A History of Hall of Fame Shutouts When the Hall of Fame voting for 2013 ended up in a big zero on Wednesday, it sparked a debate over how the stars of baseball's steroid era should be handled when it comes to enshrining them. But taking steroids out of the equation, the shutout itself isn't totally crazy, if you look at Hall of Fame voting historically. According to the Hall of Fame, the Baseball Writers Association of America has come up empty in an election eight times now. The last was in 1996, but it also happened in 1971, 1960, 1958, 1950, 1946 and 1945. In those years, the reasons were so much more mundane. The 1996 voting left pitcher Phil Niekro at the top of the list of the snubbed, getting 68.3 percent of the votes in his fourth year of eligibility, trailed by Tony Perez (65.7) and Don Sutton (63.8). Niekro, who fought the perception that his signature knuckleball was a gimmick and his 318 wins did not put him the same class as other 300-game winners, made it in the very next year. Perez and Sutton followed in 1998. In fact, there were six eventual Hall of Famers on the '96 ballot. Voters just hadn't warmed to them yet. In 1971, it was Yogi Berra's first year of eligibility. The "first-year" phenomenon has a lot to do with voting, with B.B.W.A.A. members often parsing whether players deserve to be first-ballot inductees and reserving that honor for only the true greats of the game. Berra didn't make that cut, getting only 67.2 percent of the vote. He jumped to 85.6 percent by the next year and sailed in easily (but behind first-balloter Sandy Koufax). And there were 15 members of that shutout 1971 ballot who eventually made it into the Hall without buying a ticket. The 1960 election was a particularly grim one. The top vote-getter was Edd Roush, with a meager 54.3 percent of the vote. Despite that lack of enthusiasm, Roush and a staggering 39 others on that ballot, however, would eventually be enshrined. Making matters worse in 1960 was no selections at all by the veteran's committee, which means Cooperstown went without any induction ceremony that year at all. In 1945, the baseball writers dealt a triple blow to the legendary double play combination of Tinker to Evers to Chance. Frank Chance led the voting that year with 72.5 percent, Johnny Evers got 54.3 and Joe Tinker got only 19.8. They were rescued by the Old Timers Committee in 1946 and enshrined as a trio. From the looks of the 2013 ballot, many of the snubbed players won't stay snubbed for eternity. Shutout classes tend to get much more sympathy down the road.