Mariano Rivera, Roy Halladay, Edgar Martinez, Mike Mussina elected to Hall of Fame

Mariano Rivera

Here's your fun fact of the day: Edgar Martinez has a .579 career batting average against Mariano Rivera.

With that kind of track record against the greatest closer of all-time, it makes you wonder how in the world it took Martinez 10 years to get elected to Baseball Hall of Fame, doesn't it?

Regardless, Rivera and Martinez both were elected to Cooperstown on Tuesday, along with Roy Halladay and Mike Mussina.

Rivera became the first player in history to earn unanimous election, appearing on all 425 ballots. Previously, Ken Griffey Jr. had the record for highest vote percentage (99.3 percent) after he was named on 437 of 440 ballots in 2016.

Frankly, I'm surprised Rivera got 100 percent of the vote -- not that he isn't deserving. The former Yankees closer has 652 career saves and five World series championships -- and an 8-1 record with a 0.70 ERA and 42 saves in 96 postseason appearances.

I just didn't think a closer would be the first guy to break down the barrier and appear on every ballot. Think about it: Greg Maddux threw more than 5,000 innings in his impeccable career as a starting pitcher, but not even he got 100 percent of the vote. Rivera, however, did, despite only pitching 1,283 innings in his career.

It's an interesting argument, but ultimately it doesn't matter much, since Rivera is no-doubt Hall of Famer regardless of what percent of the vote he received -- as are Maddux, Griffey Jr. and dozens of others.

I've long been an advocate for Martinez as a Hall of Famer, and I'm glad to see him receive 85.4 percent of the vote (75 percent is required for induction). The former Seattle designated hitter is one of only six players who began their career after World War II to retire with a .300 batting average, .400 on-base percentage and .500 slugging percentage. Martinez won two batting titles and retired with a .312 batting average and 309 home runs in 18 seasons.

Halladay is going to the Hall posthumously, after his tragic death in November 2017 when a plane he was piloting crashed into the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida coast. The right-hander totaled 203 wins and a 3.38 ERA in 16 seasons -- 12 with the Toronto Blue Jays and four with the Philadelphia Phillies. He won a Cy Young award in both leagues and finished second on two other occasions. He threw a perfect game and is best-known for the no-hitter he threw for the Phillies in the 2010 NLDS against the Cincinnati Reds. From 2003 to 2011, he threw 61 complete games -- more than twice as many as the next-closest pitcher during those years (CC Sabathia had 30).

As for Mussina, will he go into the Hall as a Baltimore Oriole, or as a Yankee? I hope he goes in as an Oriole, but it will be close. Mussina pitched 18 seasons, 10 in Baltimore, eight in New York. He won 270 games, 147 with the Orioles, 123 with the Yankees. Mussina won seven Gold Gloves and totaled 2,813 strikeouts. He never won the Cy Young award, coming close in 1999, when he finished second to Pedro Martinez.

These four players will join Harold Baines and Lee Smith in the Class of 2019. Baines and Smith were elected in December by a Hall of Fame veterans committee. This year's induction is July 22.

2005 White Sox heroes Jon Garland, Freddy Garcia among first-timers on Hall of Fame ballot

Jason Bauman (left) and Jon Garland. (Oh, is it obvious that I'm at left?)

The Baseball Hall of Fame and the Baseball Writers Association released the 2019 Hall of Fame ballot Monday, and there are some new names familiar to White Sox fans.

Most notably, half of the 2005 World Series champion rotation now is eligible for induction: My guy, Jon Garland, and Freddy Garcia, the man who got the win in the 1-0, championship-clinching victory.

While both of these guys had nice careers, obviously, neither of them has a chance in hell of induction into the Hall. However, I'll always be a fan of Garland. I remember him being described as a "fifth starter" coming into that 2005 season. I knew he was better than that, and he proved it that year, leading the Sox with 18 wins and making the All-Star team.

Who among the first-timers on the ballot will get elected? Former New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera. He might not be the only one, but I'd say he's the one guy who is a lock.

Other top eligible first-timers include the late Roy Halladay, Todd Helton, Lance Berkman, Roy Oswalt, Andy Pettitte and Miguel Tejada.

(Are you noticing a theme of guys who played in the 2005 World Series? Berkman, Oswalt and Pettitte all are former Houston Astros.)

