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Ron Santo Denied Entry To Baseball Hall of Fame Yet Again
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by Jon Azpiri | December 8, 2008 at 12:34 pm
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Once again, Chicago Cubs great Ron Santo did not earn enough votes to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Other retired baseball greats who did make the cut include Gil Hodges and Joe Torre.
To get into the Hall, retired players need to receive 75 percent of the vote from the Hall's Veterans Committee. Only former New York Yankee and Cleveland Indian Joe Gordon earned enough votes from the 12-person committee that chooses candidates who played before 1942.
While 19 of 20 potential Hall of Famers failed to get voted in, the public seems most upset about the exclusion of Santo, a longtime broadcaster for the Chicago Cubs. Fans argue that the nine-time All-Star and five-time Gold Gloves winner deserves to be included among the game's best players. During his career, Santo hit .277 with 342 home runs and 1,331 RBIs.
Santo first became eligible for the Hall in 1980 and has gone through many ups and down since then. In recent years, Santo has gotten close to being enshrined. On more than one occasion, Santo has invited media to his home on the day voting results were announced. Every time, Santo was crestfallen as the numbers came in.
Though Santo finished first on the '07 ballot with 57 of 82 votes cast, he was still five votes short of 75 percent. And for the third straight time, no player was elected by the Veterans Committee.
It all seemed like a big tease. Every time Santo would get his hopes up, only to see them dashed. He was worried he wouldn't be around long enough to experience the thrill of getting in, especially after having both legs amputated below the knee in 2001 and '02.
Santo was distraught about the result in '07. He referred to the process as "torture."
"I'll be honest," he said. "Maybe it's just not in the cards [for me]."
Again this year, he was right.
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at 01:07 on December 9th, 2008
As easy as it is for reporters to make this sound like a horrible thing, those of us who were around during Santo's playing time know that he was not a pleasant person. His teamates at the time didn't like him, the people he played against didn't like him, and the media people at the time didn't like him.
Combined with the pathetic and desperate pleas every time he comes up for nomination, it's no wonder that he doesn't make it in.
By stats alone, he should be in. But it doesn't change the fact that the people who have to vote him in remember that he was, for lack of a better term, a jerk while he played.