No candidates elected to Hall of Fame for 2021 first time since 2013

For the ninth time in 77 years of balloting by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America for the National Baseball Hall of Fame, no candidate received the amount of votes necessary to gain election to the game’s shrine.

Players are elected to the Hall provided they are named on 75 percent of ballots cast by eligible members of the BBWAA. With 401 ballots submitted in the 2021 election, including a record total of 14 blanks, candidates needed to total 301 votes to be elected.

As mentioned on various websites around the baseball world, the character and association with PED's prevented many from obtaining the threshold necessary to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

From a personal perspective, I believe that if a player has been associated with or been found using PED's that they shouldn't get inducted into the Hall of Fame. While it has been said that Major League Baseball might have known what was happening and did nothing to stop it, at the end of the day, it is the players who made the decision.

Taking personal responsibility is a message that we need to teach our children, and I am glad that the writers who voted this year took that into account. I know that I will teach my children that no matter what happens around them, you have the ultimate decision to make, and your actions have consequences, good or bad.

Falling 16 votes short was pitcher Curt Schilling, whose total of 285 in his ninth and next to last year of eligibility represented 71.1 percent of the electorate.

The only players other than Schilling who received more than 50 percent of the vote in the 2021 election were outfielder Barry Bonds with 248 (61.8), pitcher Roger Clemens with 247 (61.6) and third baseman Scott Rolen with 212 (52.9). As with Schilling, Bonds and Clemens will be in their final year of eligibility in 2022. This was Rolen’s fourth year on the ballot.

Candidates may remain on the BBWAA ballot for up to 10 years provided they are listed on five percent of the ballots. There were 17 players overall who made the cut to stay on the ballot, including three of the 11 first-year candidates, pitcher Mark Buehrle with 44 votes (11.0), outfielder Torii Hunter with 38 (9.5) and pitcher Tim Hudson with 21 (5.2)

The Class of 2020, which features Derek Jeter, Marvin Miller, Ted Simmons, and Larry Walker, will also be inducted that day following the 2020 Induction Ceremony's cancelation due to the pandemic. Only 123 baseball players have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Their induction ceremony will occur on July 25, 2021