Deadspin, as usual, breaks the story. The author’s ballot — Larry Rocca is his name — consisted of Jack Morris, Hideo Nomo, Alan Trammell, and Tim Raines. He took the “moral high ground” by insisting that nobody in the steroid era would get his vote. (Shh, nobody tell him that all of his candidates played during the era, if you date it to 1989 like many historians do.) Personally, I think he just threw darts at his ballot, signed, and took a nap.
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I’m sputtering at the level of super-stupidity here. Hideo Nomo? A dude with an ERA+ under 100? Whose first year in the majors was 1995 and whose last year was 2005?
If the BBWAA has a rule to expel voting members, this would be a perfect example. If not, they need to institute that, or at least mandatory atomic wedgies for idiots like Larry Rocca.
Larry Rocca used to live in Japan and apparently saw Nomo as a youngster — that said, I looked up his Japanese stats.
http://japaneseballplayers.com/en/player.php?id=nomo
Yeah, it’s a headscratcher.