Ron Santo Gets the Call From the Hall

This was long overdue. Chicago Cubs third baseman and their former WGN radio broadcaster Ron Santo was the only player to get the nod from the Golden Era Committee of the Baseball Hall of Fame.From the Hall of Fame website:

Santo was the lone candidate to garner the necessary 75% of votes cast by the 16-member Golden Era Committee, which considered a ballot of eight former players and two executives whose contributions to the game were most significant from 1947-1972. The Golden Era Committee held meetings on Sunday in Dallas, site of the baseball winter meetings.

Santo becomes the 12th major league third baseman to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, the first elected at the position since Wade Boggs in 2005. Including three selections from the Negro leagues, there are now 15 third basemen in the Hall of Fame. In 15 major league seasons, Santo compiled a .277 lifetime batting average, with 2,254 hits in 2,243 games, while totaling 1,331 runs batted in and 365 doubles.

Here are the total results from the voting:

Ron Santo (15 votes, 93.75%)
Jim Kaat (10 votes, 62.5%)
Gil Hodges (9 votes, 56.25%)
Minnie Minoso (9 votes, 56.25%)
Tony Oliva (8 votes, 50%)
Buzzie Bavasi, Ken Boyer, Charlie Finley, Allie Reynolds and Luis Tiant each received less than three votes.

I was obviously pulling for longtime Dodgers Gil Hodges and GM Buzzie Bavasi. In fact, the lack of support for Bavasi really surprises me. I had thought his record, not only as GM for the Dodgers from 1951 to 1968, but also expanding Baseball to San Diego would be more than enough to put him over the edge. Obviously, I was wrong.