There will be no 2021 classes at the Baseball Hall of Fame as voters closed on Tuesday, rejecting the 25 candidates for consecration in Cooperstown.
The state of play: The top three candidates: Curt Schilling (71.1%), Barry Bonds (61.8%) and Roger Clemens (61.6%), fell below the required 75%.
What it says: Schilling, who was only 16 votes short, shared a letter on Facebook ripping off baseball writers and calling for him to retire from the ballot in 2022.
- “I will not participate in the last year of voting. I request that I be removed from the ballot,” Schilling wrote. “I will defer to the veterans committee and the men whose opinions really matter and who are in a position to really judge a player.”
- Schilling has faced backlash in recent years over the political views he has championed on social media, which appear to have limited his support for the vote, according to ESPN. Among them was a 2016 tweet in which he appeared to support lynching journalists and, more recently, his support for the January 6 pro-Trump mob attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Main voters:
- Schilling: 71.1%
- Good: 61.8%
- Clemens: 61.6%
- Scott Rolen: 52.9%
- Omar Vizquel: 49/1%
- Billy Wagner: 46.4%
- Todd Helton: 44.9%
- Gary Sheffield: 40.6%
- Andruw Jones: 33.9%
- Jeff Kent: 32.4%
Note: This is only the ninth time that the American Baseball Writers Association has not chosen a candidate for the Hall of Fame, and the fourth since the rules were changed to eliminate the 1968 by-elections.
What follows: Voters have ten years to consider candidates and Schilling, Bonds and Clemens have lingered on the ballot for nine.
- So next year’s election it will be the writers ’final referendum on the three controversial actors.
- If they are not elected, its fate will fall on a group of 16 people made up of the Hall of Fame, team officers and historians known as the veterans committee.
In depth: