A look at 2016 Hall of Fame voting — In Focus

Plans then call for Griffey to fly to Seattle for a late Friday afternoon news conference at Safeco Field amid speculation the Mariners plan to use that occasion to announce plans to retire his No. 24.

“Being 20, when I shook his hand, he was like, ‘You know what we did?'” Griffey Jr. recalled.

After the game that night, Piazza told reporters: “He’s light years ahead of me”.

The way the process is set up allows for a bona fide star player to eventually get elected, even if he retired at a time when a number of other stars also left the game-thus crowding the number of eligible players. After 8 1/2 seasons with the Reds, he was dealt to the Chicago White Sox, went back to the Mariners for his last season-plus.

Ken Griffey Jr. will wear a Seattle Mariners cap and Mike Piazza will have a New York Mets hat when they enter the Baseball Hall of Fame this summer.

“Having my number next to him, I don’t think I did half of what he did”, Griffey said.

“It’s one of those things that makes you feel good about what you did as a player, that they respect what you did”.

This is a fitting tribute for one of the greatest players in baseball history. General manger Steve Phillips was searching for a co-star to pair with the 31-year-old catcher, and Griffey was asking out of Seattle.

He also played in parts of seven seasons for the Los Angeles Dodgers to begin his career.

“I’m starting to remember”, Piazza said.

Piazza going in as a Met was a foregone conclusion, but there were still some who thought the Hall of Fame might step in try to prevent that. More interesting may be the sudden up-tick in votes for the two poster-children for Major League Baseball’s steroid era, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.

Mets owner Jeff Wilpon, general manager Sandy Alderson and deputy John Ricco attended the announcement. Unfortunately, we do have to choose one. The previous high vote-getter was Ty Cobb, who was in the Hall’s first class, and was named on 222 of the 226 ballots cast in 1936.

After falling 23 votes shy on Wednesday, Tim Raines’s candidacy will come down to next year’s vote. This year marked Piazza’s fourth year on the ballot.

A Yankee from 1982-86, Griffey Sr. said that “Billy degraded me so much because I was on that 1976 [Reds] team that swept the Yankees” in the World Series.

Players must appear on 75% of ballots to be enshrined. Lee Smith (34.1%), Gary Sheffield (11.6%), Mike Lowell (0.0%), and Randy Winn (0.0%) all fell well short of induction. He used to be the Cubs beat writer, and gets a ballot in the mail every year.