Early Hall Of Fame Voting Shows Positive Sign For David Ortiz
BOSTON (CBS) -- David Ortiz has the credentials and the résumé to be a Hall of Famer. Thus far in the process, he also has the votes.
While there's still a long way to go in the process, the early returns on public ballots offer a very positive picture for Ortiz, who is eligible for the Hall of Fame for the first time this year.
Ryan Thibodaux, who runs the Baseball Hall of Fame Vote Tracker website, shared an update on voting based on all of the ballots that have been made public so far. In those ballots, Ortiz had received 78.6 percent of the votes. (Players must receive votes from 75 percent of voters in order to be enshrined.)
Of course, a very small percentage of voters has returned and publicized ballots thus far. The updated tracker (as of this writing) has Ortiz a little bit lower, at 76.7 percent. So there remains a very strong possibility that he falls beneath the 75 percent threshold this year.
Ortiz was joined by Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds as the only players above the 75 percent threshold. All three players were at 76.7 percent at the time of this writing.
Clemens and Bonds -- both of whom have the cloud of steroid suspicion hanging above them -- are on the ballot for the 10th and final time. Clemens garnered 61.6 percent of the vote last year, while Bonds got 61.8 percent. Those were the highest marks yet for the players with obvious Hall of Fame careers, but they still fell well short of reaching the 75 percent mark when all ballots were counted.
Elsewhere, Curt Schilling -- who asked to be removed from the ballot in January, though that request was denied -- has received 66.7 percent of publicized votes thus far. Last year, Schilling came just 16 votes shy of earning enshrinement, a result he had not yet learned before he wrote that letter to the Hall of fame.
Last year, no players received enough votes to earn a spot in the Hall. Also in his first year of eligibility, Alex Rodriguez has received just 46.7 percent of the vote. Former Red Sox World Series MVP Manny Ramirez has gotten just 36.7 percent of votes so far, in his sixth year of eligibility.
