COOPERSTOWN: Rivera (100%), Halladay, Ed. Martinez (85% each), Mussina (76%)
 

(COOPERSTOWN, N.Y.) – For the first time in the 83 years of Baseball Writers’ Association of America balloting for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, a player has been elected by a unanimous vote.

Mariano Rivera, Major League Baseball’s all-time leader in saves, was named on all 425 ballots cast in the 2019 BBWAA Hall of Fame voting, earning Hall of Fame election along with fellow pitchers Mike Mussina and the late Roy Halladay and designated hitter-third baseman Edgar Martínez.

They will be honored as part of the Hall’s Induction Weekend July 19-22 in Cooperstown, N.Y., along with relief pitcher Lee Smith and designated hitter-outfielder Harold Baines, who were elected in December by the Today’s Game Era Committee.

Also being honored that weekend will be the Ford C. Frick Award winner for broadcasting, the late Al Helfer, and the J.G. Taylor Spink Award for writing, Jayson Stark.

To earn Hall of Fame election, players must be named on 75 percent of ballots cast by eligible members of the BBWAA. The cutoff point this year was 319. Halladay, who like Rivera was on the ballot for the first time and Martínez, who was on the ballot for the 10th and final time, each received 363 votes, which accounted for 85.4 percent. Mussina, who was on the ballot for the sixth time, received 326 votes for 76.7 percent.

Rivera’s perfect score eclipsed the previous record for plurality attained by center fielder Ken Griffey Jr., who totaled 437 votes out of 440 cast — 99.32 percent — in 2016.

The only other players who were named on more than half the ballots were pitchers Curt Schilling with 259 votes (60.9) and Roger Clemens (59.5) and outfielders Barry Bonds (59.1) and Larry Walker (54.6). Players may remain on the ballot for up to 10 years provided they get five percent of the vote, which this year was 22. In his last year on the ballot, first baseman Fred McGriff received 169 votes (39.8). His case will go under consideration for the Today’s Game Era Committee in 2021. There were 16 players who failed to make the five-percent cut, all first-time candidates.

This year marks the second consecutive election and the fifth overall that four players have been elected by the BBWAA in the same year. It has occurred five times overall and three times in the past five ballotings. Chipper Jones, Vladimir Guerrero, Jim Thome and Trevor Hoffman were elected last year. The other years were 1947 (Lefty Grove, Carl Hubbell, Mickey Cochrane, Frankie Frisch), 1955 (Joe DiMaggio, Gabby Hartnett, Ted Lyons, Dazzy Vance) and 2015 (Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz, Craig Biggio). The record total remains the original class of 1936 with five members (Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Babe Ruth, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson).

In that first election, Wagner and Ruth received the same amount of votes — 215 out of 226 ballots cast (95.1) — the only time two players were elected with the same vote total in the same year before Halladay and Martinez this year.