Craig Biggio Misses the Hall of Fame By Two Votes

The 2014 Baseball Hall of Fame class was announced today, and once again Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell fell short of the 75% of votes needed to be forever enshrined in Cooperstown.

Greg Maddux (97.2%), Tom Glavine (91.9%) and Frank Thomas (83.7%) were the three players the Baseball Writers Association of America deemed worthy of baseball immortality.

This article is not meant to take anything away from those great players, because they are all certainly worthy of the Hall of Fame. However, it is an absolute joke that #5 and #7 will not be joining them this year.

You know the stats, but I’m going to list them again anyway.

Jeff Bagwell played 15 seasons, all with the Houston Astros. For his career, he hit for an average of .297, had 449 home runs, 1529 runs batted in, 488 doubles, 202 stolen bases, and drew 1401 walks. Not only that, Bagwell was widely considered one of the best defensive first basemen in the game. Who could forget the way he would charge the plate on a bunt attempt?

Bagwell received 54.3 percent of the vote today. That means that 45.7% members of the BBWAA do not see, for whatever reason, those numbers as being worthy of the Hall of Fame. I’m not going to go into the moral stances some are taking with their votes because of steroid allegations because frankly, it has been covered at length and those people are not worth my time.

What is certain is that Jeff Bagwell played a Hall of Fame worthy career. I don’t care who you are, when you look at these numbers, you have to see greatness.

Craig Biggio played for 20 seasons, all with the Astros. For his career, he hit for an average of .281, had 291 home runs, and 414 stolen bases. He is fourth all-time with 668 doubles and was the 27th member of the 3,000 hit club, finishing with 3,060 hits. He won four Gold Gloves and five Silver Slugger awards.

Craig Biggio is the only person not named Pete Rose who has 3,000 hits and is not in the Hall of Fame.

Let that sink in. In his second year of eligibility, 25.2% of the members of the BBWAA do not view Craig Biggio as worthy of joining his fellow members of that elite group in Cooperstown.

I honestly don’t understand that. Maybe it’s me being a homer (it isn’t), but there is no excuse to not mark Craig Biggio’s name on your ballot.

Sure, Biggio will probably eventually get in. But that isn’t the point. We, as Astros fans should not have to make these arguments on behalf of the two greatest players to ever wear Houston’s uniforms. Their numbers and careers should speak for themselves.

Today is a sad day in Houston.