Ken Griffey Jr. set a record Wednesday for the highest percentage ever in voting for the Hall of Fame. So what possessed three people not to vote for the former Mariners center fielder? 
 
 It was his unbridled joy at playing a kid’s game that first endeared Ken Griffey Jr. to us, and Wednesday, you could hear that quality in his voice. And on television, you could see it in his face. 
 
 No, Griffey wasn’t a unanimous entrant into baseball’s Hall of Fame, an egregious oversight for which three as-yet-anonymous voters will have to answer — to themselves, if no one else. 
 
 But Griffey received the highest total in the history of voting by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, 99.3 percent — 437 votes out of 440 cast. While that may, incongruously, have been at once a monumental achievement and a faintly disappointing outcome, Griffey himself put his feat into perspective. 
 
 “I’m in the Hall of Fame,’’ he said. “It’s not how many votes you got, as long as you get in.” 
 
 Griffey being Griffey, a man of undeniable insecurities, he wasn’t sure he was even going to be elected on the first ballot, according to his father, Ken Griffey Sr. But now he’ll be rightly immortalized in Cooperstown in July, along with Mike Piazza, the former Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets catcher who was the only other player elected by the writers. 
 
 Griffey was asked in a conference call Wednesday about his favorite memories of a major-league career that lasted from 1989, when he was an ebullient teenager at the Kingdome, until 2010, when he abruptly quit the Mariners at age 40 in June of a miserable season. He immediately mentioned playing with his father in 1990 and ’91. 
 
 “And I got to have that playoff slide,’’ he continued, evoking his romp around the bases on Edgar Martinez’s double in the 1995 playoffs that lives on in Mariners’ lore. “I’ve pretty much done everything you could do in baseball.” 
 
 That sentiment was reinforced watching the Hall of Fame show on MLB Network before the announcement, which was heavy on Griffey highlights. And seeing all the montages of his great moments, hearing his praises sung by a variety of baseball figures, just reinforced to me what a superb player Griffey was. And, more important, what an influential career he had. 
 
 He truly was a beautiful ballplayer, particularly in his early years before injuries diminished the skills that made him stand out. What also stood out, of course, was the flair and panache with which he played the game, the joy that no doubt also diminished over time but was so important early in stamping Griffey as a player who soared above even other superstars. 
 
 Griffey would become a cultural icon in the 1990s with a candy bar named after him, national Nike campaigns, and the ultimate badge of honor, his own video game. He recalled it as a time when he was hobnobbing with the likes of Pearl Jam, Nirvana and Sir Mix-a-Lot. 
 
 “We would see these guys in and out of the locker room,’’ he said. “Having Nintendo right down the street from where you lived was unbelievable. We had Microsoft. There were endless things you could do in Seattle. Rappers want to be baseball players, and baseball players want to be rappers. We all basically grew up together.” 
 
 Griffey grew up before our very eyes, and if he irked some by forcing his way out of town with a trade to Cincinnati in 1999, and by the sudden fashion in which he retired in 2010, well, we couldn’t stay mad at him long. That was emphasized in 2007, when Griffey returned to Seattle for the first time while playing for the Reds, and again in 2013 when he went into the Mariners’ Hall of Fame. 
 
 Both occasions were unadulterated lovefests, and Griffey was visibly touched on both occasions. That unquestionably will be the case at his induction ceremony, when I expect scores of Mariners fans will make the pilgrimage to Cooperstown, N.Y. 
 
 With apologies to Spencer Haywood, Steve Largent, Gary Payton and others, Griffey was, and is, the definitive Seattle sports figure — a flawed hero, as it turned out, but our flawed hero. Russell Wilson may eventually challenge that title, but right now it’s Griffey’s mantle, which is why so many people in these parts seemed to experience Wednesday’s Hall of Fame coronation with such deep feeling. 
 
 Griffey may have lost his joy at times along the way, particularly in that dark final season, but he has regained it in his post-playing career in his new role as a parent. All three of his kids, along with wife Melissa and other friends and family, were with Griffey when he received the fateful Hall of Fame call in his kitchen. 
 
 “My dad skills are a lot better than my baseball skills,’’ Griffey said. 
 
