Baseball’s Hall of Fame voting results for 2009 will be announced today. Rickey Henderson is likely to make it on his first try and Jim Rice needs to pick up a few more votes on his last chance before going into the “veterans” pool.

And then there’s Bert.

After years of being a middle-of-the-pack candidate, Bert Blyleven took a big jump toward election last year when he went from 47.7 of the vote (in 2007)  to 61.9 percent last year. A player needs to be chosen on 75 percent of the ballots to get in.

Fifth all time in strikeouts, ninth in shutouts andf 27th in wins, Bert’s omission from the Hall (and his lack of serious contention in his first years on the ballot) is an oversight that has four more chances to be corrected. Blyleven is on the writers’ ballot until 2012.

The internet is filled with analysis about why Bert should be honored. One of the best compilations is at the dated but data-filled BertBelongs.com, which helps dispel the motion that the Blyleven call is more than a hometown thing. If you need further evidence, spend a couple of minutes on a Google search today. Here’s a link to the Hall of Fame’s yearly voting results and, if you click on Bert’s name, you can track the year-by-year totals since he became eligible.

Bert has expressed varying degrees of frustration and resignation with his plight over the years. Last year, he watched the results come in on TV. This year,  he’s being distracted by putting on a uniform and participating in the Twins’ fantasy camp in Fort Myers, where he’ll be brushing back middle-aged guys by day and telling them fart jokes over drinks at night.

Sometimes, the right decisions take a while to be made.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 12th, 2009 at 8:35 am and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.