Garland, Garcia and former Sox players Kevin Youkilis and Juan Pierre likely are one-and-done on the ballot, along with others such as Placido Polanco, Travis Hafner, Derek Lowe, Vernon Wells, Ted Lilly, Michael Young, Jason Bay, Darren Oliver and Rick Ankiel.

None of those guys were necessarily great players, but they all were good enough to have long careers and be placed on the ballot, and that should be considered a respectable accomplishment. A lot of players make the bigs, but only for a short time, and they never qualify to have the chance to get 1 percent of the vote from the Hall electorate. There's no shame in having that kind of career.

My favorite memory from Roy Halladay's career

Roy Halladay

The baseball world was shocked and saddened by the news that former All-Star pitcher Roy Halladay died Tuesday when his private plane crashed into the Gulf of Mexico.

Halladay, 40, left fans with quite a few memories from his brilliant career. He won the Cy Young award in both leagues. He pitched a perfect game, then fired a no-hitter in the playoffs that same season for the Philadelphia Phillies.

Those are all great accomplishments, but when I think of Halladay, the first thing that comes to mind is a game that I attended July 28, 2007, at U.S. Cellular Field.

What a duel it was that night between Halladay, who was then the ace of the Toronto Blue Jays, and White Sox All-Star Mark Buehrle. The game lasted only two hours, seven minutes, as two of the best in the game at that time put on a pitching clinic.

Buehrle earned the 2-0 win, as he scattered eight hits over eight shutout innings. Despite taking the loss, Halladay fired a 126-pitch complete game. He gave up 10 hits, but most of them did no damage whatsoever.

The lone exception? A two-run homer by Jerry Owens in the bottom of the seventh inning, which scored Danny Richar, who had singled one pitch earlier.

That home run turned out to be the only one of Owens' career in 540 plate appearances. Of all people to produce the game-winning runs against the great Halladay, it was the combination of Owens and Richar.

Owens hooked an inside cutter from Halladay down the right-field line, barely fair and just over the wall 335 feet from home plate. That's the beauty of baseball -- you sometimes see things you never expect to see.

What a great game that was.

And that wasn't the only time Halladay and Buehrle hooked up for a classic duel during the 2007 season. They also pitched against each other in Toronto on May 31. That game took only one hour, 50 minutes to play. The final score of that game also was 2-0, but Halladay got the upper hand with seven shutout innings, while Buehrle took a complete-game loss.

That was the same day Sox great Frank Thomas, then with the Blue Jays, homered off his good friend and former teammate Buehrle.

While we all can enjoy the occasional 13-12 slugfest, for me, there's something great about watching two star-caliber pitchers lock up in a low-scoring game. In those types of games, you never know which pitch is going to be the one that decides the game, and you never who the hero is going to be.

Sometimes it's Frank Thomas, a Hall of Famer, and sometimes it's Jerry Owens, a player long forgotten by most people.

When I think of Roy Halladay, I'm first going to think of that pitchers' duel in July 2007. Even though he was the opponent of my favorite team, it was a joy to watch him compete.

Anibal Sanchez's outing in ALCS Game 1 was a rarity

The Detroit Tigers came within two outs of no-hitting the Boston Red Sox in Saturday's Game 1 of the ALCS in Boston. Daniel Nava singled off Detroit closer Joaquin Benoit with one out in the bottom of the ninth inning, but Benoit recovered to close out a 1-0 Tigers victory.

Why was a closer on the mound trying to preserve a no-hitter? Well, for as well as Anibal Sanchez pitched, he wasn't efficient enough to hang around for the whole game. In fact, he lasted just six innings. He struck out 12, walked six and threw 116 pitches.

Credit Detroit manager Jim Leyland for realizing the no-hitter wasn't important. Sanchez survived a highly stressful sixth inning; he struck out Stephen Drew to escape a jam after walking the bases loaded. With the lead at just one run, Leyland would have been pushing his luck to send Sanchez back out for the seventh. He didn't, instead using four relievers to close out the win.

The Tigers failed in their quest to throw the third no-hitter in MLB postseason history (Don Larsen, Roy Halladay), but Sanchez's outing was notable in a couple other ways. First, he became the first pitcher ever to be removed from a playoff game after going six innings without giving up a hit. Secondly, he became only the second pitcher ever to record both 12 strikeouts and six walks in a postseason game.

The other one? Walter Johnson in Game 1 of the 1924 World Seriess. In that game, Johnson pitched 12 innings and gave up 14 hits. Yeah, that was a different time and place. That goes to show you don't see an outing like the one Sanchez had Saturday night come along too often.