The lone voter who snubbed Derek Jeter for the National Baseball Hall of Fame remains mysteriously anonymous.
The Baseball Writers Association of America released 314 of the 397 ballots that were cast for this year’s National Baseball Hall of Fame class, including 91 ballots that were previously unreleased.
The person who sent the lone ballot without a checkmark next to Derek Jeter’s name will be one of 83 voters to remain anonymous.
The 14-time MLB All-Star earned 99.7 percent of the vote, the second-most in Hall of Fame history behind his former teammate Mariano Rivera, who became the first player to be unanimously voted into the Hall.
The Marlins’ CEO racked up 3,465 hits, the sixth-most of all time, in his 20-year career, all spent with the Yankees, that included five World Series championships.
Jeter told YES Network’s Jack Curry that coming just short did not bother him.
“I could care less to be quite honest with you,” he said. “It takes a lot of votes to get into the Hall of Fame, and to get that many people to all agree is pretty difficult to do.”
The BBWAA voted in favor of making all ballots public in 2016, but the Hall of Fame’s board of directors rejected the proposal.
The three people who did not vote for Ken Griffey, Jr. in 2016 – who then had the highest voting percentage in the Hall’s history – remain anonymous.
YES Network’s Yankees play-by-play announcer and ESPN New York 98.7 FM host Michael Kay called the anonymous Jeter non-voter a “gutless puke” on his radio show.
“I don’t have a problem that if you didn’t vote for Jeter,” said Kay. “I have a problem that you will not defend the fact that you didn’t vote for Jeter.”
Raul Ibanez and Brad Penny each received one vote for the Hall of Fame, but their voter(s) will remain anonymous, as well.
