Major League Baseball

Like Dawson, time's on Alomar's side

Published Jan. 6, 2010 12:00 a.m. ET

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For Andre Dawson, the wait finally ended on Wednesday.

He got the call. He’s in the Hall.

For Roberto Alomar the wait has only just begun.

Word of advice for Alomar: Take a deep breath. Relax. Don’t get caught up with all the folks who are in a snit over the fact that in the first year of Hall of Fame eligibility you were slighted by the voters.

It could be worse.

Ask Bert Blyleven.

Think it’s frustrating to be named on 397 of the 539 ballots cast by veteran members of the Baseball Writers Association of America, coming up eight votes shy of the 75 percent necessary for enshrinement?

Blyleven finished just ahead of you, five votes less than the 405 needed to be inducted, and this was the 13th time he has been put through the annual anxiety of awaiting word on the Hall of Fame vote only to have the door shut in his face.

Don’t get caught up in what didn’t happen. Think about what is going to happen.

It could be worse. Check out Dale Murphy, who won back-to-back NL MVPs and in his 12th year on the ballot, still only had 63 votes (11.7 percent) or Dave Parker, who in his next-to-last year of eligibility received only 82 votes (15.2 percent). They don’t even have hope.

Alomar, however, has reason to anticipate an eventual induction.

Dawson knows all about it. He was voted into the Hall of Fame in his ninth year of eligibility.

"One thing my mom always said was, 'It’s going to happen one day,'" Dawson said on Wednesday. "It’s inevitable. Be ready to enjoy it when it happens."

In other words, don’t sweat the small stuff. So the BBWAA embarrassed itself by failing to make you the 45th player elected in his first year of eligibility. There are 63 others who were slighted in their first year of eligibility but still wound up being enshrined.

Dawson is the latest.

He worked his way up the vote totals from receiving only 45 percent support in his first year of eligibility, 2002, to 67 percent support a year ago to 77.9 percent support this year, having his name on 420 of the 539 ballots cast.

Alomar at least is starting off with 73.7 percent.

Next year, he should be inducted, along with Blyleven, whose failure to gain enshrinement by five votes is the fifth closest in history. Nellie Fox, in 1985, and Pie Traynor, in 1947, both came up two votes short. Billy Williams, in 1986, and Jim Bunning, in 1988, both came up four votes short. All four were eventually enshrined, although Fox, whose two-vote slight came in his 15th and final year of eligibility, had to turn to the Veterans Committee to be given his due.

Is it fair?

Who said anything about life would be?

What’s fair is that once a player is elected to the Hall of Fame, whether it’s the 15th year on the ballot, like Jim Rice a year ago, or in the first year of eligibility, they are all treated alike. There’s no special room for first-time electees. There’s no dungeon where the plaques for those who took 10 or 15 years to be elected are shown.

"Jim being in his last year of eligibility and getting in says a lot about if you belong in the Hall of Fame you eventually are going to get in no matter how long it takes," admitted Dawson.

The plaques, don’t even mention how many times a player was on the ballot. They just honor him for his induction.

It’s silly that a voter will decide after two or five or 10 or 15 years that a player suddenly is Hall of Fame worthy, considering that the player hasn’t swung a bat or thrown a pitch since five years before his name first went on the ballot.

But that’s life.

Ask Cy Young or Grover Cleveland Alexander or Rogers Hornsby or Lefty Grove or Jimmie Foxx or Mel Ott or Joe DiMaggio or Yogi Berra or Whitey Ford or Juan Marichal or Luis Aparicio or Billy Williams.

They are among the 63 players who were not voted into the Hall of Fame in their first year of eligibility but have since been enshrined.

The BBWAA should have outgrown it by now.

It’s not surprising that after electing five players in the first year of voting, back in 1936, it wasn’t until 1962 that the BBWAA sent another player to Cooperstown in the first year of eligibility. The voters, after all, were trying to make up for all the years before the Hall of Fame was opened, as well as keeping up with the newly eligibles each time they voted.

By now, however, it would seem that the oversights have been dealt with and first-time election would be the standard operating procedure.

It isn’t.

It is getting closer.

Dawson is only the sixth inductee among the 16 elected since 2001 who wasn’t enshrined in his first year of eligibility.

Next year, Alomar and Blyleven figure to become the seventh and eighth.

Bad as they may be, old habits are just hard to break.

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