Two weeks ago, the attention of the baseball world turned to the small hamlet of Cooperstown, New York and to summers past as the votes for the 2026 Hall of Fame class were tallied and the results announced. Carlos Beltran and Andruw Jones join Jeff Kent, who was elected by the Veteran’s Committee last month, in obtaining baseball immortality. Beltran was on his fourth year of eligibility while Jones was in his ninth.
Chase Utley was the only other player to score greater than 50% of the vote, finishing with 59.1%.
Aside from Jones, who spent the 2010 season with the White Sox, things started looking up for our local heroes. Manny Ramirez, who spent a little more than a month with the White Sox at the tail end of his career, saw another small increase in support, finishing with 38.8% of the vote thanks to his multiple PED suspensions. Jimmy Rollins, who spent the final 41 games of his career on the south side, picked up 25.4% in his fifth go-around. Cole Hamels, who spent a little less than a year and a half with the Cubs, debuted with 23.8%. Mark Buehrle saw a strong increase, jumping up to 20% in his sixth go-around. The disgraced Omar Vizquel, accused of both sexual abuse of an autistic teen and spousal abuse since being added to the ballot, stayed stagnant with 18.4%. Former Pale Hose Edwin Encarnacion and Gio Gonzalez nabbed six votes between them.
Eleven players will fall off the ballot after failing to score 5% of the vote.
As for the newest Hall of Famers, I’ve seen Beltran play nine times and Jones 37. They will get their day in the sun on Sunday, July 26.
Carlos Beltran’s numbers in games I’ve attended were:
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Last week, we took our annual look at the all-time leaders in pitching stats for the now 1,149 games I’ve attended (and identified) between 1984 and 2025. With the first full squad spring training workout in the books, it’s time to move over to the other side of the ball and take a look at the offensive stat leaders for those games, starting with our first category:
