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Fan keeps tabs on Hall of Fame ballots
- Updated: January 5, 2017
Ryan Thibodaux has gradually become an influential figure in the modern National Baseball Hall of Fame election process, and one of the least likely. He is a mild-mannered, married, 35-year-old baseball fan in Oakland who took his infant son to his first A’s game this past season, works in the healthcare field and generally shies away from personal publicity.
If it weren’t for Jeff Bagwell, his “boyhood baseball hero,” you probably never would have heard of him or his BBHOF Tracker. That ever-changing, color-coded Google Doc is projected to tabulate and calculate more than half — for the first time — of all publicly known ballots in advance of a much-anticipated Hall of Fame announcement.
The results of the 73rd BBWAA Hall of Fame election will be revealed at 6 p.m. ET on Jan. 18 live on MLB Network, and simulcast live on MLB.com beginning at 5 p.m.
“I do my ballot tracking ‘work’ merely as a hobby in my spare time, though of course it’s taking up more of my spare time than I ever anticipated, and it’s only gotten more difficult to manage this year with the arrival of my first kid,” Thibodaux wrote in emails to MLB.com. “But it’s still as fun for me as ever. I started five years ago, simply as a way of passing the time in the offseason. I’m basically a one-sport guy, so it’s baseball or nothing for me.”
• Baseball Hall of Fame
Members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America who have served at least 10 consecutive years, and who are approved in the Hall’s new annual registration process, are eligible to vote. Ballots were issued in November, and the deadline to return them was Dec. 31. It is increasingly common for voters to publicize ballots in an age of social media and transparency, and Thibodaux’s BBHOF Tracker was one of the reasons.
With about 40 …
