Rickey Henderson cruised in with 94.8% of the vote and Jim Rice sqeaked by with 76.4%.  Here's a link to an article with all the vote totals and quotes from some of the voters on who they picked and why: MLB.com voters share Hall thoughts

My first reaction to the voting is that there were no surprises - Rickey was a no brainer and Rice was about as borderline as it gets.  So no big complaints.  I know a lot of Cardinals fans would like to see Big Mac in the Hall but that's clearly not going to happen any time soon.  Lee Smith is probably deserving but has time to gather nostalgia votes and may be enshrined in a few years.  Blyleven and Dawson are marginal HOFers at best and I doubt anyone other than Twins and Cubs fans (respectively) care very much about them.  (Though Bill James once made a strong case for Blyleven - I couldn't find a link to it but here is a blog post that gives you the gist)

My second reaction was that 5.2% of the voters should be banned from future elections (the ones who didn't vote for Rickey, in case that wasn't obvious).  I simply can't imagine a plausible reason that Henderson doesn't deserve to be in Cooperstown.  I don't think I need to go into the numbers but he's the career leader in Runs (what the game is all about) and Steals (exciting) and second only to Barry Bonds in walks.  Apparently some voters think there should never be a unanimous vote and left Rickey off for that reason.  I think that attitude makes a mockery of the system - it is an honor to be able to vote for the HOF and those who do should take it seriously and vote for players who deserve it.  Does anyone out there have any ideas about 1) why Rickey didn't deserve the Hall or 2) how the voting system can be improved?

My final thought is that maybe the Rickey vote is a good thing, leaving open the possibility that, sometime around 2030, Albert Pujols could be the first unanimous inductee.

I'm working in Las Vegas and got to go to the Redbirds-51s game last night, and will be there tonight for the series finale.  I actually only saw the last 9 innings last night, after arriving in the 3rd.

My biggest concern was the infield defense.  Barden seemed fine but both Hoffpauir and Freese looked more like college players than major leaguers. The box score only gave the Redbirds 3 errors:

http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?sid=t235&gid=2008_05_08_mrbaaa_lvgaaa_1&cid=235&t=g_bo

But there were a few other questionable plays.  It might just have been one bad night, but based on the defense I saw I'd be surprised if either Hoff or Freese plays in St. Louis this year.

The offense and the pitching looked promising.  Jaime Garcia looked good, he was consistently ahead of hitters.  Motte and Perez each pitched well.  (The run off Perez in the 11th should have been UNearned - the runner who scored reached on a soft floater to 3rd that Freese definitely should have caught.)  If the Cards need bullpen help anytime soon, those two look like reasonable alternatives to Kelvin Jimenez.

Stavinoha and Freese both did what was asked of them to get Phelps home in the 4th.  Phelps had led off with a double; Stavinoha forced a grounder to second to move him to third, and Freese then fouled off several pitches before lifting a fly ball to score the runner.  Nice to see young players executing the fundamentals.

Speaking of which, Joe Mather looked like the real deal.  He was officially 2 for 5 with a double and a run scored.  He also crushed a ball that was caught (Cashman field has a lot of room for flyballs to die - straightaway center is 433 feet), laid down a nice sac bunt in the 12th to put the lead run in scoring position, and made a nice throw from RF to complete a double play to end the 51s tenth.  He'll definitely deserve a look if any of our outfielders gets injured or traded

Anderson can hit and he's a lot faster than Yadi on the basepaths.  Rasmus looked like he's still trying to find his swing, but he was solid in the field and displayed a strong arm.  Anthony Reyes is listed as the starter for tonight, that should be interesting and I'll try to post my notes as soon as I can.