 His baseball skills were transcendent. And now Griffey will reside among the immortals in Cooperstown when he’s inducted, along with Mike Piazza, with whom he will be linked forever. Those two just happened to also share the cover of the 1994 Sports Illustrated baseball preview issue, with the headline, “So Good, So Young.” Twenty-one years later, we can see what a prescient editorial decision that was. 
 
 Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines and Trevor Hoffman all were over 65 percent and are poised to surpass the necessary 75 percent next year. And Griffey’s former Seattle teammate, Edgar Martinez, made a healthy leap from 27 percent last year to 43.4 percent this year. It’s going to be a tough road for Edgar, who has just three more years on the writers’ ballot. 
 
 It took just one year on the ballot for Griffey, just as we always knew would be the case. But it was still a thrill for his fans, and a joy for the man himself when the announcement was made — even if three rogue voters ruined the ultimate story line. ||||| Photo Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
 
 Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Piazza, two of the most prolific sluggers of the high-scoring 1990s, were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on Wednesday. Griffey, who slammed 630 home runs, was elected on the first ballot with a record 99.3 percent of votes cast by members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Piazza, whose 396 homers as a catcher are the most for anyone at the position, got in on his fourth try, with 83 percent. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Griffey, who was named on 437 of 440 ballots, eclipsed Tom Seaver’s record for highest voting percentage of any player elected by the writers. Seaver received 98.8 percent of the votes when he was inducted in 1992. Candidates need 75 percent to be elected and can remain on the writers’ ballot up to 10 years, as long as they maintain at least 5 percent of the vote. 
 
 “I’m truly honored to be elected, and to have the highest percentage is definitely a shock,” Griffey said. “I don’t think that way; the big thing is to get into the Hall of Fame. As long as you get in, that’s what it is. I was really surprised at the high.” 
 
 Continue reading the main story Ken Griffey Jr. by the Numbers 22 seasons: Seattle, 1989-99, 2009-10; Cincinnati, 2000-8; Chicago White Sox, 2008 2,671 games; 9,801 at-bats 1,662 runs; 2,781 hits; 524 doubles; 630 home runs; 1,836 runs batted in; 184 stolen bases; .284 batting average 6TH on the career home run list; 4-TIME A.L. home run leader (1994, 1997-99) 15 20-home-run seasons (1990-94, 1996-2001, 2004-7); 9 30-home-run seasons (1993-94, 1996-2000, 2005, 2007); 7 40-home-run seasons (1993-94, 1996-2000); 2 50-home-run seasons (1997-98) 8 100-R.B.I. seasons (1991-93, 1996-2000); 6 seasons with 100 runs scored (1993, 1996-2000) 13 All-Star selections (1990-2000, 2004, 2007); 1997 American League most valuable player; 1992 All-Star Game most valuable player; 10-TIME A.L. Gold Glove winner (1990-99) Sources: MLB.com, Baseball Hall of Fame, Baseball-Reference.com 
 
 The inductees hinted strongly at the caps they would wear on their plaques: a Seattle Mariners cap for Griffey, a Mets cap for Piazza. Griffey would be the first player to represent the Mariners, having starred for the team from 1989 to 1999 and returning a decade later to end his career. 
 
 Piazza, who played in New York from 1998 to 2005, would be the second player, after Seaver, to go in as a Met. He came to the team in a trade from the Marlins, with whom he played five games after spending six and a half seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers, and at first did not know how long he would stay. 
 
 “The Mets fans were just so gracious to me, and even in my post-career as well,” Piazza said. “Every time I go back, I can’t tell you how much I feel embraced. It’s very special, and it’s a relationship that — I can’t describe how emotional it is for me.” 
 
 Piazza’s case had been complicated by speculation among some writers that he used performance-enhancing drugs, although he has never been linked by any credible evidence. He was muscle-bound, like so many players then and now, and his best years came during the era of rampant steroid use, before baseball began testing in 2003. 
 
 Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
 
 Piazza also rose to stardom from an unlikely spot: the 62nd round of the draft, which now lasts only 40 rounds. Piazza was selected by the Dodgers in 1988 as a favor to their manager, Tommy Lasorda, a family friend and fellow native of Norristown, Pa. He was the 1,390th player selected in that draft, the lowest spot a team has ever found a Hall of Famer. 
 
 Photo 
 
 “There’s so many opportunities in this game that you can sort of find a role and be an underdog,” Piazza said. “If you do one thing exceptionally well and you refine that and you improve your weaknesses that are acceptable, you can definitely make a living at this game. That, to me, is a lesson about how special the game is.” 
 
