Ralph Kiner

The story of Ralph Kiner getting into the Hall of Fame tells you how erratic the voters can be. From the same article by Dan Levy "Baseball Hall of Fame: If you can't fix the voters, fix the voting."

In 1960, back when Hall of Fame voting happened every other season, Ralph Kiner received 1.1 percent of the vote in his first year of eligibility. Two years later, Kiner received 3.1 percent, and a pattern was beginning to form. It wasn't until his 10th year on the ballot that Kiner received more than 50% of the vote. And as the math stayed consistent with the kind of formula that would need all 20 years to enter the Hall of Fame, (his last year of eligibility) he in fact did qualify for the 75 percentile of votes to get into Cooperstown.

Did Kiner become a better player over those 15 retired seasons? Or did he have to wait for more vote-worthy players like Stan "the man" Musial, Warren Spahn, Mickey Mantle, or Lawrence "Yogi" Berra to enter before him?

According to Dan Levy, what happened to Ralphie boy has happened throughout history.

(thanks to the Dan Levy article)

Kevin Marquez