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Around pro baseball: Hall of Fame results announced Wednesday
Published: 1/8/2013 2:30 PM
Last Modified: 1/8/2013 6:56 PM

This year's Hall of Fame balloting results will be announced on Wednesday.

The results are probably the most anticipated in many years as it will be interesting to see how the Baseball Writers Association of America deals with ballot newcomers such as Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and former Tulsa Drillers outfielder Sammy Sosa, who have come under suspicion of using performance-enhancing drugs. Character is part of the criteria for election.

Voters can select up to 10 players. It takes 75 percent of the vote to be elected. I am not a BBWAA member and do not have a Hall of Fame vote, but if I did I would vote for: Jack Morris, Craig Biggio, Mike Piazza and Lee Smith.

Morris, who came very close last year, was a big-game pitcher with 254 career wins. Biggio had 3,060 hits and 3,000 is usually an automatic qualifier (unless you are Pete Rose and have been banned from baseball). Biggio was a team player who played the game the right way. Piazza is one of baseball's top hitting catchers. Smith was a dominant reliever who was the all-time saves leader for more than a decade.

I could not vote for Bonds, Clemens and Sosa this year and give them baseball's highest honor of a first-ballot election. They don't deserve to be in Cooperstown yet just as Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro don't either, yet. Perhaps someday.

Others on the ballot include Dale Murphy, Curt Schilling, Tim Raines, Jeff Bagwell, Alan Trammell and former Drillers outfielder Larry Walker. They would all be tough for me to leave off my ballot, but for me, they fall just a little bit short of being worthy of being in the Hall of Fame.

-- Barry Lewis






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Pro Baseball

Tulsa World sports writer Barry Lewis joined the newspaper in September 1993. A University of Tulsa graduate, he covered high school sports for the Tulsa Tribune from 1983 to 1992 and has been in charge of the World's high school coverage since 2004. He remembers well the excitement of attending his first high school football game, Edison at Booker T. Washington, before a capacity crowd at S.E. Williams Stadium in 1973. He also has reported on Tulsa Drillers baseball at both newspapers for almost 20 years.

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