Okay, here’s the full vote. My thoughts below the table…

2008 Hall of Fame Vote

Player
Votes
Pct

Courtesy MLB.com.

Rich Gossage
466
85.8%

Jim Rice
392
72.2%

Andre Dawson
358
65.9%

Bert Blyleven
336
61.9%

Lee Smith
235
43.3%

Jack Morris
233
42.9%

Tommy John
158
29.1%

Tim Raines
132
24.3%

Mark McGwire
128
23.6%

Alan Trammell
99
18.2%

Dave Concepcion
88
16.2%

Don Mattingly
86
15.8%

Dave Parker
82
15.1%

Dale Murphy
75
13.8%

Harold Baines
28
5.2%

Rod Beck
2
0.4%

Travis Fryman
2
0.4%

Robb Nen
2
0.4%

Shawon Dunston
1
0.2%

Chuck Finley
1
0.2%

David Justice
1
0.2%

Chuck Knoblauch
1
0.2%

Todd Stottlemyre
1
0.2%

Jose Rijo
0
0%

Brady Anderson
0
0%

As promised, my take:

The voters finally stopped screwing Goose Gossage. This business about Bruce Sutter paving the way for him is absolute garbage. Gossage came first and was a better pitcher.
They completely dropped the ball on Tim Raines. There is no way in Hades that Jim Rice was a better player than Raines. Why folks in charge of this sort of …read more

He isn’t the player he once was, and he’ll always be remembered as a key figure during baseball’s steroid era, but the Rangers’ Sammy Sosa pounded his 600th career home run on Wednesday against the Chicago Cubs, the team that made him famous. The blast came at the expense of Jason Marquis in the fifth inning of the Rangers’ 7-3 victory and puts Sosa in rare company. Only four other men — Hank Aaron, Barry Bonds, Babe Ruth, and Willie Mays — have hit more homers in MLB history.
Sosa is only a marginally effective player these days — .242/.297/.458 is …read more

I know it’s early, but in the interest of accountability, I thought we should check in on our earlier predictions for the 2007 baseball season. Amazingly, a few of these have already happened.
Okay, would you believe one of these has happened? Yep, Mark McGwire wasn’t voted into the Hall of Fame. I’ll give myself partial credit for calling the Lou Piniella tirade. It didn’t go down quite the way I said it would, but the season is young — give him time.
Also, I have no way of verifying whether Daisuke Matsuzaka has become addicted to My Name Is Earl. But …read more

So, Pete Rose is changing his story. Again. Used to be he didn’t bet at all. Then he bet, but only on his team and only “four or five times a week.” Now it seems he bet on his team every night.
Incredible.
That word, incidentally, means lacking credibility. Rose is absolutely, without a doubt, incredible.
I particularly like the way he worked Mark McGwire and steroids into the discussion. What, no love for O.J. Simpson?
I’ve long thought that letting Rose into the Hall of Fame would be a mistake. Now I wonder if maybe that’s what it will take to make him …read more