Ken Gurnick, right, voted for no players other than Jack Morris (Photo courtesy of fepo.com)
The frenzy created by Dodgers beat writer Ken Gurnick's Hall of Fame vote today led to Gurnick himself coming out publicly to talk about his vote. Gurnick appeared on Sirus XM's Inside Pitch with Jim Bowden and Casey Stern and explained his position to vote for Jack Morris and nobody else this Hall of Fame ballot. Gurnick sounded defeated, and like a guy beat up, rather than some sort of bully.
Gurnick's rationale for his near-blank ballot was that he does not know who was a steroid user and who was not. Gurnick admitted that he had no evidence for or against players such as Greg Maddux, Mike Piazza, Tom Glavine, and others. With no definitive evidence either way, he will instead abstain.
On MLB.com earlier today, Gurnick explained his vote:
Morris has flaws — a 3.90 ERA, for example. But he gets my vote for more than a decade of ace performance that included three 20-win seasons, Cy Young Award votes in seven seasons and Most Valuable Player votes in five. As for those who played during the period of PED use, I won't vote for any of them.
Gurnick decided and declared publicly that he will never vote for the Hall of Fame ever again, choosing to abstain. Mariano Rivera may be the next near-lock five years from now. Gurnick would not vote for him for the same reason. He cannot tell for sure. Thus, he will not vote again.
Gurnick also said that last year he voted the same exact way: a vote for Jack Morris and no one else. Morris himself he found having a tough call; he did overlap a couple of the "steroid era" years of 1992 through 1994. Despite those years
So, Gurnick voted one last time to get Morris a vote in hopes that Morris would be elected. But, what we did see was a guy who was giving an honest opinion, though most of us disagree with him. He is not a bad guy, just one that we might think is misled. While I still think all balloting should be anonymous, we need not worry about getting angry again.
