Todd Helton and Andruw Jones would get my Baseball Hall of Fame vote

I used to get excited this time of year.  It’s when I’d get my baseball Hall of Fame ballot (a long time ago when I was a working baseball writer) and get to select players to be enshrined in Cooperstown.

I haven’t had that privilege for 40 years now as a stint in the NFL with the Los Angeles Rams and semi-retirement here in the desert ate up the next four decades.

I still follow the voting process and mentally cast my own vote. This year’s class. I must say, is pretty underwhelming.

J.J. Hardy?  Mike Napoli?  Please.

(BTW: Napoli is one of four former Angels on the ballot for the first time along with John Lackey, Jered Weaver and Francisco Rodriguez – all solid major leaguers, but they will not get much support, if any).

If I were to cast a ballot now, I would lean to two holdovers -- hitter deluxe Todd Helton of the Colorado Rockies and the vastly underrated Andruw Jones of the Atlanta Braves.

Helton finished a 17-year career with a lifetime batting average of .316.  That’s higher than other well-known batsmen in the Hall of Fame – like George Brett, Derek Jeter and Paul Molitor. Helton hit .372 one year with 42 homers and 147 RBIs. Thin air or not, those are impressive numbers.

Jones was the best defensive center fielder in the game not named Willie Mays or Ken Griffey Jr.  He won 10 consecutive Gold Gloves (Mays won 12, Griffey 10). And Jones had plenty of thunder in his bat, too, pounding 434 homers in his career.

Both players made five All-Star teams, enough to qualify, in my opinion, for inclusion in the Hall.

Me? I had it easy.

The last year I voted, I cast my ballot for Henry Aaron and Frank Robinson.  Henry got 97.8% of the votes (why someone would not vote for him remains a mystery to me).  Robinson got 89.2%.

Two of the easiest slam dunks in the history of voting.

The ballot was so good that year that 14 OTHER players would eventually get enough votes to make it, including Don Drysdale, Harmon Killebrew and Juan Marichal.

I don’t recall if I voted for any of those guys, but they were clearly better candidates than Mike Napoli, who hit .246 and made one All-Star team.

.                               *****

Speaking of the Hall of Fame, Gaylord Perry died at 84 last week.  The spitball ace racked up 314 career wins and was elected to the Hall in 1991.

He also COMPLETED 303 games,  He was part of that era when pitchers like him, Warren Spahn (382 complete games), Early Wynn (289) and Robin Roberts (305) routinely completed 25 to 30 games each year.

Now, fast forward to today’s six or seven inning pitchers.  The Texas Rangers just gave Jacob deGrom $185 million to start some games for them.  He won’t finish many.  In his nine-year career, he’s only completed four games.  FOUR!  And he’s won two Cy Young awards,

Go figure.

Pete Donovan is a Palm Desert resident and former Los Angeles Times sports reporter. He can be reached atpwdonovan22@yahoo.com

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Baseball Hall of Fame: Todd Helton and Andruw Jones get my vote