On the night of January 29th, 1936, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Babe Ruth and Honus Wagner became the first 5 MLB players to be elected to the Hall of Fame.
Cobb held baseball’s all-time hits record for decades and still owns the highest career batting average and received 222 of the possible 226 votes. Meanwhile Babe Ruth, perhaps the most famous and influential player in MLB history was just 11 votes shy of being unanimous.
What followed Ruth’s ballot was a long-standing debate of whether or not certain players should be unanimously selected to the Hall of Fame. It was finally accomplished by Mariano Rivera in 2019 after receiving 75 votes.
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