The infernal storm, eternal in its rage, sweeps and drives the spirits with its blast; it whirls them, lashing them with punishment. When they are swept back past their place of judgment then come the shrieks, laments, and anguished cries; there they blaspheme God's almighty power.
— Dante "Bichette" Alighieri in The Divine Comedy/The Inferno

Let chaos storm!
Let cloud shapes swarm!
I wait for form.
—Robert "Don't Call me Dave" Frost

Now that the 2006 baseball writers' Hall vote is in the books, it's time to recap and look ahead to 2007, a vote that promises to be highly controversial and extremely hard to handicap. The controversy stems from four potential first-year candidates of varying qualifications, all of whom were involved in varying degrees with steroid use.

There's Mark McGwire, an admitted andro (Androstenedione, that is) user, who based solely on performance would be a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer. McGwire stopped using andro once the controversy broke and claims it never helped him hit his gargantuan home run totals with the Cardinals. The incident seemed to slip to interesting-anecdote status until it got swept up by the larger steroid issue as it mushroomed following the BALCO investigation (and once congressmen latched onto it as a nice soft issue to win votes—god, I miss the simplicity of the flag burning issue). How will the writers weigh this in their evaluations? (That is, will it affect how the coins land when the writers toss them?)

Then there are steroids poster boys, Jose Canseco and the late Ken Caminiti. Neither is a very strong candidate for the Hall. Canseco has a better case but has probably alienated more writers with his unrepentant attitude, his outing of former teammates, and his spotlighting grabbing during the steroid brouhaha. Outside of baseball, some may see him as a whistle-blowing hero, but inside baseball that is hardly the perception. Canseco has the stats to at least become another inmate in baseball's purgatory, that is, a perpetual spot on the BBWAA ballot, the place were marginal Hall of Fame candidates like Steve Garvey and Dale Murphy languish for years. Canseco has to be on the ballot unless banned for some reason, but could easily be dropped if the writers don't express enough interest.

Caminiti has become the cautionary tale of the steroid era. He was by all reports a great teammate and a driven player, whose user mentality was susceptible to performance enhancing drugs. If there is to be a sympathetic Shoeless Joe Jackson character from this steroid mess, it will be Caminiti, though that will hardly help him in the Hall voting. In most cases, a player of Caminiti's caliber would at least make the ballot and may garner enough votes to remain on the ballot for a couple of seasons. Caminiti may easily be omitted from the ballot altogether.

The final steroid-related candidate who next year will be eligible for the Hall for the first time is Wally Joyner. Joyner is the weakest candidate of the four but has the most tangential connection to performance-enhancing drugs. He admitted to using steroids very briefly in an ESPN investigation this season. Joyner should appear on the ballot and then quickly slip into oblivion—this is the case with or without the steroid connection.

So that's what we have to look forward to, but I have gotten ahead of myself. First, let's review this year's vote. As I predicted, Bruce Sutter got in and many other candidates surged closer to enshrinement with a weak first-year class.

Jim Rice, Rich Gossage, Andre Dawson, Bert Blyleven, Jack Morris, Tommy John, Lee Smith, and Alan Trammell all recorded Hall highs in ballot percentage. Rice, Gossage, and Dawson were all over 60%, each for the first time. Historically, 54.5% of all candidates who received 60% of the vote got into the Hall by the next ballot; 79.2% got in within three years. Only Gil Hodges, of the players no longer on the BBWAA ballot, has received at least 60% of the writers' vote has failed to make it to Cooperstown.

Rice has been hanging above 50% since 2000 and cleared 60% for the first time (64.8%) in 2006 but has just three ballots (including 2007) left. At first, I qualified my prediction for him to getting elected either in 2006 or 2007, but then in the Toaster roundtable, what with all the talk of steroid backlash, I got over eager and changed that to just 2006. Oh well, I should have stuck with my original prediction. I'll stick with that original prediction: Rice will make it in 2007 with the steroid backlash finally putting him over the top in a crowded race.

On this ballot Gossage continued his momentum from 2005, registering 64.6% of the vote, twenty points higher than his pre-2005 high and over none point higher than last year. I predicted he would make it within three years and see no reason not to stick with that prediction. Though one could buttress Gossage's argument given that Sutter just got in.

Dawson has been at or over 50% since 2003 and had matched or slightly bettered his previous ballot's showing each year from 2003 to 2005. He made an eight-point push in 2006 to 60.96%. I predicted that he would not make the Hall in 2006 but would in five years. I would just accelerate that timetable a bit to 2008 or 2009 with a crowded field this year stalling him momentarily.

Blyleven's vote had grown steadily since slightly over fourteen percent in his first year (1999) to 29.2% in 2003. Then as the sabermetrically inclined started stating his case rather effectively, he surged to 35.4% in 2004, 40.9% in 2005, and now 53.3% in this past election. I predicted that he would make it within three years prior to this election. I'll extend that to 2010 now. But for a player, who prior to this past election I thought would have to go in as a Veterans Committee pick, he has an excellent shot at in any of the upcoming elections. Again only Gil Hodges, of the players no longer on the BBWAA ballot, has failed to get into the Hall after garnering 50% of the vote.

Of my remaining 2006 predictions, there are just a few minor missteps. Of the newcomers, I predicted that Will Clark (the best new player on the 2006 ballot in my opinion), Albert Belle, Orel Hershiser, Gary Gaetti, Ozzie Guillen (for one year given the World Series press), and Dwight Gooden would remain on the ballot (Willie McGee hung on for another year for goodness' sake). Only Belle and Hershiser get to stick around for 2007. All of the newcomers who I predicted would fail to make the cut (5%), did.

Of the veteran BBWAA candidates, I opined that McGee and Dale Murphy would drop off the ballot. Only McGee did. Murphy hit a low in voting in 2004 (8.5%) but has persevered the last two years with just slightly over ten percent of the vote each year. Go figure.

OK, enough of old business: let's look ahead to 2007.

I added all of the newly eligibility players with at least one hundred career Win Shares to the holdovers from 2006. Of course, the ballot will probably omit a good number of these players, but given that the writers threw us a curve in 2006 with the likes of Gary DiSarcina and Walt Weiss (Who my friend Mike pointed out amazingly received a vote this year) peppering the ballot, I'm exploring all, or at least most, options. That's 29 newly eligible players.

And don't forget that the Veterans Committee returns to elect no one from two possible populations, the players being one and the managers, umpires, and executives being the other. This will be the first election for the latter since 2003. The players have had two elections since they revamped the Veterans Committee in 2002 (i.e., in 2003 and 2005). They haven't picked any one in any of the elections yet far. The 2007 election becomes a litmus test for the committee itself or at least its current iteration.

To be continued…