Goose Gossage dominates MLB this decade

Back to on-field baseball matters - almost. Rich "Goose" Gossage not only finally received the necessary 75% of the votes to get Hall of Fame induction - he received 85.8% of the votes.
I have said every year since he retired, including last night on the show, I feel like he's a deserving Hall of Famer. I would've given him my vote in 2000; I would have given him my vote in 2008. Nothing has changed. He's retired.
Every year, I go off on how ridiculous this phenomenon has really become. Note the following...
Gossage was on the ballot for the first time in 2000. He was named on 33.3% of the ballots.
This year, after another 8 years of inactivity, he was named on 85.8% of the ballots!!!!!
Exactly 300 more people voted for him this year as opposed to his first year and only 47 additional ballots are now distributed. This is absurd.

Soak that in. 8 years of retirement equals 300 more supposedly educated baseball journalists believing you are a Hall of Famer!!!

The balloting results for those two years looked like this...
2000
Name Votes PCT
Fisk, Carlton 397 79.6%
Perez, Tony 385 77.2%
Rice, Jim 257 51.5%
Sutter, Bruce 192 38.5%
Gossage, Rich 166 33.3%
John, Tommy 135 27.1%
Murphy, Dale 116 23.2%
Morris, Jack 111 22.2%
Parker, Dave 104 20.8%
Blyleven, Bert 87 17.4%

2008
Name Votes PCT
Gossage, Rich 466 85.8%
Rice, Jim 392 72.2%
Dawson, Andre 358 65.9%
Blyleven, Bert 336 61.9%
Smith, Lee 235 43.3%
Morris, Jack 233 42.9%
John, Tommy 158 29.1%
Raines, Tim 132 24.3%
McGwire, Mark 128 23.6%
Parker, Dave 82 15.1%
Murphy, Dale 75 13.8%

Gossage vote differential: Up 300 votes, 33.3% to 85.8%
Bert Blyleven vote differential: Up 249 votes, 17.4% to 61.9%
Jim Rice vote differential: Up 135 votes, 51.5% to 72.2%
Jack Morris vote differential: Up 122 votes, 22.2% to 42.9%
but
Tommy John vote differential: Up 23 votes, 27.1% to 29.1%
Dale Murphy vote differential: Up 41 votes, 13.8% to 21.2%

So the top 4 guys were really good over the last 8 years of retirement, while John & Murphy remained very average while they were collecting unemployment?????
Something is seriously wrong with a great number of Hall of Fame voters. Why do Blyleven's numbers look so much better over the years, while John's do not? How about Murphy and Rice?? This is just utterly ridiculous. Either you deserve to get in or you don't.

Surfing the Net
- Plenty of links on the way, but here's Roger Clemens admission that he used steroids. Yes, it's edited (collegehumor)


- As always more updates throughout the day-------WEX

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