). For instance, his Hall of Fame Monitor ranking (created by Bill James, it describes how likely - not how deserving - a player is to be voted in based on how voters have previously valued certain accomplishments) puts him as basically a lock. Nevertheless, he went from 38.8% last year in his first attempt to 29.2% this year. Presumably, some dropped him in order to make room on their ballot for his two better contemporaries that became eligible, but that would mean that quite a few members had ten players on their ballot above Schilling (ten is the max, about half of the voters select the max) which in my opinion is a mistake. We'll see what happens next year when he's listed along with his prolific teammates.
4. I guess we should have expected that the individual who gave his ballot to Deadspin would have been loudmouthed fool Dan Le Batard. Some of his criticism is warranted, but his whinefest over the mistreatment by the voters towards the poor steroid users? Give me a break.
