NEW YORK -- Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz and Craig Biggio were elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in a blockbuster vote by the Baseball Writers' Association of America on Tuesday.
The three pitchers were voted in their first time on the ballot, while Biggio was selected in his third year.
It was the first time in 60 years that the BBWAA has elected four players from the same ballot and the first time three pitchers were elected in the same year. The BBWAA has now elected 119 of the 215 players in the Hall.
The new quartet of electees will be inducted on July 26 in Cooperstown, N.Y., during the second day of the annual Hall of Fame Induction Weekend ceremonies. Unlike last year when the Expansion Era Committee elected managers Bobby Cox, Joe Torre and Tony La Russa, there were no electees this year from the Golden Era Committee that considered nine players and one executive whose careers were prominent from 1947-72.
Biggio joins a plethora of 3,000-hit players in the Hall. Save for Pete Rose (who is serving a lifetime suspension for betting on baseball and is not eligible for the Hall of Fame), Rafael Palmeiro (who was once suspended for performance-enhancing drugs and is no longer on the ballot) and Derek Jeter(who retired this past season with 3,465 hits and is eligible for the Hall in 2020), Biggio was the only player with 3,000 or more hits who had not been elected.
Johnson, with 303 wins, was a certain first-ballot selection. His 4,875 whiffs are the most ever by a left-hander and second behind Nolan Ryan's all-time record (5,714). Johnson played for six teams, winning his 300th game for the Giants in 2009, pitching a perfect game for the D-backs in 2004 against the Braves and sharing the 2001 World Series MVP Award with teammate Curt Schilling as the D-backs beat the Yankees in seven games. He won five Cy Young Awards, one in the American League for Seattle in 1995, and four in a row in the National League for Arizona from 1999-2002.
Martinez, another first-time candidate, pitched for five teams in 18 seasons, but his claim to fame centered on the seven seasons (1998-2004) he pitched for the Red Sox, for whom he had a remarkable 117-37 record. His career record was 219-100, and his winning percentage of .687 is the sixth best all-time. Martinez won the Cy Young Award three times, twice while with Boston, including 1999, when he took the AL's pitching Triple Crown with a career-high 23 wins, a 2.07 ERA and 313 strikeouts.
Smoltz is set to join Cox, Maddux and Glavine in the Hall. The three starting pitchers played together on the Braves under Cox's tutelage for 10 seasons. Smoltz had 213 wins and 154 saves, and he enjoyed the longest consecutive tenure with Atlanta of the trio of Hall of Fame pitchers. The right-hander played 20 seasons for a Braves team that went to the playoffs in 14 consecutive non-strike seasons from 1991-2005, captured five NL pennants and won the 1995 World Series. Smoltz was a huge part of all that winning as he was 2-2 in five World Series (1991-92-95-96-99) and 13-2 in 33 playoff games.
Beyond Piazza, no one else was close. Bagwell needed 106 more votes, and Tim Raines, with only two years left on the ballot under the new 10-year eligibility rule, settled at 55 percent.
The other players most affected by the shadow of performance-enhancing drugs didn't move the needle much, either. Roger Clemens (37.5) percent and Barry Bonds (36.8) moved a few ticks up. Mark McGwire (10 percent) and Sammy Sosa (6.6 percent) barely remained on the ballot. A player needs 5 percent of the vote each year to carry over.
In his final year on the ballot, Don Mattingly, grandfathered in under the old eligibility rules of 15 years, received 50 votes (9.1), and he'll be eligible for consideration by the Expansion Era Committee in two years.
----- Source: MLB.com