It Just Takes One...
...lunkhead to ruin it for everybody.
So as I and many others guessed a few weeks back, there was going to be somebody that was going to throw all semblance of logic and reason out the window and not vote for Greg Maddux. And while there may be others, Ken Gurnick was the first vote identified as leaving Maddux off their ballot. In and of itself, this is hardly a big deal, I mean there are plenty of worthy Hall of Famers on this year's ballot and while I may question your sanity and lucidness for putting others ahead of Greg Maddux, with a limit of just 10 choices, maybe, just maybe you just ran out of room and figured Maddux will have 14 more years to get in.
Nah, Ken Gurnick isn't voting for Greg Maddux because, "those who played during the period of PED use, I won't vote for any of them."
He only put one name on his ballot and that's Jack Morris.
/Facepalm.
There are plenty of more talented writers that have already dissected Gurnick's one paragraph explanation of his vote. And the one major flaw in Gurnick's "reasoning" is that he has apparently cracked the code of exactly when the PED era began and ended and whatever that code is, it means despite the careers of Maddux and Morris overlapping over 9 seasons, one is clean and one is tainted.
By what I've gathered on Twitter so far, Gurnick seems like a good enough guy from other reporters that know him and in the end, Maddux will still get in this year and possibly still have the highest vote total of all-time. Unfortunately Gurnick will still get to vote next year and while there's an argument to be made that it's just one man's opinion, an opinion on the Hall of Fame with the gift of an actual ballot should be based on some facts, and it's hard to see which ones he used in this case.
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