 Piazza said he viewed his wait for the Hall of Fame through the lens of history, noting that others, like Yogi Berra and Joe DiMaggio, did not make it on their first try. (The former Mets catcher Gary Carter, who represents the Montreal Expos on his plaque, needed six elections.) 
 
 Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
 
 Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
 
 As for the steroids issue that complicates his era, Piazza said there were “no flawless institutions” and brushed off the accusations that had dogged him. 
 
 “Today is just a day that I really want to celebrate my career and dwell on the positive parts of my career,” he said. “So many of those things are just out of my control. That’s something I can’t worry about. It’s an interesting world today.” 
 
 Griffey becomes the first player taken with the No. 1 overall pick to land in Cooperstown. He was chosen by the Mariners in 1987 out of Moeller High School in Cincinnati, where his father, Ken Sr., had been an All-Star outfielder for the Reds. 
 
 Continue reading the main story Mike Piazza by the Numbers 16 seasons: Los Angeles Dodgers, 1992-98; Florida, 1998 (five games); Mets, 1998-2005; San Diego, 2006; Oakland, 2007 1,912 games; 6,911 at-bats 1,048 runs; 2,127 hits; 344 doubles; 427 home runs; 1,335 runs batted in; .308 batting average CAREER LEADER, home runs by a catcher, 396 12 20-home-run seasons (1993-2002, 2004, 2006); 9 30-home-run seasons (1993, 1995-2002); 2 40-home-run seasons (1997, 1999) 6 100-R.B.I. seasons (1993, 1996-2000) 1993 National League rookie of the year; 12 All-Star selections (1993-2002, 2004-5); 1996 All-Star Game most valuable player Sources: MLB.com, Baseball Hall of Fame, Baseball-Reference.com 
 
 The Griffeys later played together in Seattle — they hit back-to-back homers on Sept. 14, 1990 — and Griffey Jr. would spend nearly nine seasons with the Reds, from 2000 to mid-2008. His home run total ranks sixth on the career list, 132 behind the leader, Barry Bonds. 
 
 Bonds won seven National League Most Valuable Player Awards at roughly the same time Roger Clemens was winning seven Cy Young Awards (and an M.V.P.). While both stars received a greater portion of the vote than they had in their first three appearances on the ballot, they remained well short of the threshold for election because of strong ties to performance-enhancing drugs. 
 
 Bonds got 44.3 percent of the vote, and Clemens 45.2 percent. Bonds’s previous high had been 36.8 percent, and Clemens’s high had been 37.6. They have six years left on the ballot to gain about 30 percentage points. 
 
 Griffey, who said he spoke often with Bonds — although not about baseball — would not say if he would vote for players tainted by steroids. But he did explain why he never used, saying that he was already well known and highly paid and never worried about what others were doing. 
 
 Having a father who had been a star, Griffey said, “only fueled me to go out there and want to play and be the best.” 
 
 Continue reading the main story All the Sports News That’s Fit to Tweet Get the latest tweets from @NYTSports, including breaking news, analysis and live updates. 
 
 He added: “But it wasn’t that I had to have help. If you couldn’t do it on your own, then so be it.” 
 
 The uptick for several players, not only Bonds and Clemens, could be attributed to a change in the electorate, which consists of writers with 10 consecutive years of service in the association. 
 
 Voters previously held ballots for life, whether or not they still covered baseball. The Hall of Fame’s board of directors voted last summer to eliminate writers who had not been actively covering baseball for the last 10 years, a decision that helped reduce the voting pool by 109. (The New York Times does not allow its writers to vote.) 
 
 A voting pool more familiar with the modern game — including analytics that often drive discussion of players’ historical merits — seems to have helped the case of many players. 
 
 All of these candidates — and others — improved their percentage over last year: Jeff Bagwell (71.6 percent, from 55.7 percent), Tim Raines (69.8, from 55), Curt Schilling (52.3, from 39.2) and Mike Mussina, who made the biggest leap, jumping to 43 percent from 24.6 in his third year of eligibility. Trevor Hoffman made a strong debut on the ballot, at 67.3 percent. 
 
