Closer Mariano Rivera, designated hitter Edgar Martinez and starting pitchers Roy Halladay and Mike Mussina will be the newest members of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Rivera became the first player to be unanimously voted into the Hall.

The four were voted into the hall by the Baseball Writers Association of America on Tuesday. Of the four, Halladay and Mussina were first-round picks, though only Mussina was touted for stardom from the start of his career.

Before Rivera, the highest vote percentage belonged to Ken Griffey Jr. in 2016, when he received 99.3 percent (named on 437 of 440) ballots. Martinez, in his final year on the ballot, received 85.4 percent, culminating a late surge of support. He received just 27 percent four years ago, when his election felt like a futile possibility. Halladay, who died in 2017 when the plane he was piloting crashed into the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida coast, also received 85.4 percent of the vote, joining Rivera as a first-ballot inductee. Mussina received 76.7 percent of the vote, clearing the 75 percent threshold by seven votes.

"Amazing. ... It was a beautiful, long career," Rivera told MLB Network.

More at http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/25826814/mariano-rivera-edgar-martinez-roy-halladay-mike-mussina-elected-baseball-hall-fame

The line to get into the final event of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s weekend tour of Iowa began forming 2½ hours in advance. Standing at the very front were Kristin Wesner and her daughter Alaina. Arriving for the Sunday morning forum extra-early was Alaina’s idea. Despite the January chill, the 9-year-old wanted to be absolutely sure she would get a prime spot to see the all-but-announced Democratic presidential candidate.

Her mom, Kristin, a psychology professor, is hoping Warren can do what Hillary Clinton, whom she supported in 2016, could not: be the first woman to make it all the way to the White House. Though there may be upward of two dozen presidential contenders coming through Iowa over the 13 months between now and its first-in-the-nation caucuses, “she’s at the top of my list right now,” Kristin said.

The political-insider chatter is already suggesting that Warren might have a “likability” problem, just like the one that supposedly was Clinton’s downfall. And if two or three other women join the race, which appears likely, they will no doubt hear that as well. As a headline on the humorous McSweeney’s website put it: “I Don’t Hate Women Candidates — I Just Hated Hillary and Coincidentally I’m Starting to Hate Elizabeth Warren.”

Judging by the packed houses at Warren’s events over the weekend, however, insiders may be selling Democratic voters short. “People decided 20 years ago whether they liked Hillary Clinton, back when her husband was president,” Kristin said. On the other hand, she sees Warren offering a fresher appeal: “Her message is consistent, and she’s looking out for the middle class.”

...Warren represents a stark contrast from Clinton in a more fundamental way. While Clinton had a 20-point plan ready for every question, she failed to weave it all together into anything that resembled a coherent rationale for her candidacy. At one point, her campaign, floundering to articulate what she stood for, put together a document of 84 ideas for slogans. By the end, her message seemed to be only that Trump was not fit to be president.

Warren, on the other hand, diagnoses virtually every issue — from student debt to climate change, gun control to retirement security — with the same blunt prescription. “The answer is corruption, pure and simple. We have a government that works for those at the top,” she says. “When we get organized, when we push back, we can make some real change.” It is noticeable that Trump’s name rarely crosses her lips, a sign she believes this message can connect with some of the same frustrated middle-class voters who flocked to him in 2016.

More at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/elizabeth-warren-is-no-hillary-clinton/2019/01/07/f15f9f70-11f7-11e9-b6ad-9cfd62dbb0a8_story.html?utm_term=.e181c86371c5