The Most Hall of Fame Votes of All-Time

I'm a big fan of interesting stuff that means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. The other day, I got to wondering which players had received the most votes during their entire time on the Hall of Fame ballot.

Obviously, this was never meant to be a list for the all-time greats, who generally appear just once or twice before, but a way of mentioning the guys like Jim Rice and Bert Blyleven (poor Bert just gets NO press), borderline candidates who stuck around for a long while before either gathering enough votes for induction or falling off and becoming fodder for countless, "He should be in! No he shouldn't!" arguments.

Player	HOF	Years on Ballot	Votes
Jim Rice	2009	1995-2009	3974
Jim Bunning	1996 (VC)	1977-91	3213
Gil Hodges	No	1969-83	3010
Bruce Sutter	2006	1994-2006	2767
Andre Dawson	2010	2002-10	2750
Bert Blyleven	No	1998-2010	2631
Tony Perez	2000	1992-2000	2599
Rich Gossage	2008	2000-08	2487
Orlando Cepeda	1999 (VC)	1980-94	2406
Enos Slaughter	1985 (VC)	1966-79	2371
Steve Garvey	No	1993-2007	2312
Nellie Fox	1997 (VC)	1971-85	2150
Don Drysdale	1984	1975-84	2111
Tommy John	No	1995-2009	2055
Tony Oliva	No	1982-1996	2000
Jack Morris	No	2000-10	1895
Hoyt Wilhelm	1985	1978-85	1873
Duke Snider	1980	1970-80	1831
Ralph Kiner	1975	1960-75	1829
Red Schoendienst	1989 (VC)	1969-83	1823
Lee Smith	No	2003-10	1776

A few points of interest:

Three of these players are currently on the ballot: Blyleven, Morris, and Smith.

Smith was used as the cutoff point because he was the last "active" player for quite some time, so it was a logical break point.

Blyleven should become the fourth player ever with 3,000 lifetime votes. Two of the first three are in the Hall of Fame: Jim Rice was voted in on the fifteenth try and Jim Bunning was chosen by the Veterans Committee. Gil Hodges is the only player to receive that many votes without being elected by either group.

Seven of the 21 players on the list are not in the Hall of Fame. Blyleven and Morris stand a good chance of making it via BBWAA voting, and I think John might get some love from the Veterans Committee. I'm not sure Garvey or Oliva will ever make it Cooperstown, or what will happen to Lee Smith.