 Mark McGwire (12.3 percent) finished with 583 career home runs but now falls off the ballot after 10 tries. McGwire, who admitted to using steroids, staged a memorable home run race in 1998 with Sammy Sosa, who is also tainted by ties to banned drugs. Sosa had 609 career homers but received only 7 percent of the vote in his fourth try. 
 
 First-time candidates next year will include Vladimir Guerrero, Jorge Posada, Manny Ramirez and Ivan Rodriguez. ||||| What were you possibly thinking when you left Ken Griffey Jr. off your Hall of Fame ballot? How can you possibly justify turning a cold shoulder on a center fielder who won 10 straight Gold Glove Awards, hit 630 home runs and was the face of his generation? 
 
 • The Kid is Hall right: Griffey to Cooperstown 
 
 You never got over the backward cap? You only saw the second half of his career? What? Tell us, please. 
 
 Sports Illustrated's Richard Deitsch is among many who believe the "Griffey Three" should come forward and explain themselves. 
 
 "If you are a MLB HOF voter who does not vote for Ken Griffey today, I think you owe it to your readers to be transparent with the vote and why,'' Deitsch said on Twitter. 
 
 Three non-votes for Griffey Jr. The Kid falls three votes shy of Hall of Fame history MLB Network's Bob Costas and Jon Heyman discuss the three voters that kept Ken Griffey Jr. off their ballots 
 
 Couldn't agree more. 
 
 Top 10 vote-getters by percentage Year Player Ballots cast Votes % 2016 Ken Griffey Jr. 440 437 99.30 1992 Tom Seaver 430 425 98.84 1999 Nolan Ryan 497 491 98.79 2007 Cal Ripken Jr. 545 537 98.53 1936 Ty Cobb 226 222 98.23 1999 George Brett 497 488 98.19 1982 Hank Aaron 415 406 97.83 2007 Tony Gwynn 545 532 97.60 2015 Randy Johnson 549 534 97.27 2014 Greg Maddux 571 555 97.20 
 
 This marked the 23rd time I've had the privilege of voting for the Hall, and I did exactly what I've done 22 times previously. I started out checking the obvious boxes, and I went from there. This seems logical to me, but apparently not to everyone. 
 
 I could go on, and I am going to, but I would like to pause a moment to interject a bit of perspective from Bob Dutton, who covers the Mariners for the Tacoma News Tribune. He generally keeps a running dialogue going with his Twitter followers, and at some point on Wednesday night, he got tired of speculating about the three scribes who dissed Griffey. 
 
 "Can't imagine not voting for Griffey, but why carp about the three votes he didn't get?'' Dutton tweeted. "Why not focus on his record 99.3 percent? Amazing." 
 
 Dutton went on to lament the Twitter witch hunt overshadowing the celebration of "Griffey getting a higher percentage than Mays, Ruth, Aaron..." 
 
 He's got a point, but still … 
 
 When more than half of the 440 votes had been made public before the election, and Griffey had gone 239-for-239 in the ballots collected by Ryan Thibodaux for his website BBHOF Tracker, we got excited thinking that the voting members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America might all get it right this time. 
 
 What a feat that would have been after Greg Maddux was left off 16 ballots two years ago (and Randy Johnson off 15 last year). Then came word that three of my brethren had done it again, for reasons they aren't technically obliged to explain. 
 
 Really looking forward to "Law & Order: Who Didn't Vote For Griffey?" running for the next 15 years. — Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) January 7, 2016 
 
 Blue Jays center fielder Dalton Pompey spoke for a whole lot of us with this Tweet. 
 
 "I would like to meet the individuals who DIDN'T vote Ken Griffey Jr. and hear their reasoning,'' wrote Pompey, who added #thatscrazy. 
 
 Maybe one of the three will write or talk about the decision. After all, who doesn't need a column? 
 
 But it seems to me that someone looking to land themselves a spot on MLB Network would have done it before the vote, explaining in some inventive way the smarts it took to skip the obvious pick. 
 
 Griffey Jr. on joining the HOF Griffey Jr. talks to MLB Tonight about joining HOF New Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr. joins MLB Tonight to discuss his upbringing, his career and now being part of Cooperstown history 
 
 The Hall of Fame publishes the names of voters but not the individual ballots of voters. Many voters do make their ballots public after the fact on a site run by the BBWAA, but participation there is optional. 
 
 There are only a handful of reasons why someone might not have voted for Junior. 
 
