ESPN MLB

Brian Williams, Tom Brokaw and Chuck Todd weren't available to sit at this Election Return Headquarters desk. So I guess I'll have to sift through another fascinating batch of Hall of Fame election returns myself. Here goes:

• Roberto Alomar didn't just get himself elected Wednesday. We also should be awarding him the Olympic gold medal in the high jump -- because he collected a stunning 126 more votes this year than he got last year. That ties for the largest jump ever since the advent of the modern voting system in 1968. And it's only the fourth 100-vote leap in that entire span. The others:

126: Luis Aparicio, 1981-82 (from 48 to 174)
111: Jim Rice, 1999-2000 (from 146 to 257)
100: Early Wynn, 1970-71 (from 140 to 240)

• Alomar made the biggest jump, by far, in the history of this voting system by a returning candidate in the year he got elected. Here's that leaderboard:

126: Roberto Alomar, 2010-11 (from 397 to 523)
97: Yogi Berra, 1971-72 (from 242 to 339)
89: Luis Aparicio, 1983-84 (from 252 to 341)
84: Ryne Sandberg, 2004-05 (from 309 to 393)
83: Tony Perez, 1999-2000 (from 302 to 385)

• Alomar also set one more record. He's the first player to miss election in his first appearance on the ballot and then collect 90 percent of the vote in his second time around. Here are the only four previous Hall of Famers who even jumped into the 80s after missing in their first shot, according to ESPN Stats & Info:

Yogi Berra, 85.6
Nap Lajoie, 83.6
Tris Speaker, 82.1
Rollie Fingers, 81.2

• But Bert Blyleven fits into a whole different group. Despite what seemed to be an obvious groundswell of sentiment that this was destined to be The Year, he got only 43 more votes than he got last year. And that's the third-smallest jump by an electee in the past 25 years:

20: Jim Rice, 2008-09 (from 392 to 412)
40: Don Sutton, 1987-88 (from 346 to 386)
43: Bert Blyleven, 2010-11 (from 420 to 463)
44: Gary Carter, 2002-03 (from 343 to 387)

• As recently as 12 years ago, Blyleven collected just 70 votes in one of these Hall of Fame elections. That's 14.1 percent. In the history of the modern voting system, only one player ever got elected to the Hall of Fame after once receiving a lower percentage than that. That was Aparicio, who somehow went from getting 12 percent (48 votes) in 1981 to getting elected just THREE years later. So Blyleven is the only candidate ever to climb from less than 15 percent to more than 75 percent over a decade or more.

• Among the players who have attracted more votes than Blyleven in one of his years on the ballot:

Minnie Minoso
Jim Kaat
Tommy John
Dale Murphy
Dave Parker
Don Mattingly

To read more of Jayson Stark's blog, you must be an ESPN Insider.