Because one jackass just announced his ballot, and Maddux isn't on it.

Our winning moralizer is Ken Gurnick, a very competent Dodgers beat reporter for MLB.com. Today Gurnick, along with MLB.com's other writers, revealed their ballots, and out of the 100-something total made public, Gurnick is the very first to leave Maddux off. He has just one name on his ballot: Jack Morris. Here's his rationale.

Morris has flaws — a 3.90 ERA, for example. But he gets my vote for more than a decade of ace performance that included three 20-win seasons, Cy Young Award votes in seven seasons and Most Valuable Players votes in five. As for those who played during the period of PED use, I won't vote for any of them.


Where do we even begin? By pointing out that steroids have reportedly been prevalent in baseball since the 1960s? That this is punishing Maddux (and others) through no fault of their own? That a Hall of Fame is useless as a museum if it's just going to pretend the offensive explosion of the '90s never happened? That Jack Morris was a pretty average pitcher?

There's no point. Most voting BBWAA members are rational, intelligent people, and a few are squealing imbeciles, and when unanimity is concerned, all it takes is one. If Greg Maddux, the total antithesis of the PED era that so offends these dainty flowers, doesn't get 100 percent, it's a fair bet that no one ever will. The process isn't broken; it's unworkable.