MLB Hall of Fame: Jack Morris falls short in final year on ballot
By Hayden Kane
Somehow, the Hall of Fame candidacy of pitcher Jack Morris morphed into an unfortunate iteration of the “debate” between old school and new school. Pitcher’s wins and the “eye test” rose to the top of an argument that should never have taken away from Morris’s fine career.
2014 was Morris’s 15th and final shot to get in. At 61.5% of the votes, he fell well short and is now off the BBWAA ballot (tweet from Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com):
Jack Morris received 61.5 percent in his last year on the Hall of Fame ballot to fall short of the necessary 75 percent.
— Rhett Bollinger (@RhettBollinger) January 8, 2014
Put in perspective, it was likely the previous years that he didn’t make it that proved to be more costly than this one. The arrival of Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and Mike Mussina to go along with Curt Schilling and the troubled Roger Clemens meant that there were a lot of pitchers who also had a case in 2013 and 2014.
Those who championed Morris’s case have expressed some frustration with the “internet” for making a case against him (meaning, presumably, writers on the internet as opposed to the disembodied thing itself). If that were true, it would only apply to the most recent ballots. But due to this year’s loaded ballot, Morris was going to have a hard time no matter what the “internet” said.
No, this has a lot more to do with the fact that Morris didn’t reach the 75% mark in previous years when few or no players were voted into the Hall of Fame.