 1. They don't vote for anyone on the first ballot, preserving the legacy of all their predecessors, none of whom were elected unanimously. 
 
 But I don't buy it. It's true that back in 1936, four guys didn't vote for Ty Cobb, setting the precedent. Willie Mays was somehow 23 votes shy of unanimous, and even Henry Aaron fell nine votes short. 
 
 There were those through the years who submitted blank ballots, guaranteeing this tradition. Maybe some older voters did this (including some who lost their voting rights when the Hall recently reduced the roll). But I've never once heard a voter seriously argue against players because it was their first year on the ballot. 
 
 As crazy as it sounds that 3 HOF voters didn't vote for Griffey this year, eight didn't vote for Ripken in 2007. — Eduardo A. Encina (@EddieInTheYard) January 7, 2016 
 
 2. They are so angry about the steroid era that they can't allow themselves to vote for anyone who played in it. 
 
 I have heard that. I've even seen it in print. But if that line of thinking influenced anyone not to vote for Griffey -- a guy without a single whiff of PED smell about him -- then that voter should not be voting. 
 
 Plenty of writers have stepped away from voting because of the confusion that exists about who did what and how to balance cheating with the Hall's outdated guidelines about character, sportsmanship and integrity. My own belief is that voters can't assume what they don't know, nor can they ignore what they do know. Only a very vindictive person would throw a blanket over the entire era. 
 
 Maybe someone didn't vote for Griffey because he looked bad in 0.7 percent of his games so they tossed out his career? — Jeff Fletcher (@JeffFletcherOCR) January 7, 2016 
 
 3. They were too smart for their own good. 
 
 Some BBWAA members would like the limit of 10 checkmarks expanded to 12 or even eliminated altogether. This group has created the "strategic vote,'' a move in which the strongest candidates are bypassed for fringe candidates. The belief is that their vote will make more of a difference keeping a weak candidate on the ballot than endorsing a shoo-in like Griffey. 
 
 This is either over-the-top manipulation or pure madness, and I'll go with the latter. 
 
 My initial thought: Of 440 voters, the only 3 writers to leave Griffey off their ballots did so for the notoriety. We'll see. — Tom Singer (@Tom_Singer) January 6, 2016 
 
 4. The dreaded mismarked ballot. 
 
 I'm not kidding about this, either. By my count, there were a total of 3,496 votes divided up by the 27 players who got some support. I'll grant you that it would have been tough to have put a mark for Griffey in the wrong spot, as Troy Glaus and Mark Grudzielanek were both shut out. But maybe somebody thought they'd voted for Griffey but didn't. 
 
 There were, after all, voters from South Florida, land of the hanging chad. 
 
 Here's hoping we'll get some clarity in the next few days. If not hours. I'd love to hear someone explain how The Kid wasn't worth their vote. Here's my guess on the culprits. 
 
 Moe, Larry and Curly. 
 
 Do you have a better one?
– Ken Griffey Jr. resoundingly got into the Baseball Hall of Fame on Wednesday, and controversy surrounds the pick. Not over Griffey's qualifications—630 home runs, 10 straight Gold Gloves, not a whiff of steroid scandal, and, yes, even a candy bar made his selection a no-brainer. Instead, it's over the three sportswriters who voted against him. Griffey received 437 of 440 votes for a 99.3 percentage that surpassed Tom Seaver's as the highest ever. The votes are cast by sportswriters, and so far the trio who voted against Griffey have yet to come forward. "These are civilized times, right?" writes Phil Rogers at MLB.com. "It would probably be the wrong thing to do a freedom of information request and find the names of the Junior Griffey Three." The nay votes amount to "an egregious oversight for which three as-yet-anonymous voters will have to answer—to themselves, if no one else," writes Larry Stone at the Seattle Times. Richard Deitsch of Sports Illustrated is among those who think they should out themselves. "If you are a MLB HOF voter who does not vote for Ken Griffey today, I think you owe it to your readers to be transparent w. the vote & why," he tweeted. The Washington Post notes that one explanation being floated is that because no player—not even Babe Ruth—has ever been elected unanimously, some think it should stay that way. Mike Piazza was the only other player elected on Wednesday's ballot, with a mere mortal 83%. A footnote: Admitted steroid user Mark McGwire got just 12.3% and is now out of the running for the Hall because that was his 10th failed try, notes the New York Times.