It's a Hall of Fame day

ByJAYSON STARK
January 8, 2014, 5:21 PM

— -- It was a great day to celebrate the awesomeness of Greg Maddux, after a Hall of Fame election in which he reeled in a thunderous (but disappointing) 97.2 percent of the vote.

It was a fantastic day to ponder the coolness of two longtime teammates, Maddux and Tom Glavine, floating into Cooperstown on the same afternoon.

It was a perfect day to behold the remarkable career of Frank Thomas, and to wonder whether we might even have underrated him while he was making all that history.

It was an amazing day to see the Hall of Fame voting results come rolling in and be grateful that it's still possible for these voters to actually elect three players on the same day for just the fifth time in almost eight decades of balloting. What a concept.

But before we all start humming "Kumbaya," let's not book that vacation to Nirvana quite yet -- because it sure wasn't a perfect day in the life of Hall of Fame voting, either. Not even close.

It wasn't exactly a perfect day for Jack Morris, a man we put through 15 years of voting torture, dangled his election just 42 votes away as recently as a year ago, then told him this time around: "Hey, good luck with the Veterans Committee."