They have similar records

Only 2 this year, Bert Blyleven and Roberto Alomar. Blyleven had the most awesome 12-to-6 curveball I ever saw from a righthander. Sadly, the one incident a lot of people will remember about Alomar will be the spitting incident with John Hirshbeck.

Alomar is in. He was on 90% of the ballots. Pat Gillick was also elected.

Blyleven should have been in years ago. Its strange how a baseball writer can not vote for a player for 10 years and then all of sudden decides the next year he is HOF worthy. What exactly changed? I guess it depends who else is on the ballot in a particular year. Alomar was a great player and deserving candidate.  I think Jack Morris should get in...he dominated the 80's.

Palmerio didn't get in (based on his credentials: 3,000 hits and 500+ homers he should have been a shoe-in) and his failed drug test will keep him out for a long time. It will be interesting to see which one of the Steroid era sluggers gets in first... I say Bonds or A-Rod. Clemens will be another interesting vote.

What hurt Palmerio even more was his "I have never used steroids...period"  finger-pointing at the Congressional hearings. Somehow, I think if these guys had just come out and admitted what they did, they would get elected eventually.

People in SD are still not happy with Robby, but you are right, the stats don't lie, either with him or Bly.  And I agree with you about Morris...I think he deserves it more than Bly, and I was a fan of the "family".

HOF voters seem to put a lot of stock in "when" a candidate gets in - if they don't think a guy is an obvious walk-in choice, then they won't even give him serious consideration for a few years down the road. In the long run, who knows which ballot a guy entered on without doing research? But the voters seem to care.

As for guys like Tommy John, Jim Kaat, and Jack Morris - IMO you are talking about pretty good pitchers who had a couple of great years, but not Hall of Famers. For instance, Morris had a huge 3.90 lifetime ERA and less than 2-1 K:BB ratio. He was overall a .500 pitcher, except for a run in the early 80's when the Tigers were huge, and he gave up a lot of hits and a lot of home runs. How did he stack up against his peers? Well, he only made the All Star team twice in a 20 year career ...