Did the Baseball Corridor of Fame by chance leak Scott Rolen’s election? A Reddit person made a convincing case

Scott Rolen, considered one of MLB’s nice two-way third basemen, might be inducted into the Nationwide Baseball Corridor of Fame after six years of ready.

The announcement was made Tuesday at 6 p.m. ET on MLB Community, however some baseball followers already had an inkling Rolen’s possibilities have been good. No, we’re not speaking about Ryan Thibodeaux and his band of ballot-trackers, who continued their yeoman’s work by monitoring all publicly out there Cooperstown ballots.

With 80.7% of the identified ballots, Rolen appeared on observe for enshrinement, although you by no means know the way a lot the non-released ballots will drag a participant’s possibilities down. That is what occurred to longtime Colorado Rockies first baseman Todd Helton, who went from 78.7% of the general public vote to 72.2% of the entire vote.

As an alternative, the Corridor of Fame itself appeared to tip its hand that Rolen and solely Rolen would make it to Cooperstown, and it was noticed by one Reddit person two hours prematurely.

How a Reddit person discovered Scott Rolen made the Corridor of Fame

At 4:08 p.m. ET, a Reddit account going by the username of u/studoggery posted on the r/baseball subreddit.

The headline was easy: “[Speculation] I think Scott Rolen will be announced as a Hall of Famer today.“

As u/studoggery, whose aptitude identifies them as a St. Louis Cardinals fan, defined, he was participant pages on the Corridor of Fame’s web site when he realized its URLs comply with a easy format of “https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-famers/[last name]-[first name].”

The web page for Fred McGriff, who made the Corridor of Fame Class of 2023 by the final 12 months’s modern baseball period committee, was already up and running. Then the person determined to strive Scott Rolen’s title, and the outcome was very fascinating.

As an alternative of any variety of 404 or “Web page Not Discovered” messages, they obtained a “You aren’t licensed to entry this web page,” like this:

In the meantime, making an attempt the pages for different candidates with a sensible likelihood like Helton and Gary Sheffield, returned a way more regular “Web page not discovered,” like this:

Quickly after the submit began getting traction, the Rolen web page was reverted to the identical “Web page not discovered,” just about confirming one thing was afoot.

So it appeared the Corridor of Fame had arrange one thing beneath Scott Rolen’s title, instantly earlier than its voting outcomes have been introduced. It did not take a genius to guess that was Rolen’s new participant web page, which was somehow ready to go immediately after the announcement was made on MLB Community.

This process is seemingly not new for the Corridor of Fame, as one thing very comparable occurred final 12 months when social media users seen the Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Piazza obtained an analogous “You aren’t licensed to entry this web page” message.

Griffey and Piazza have been locks to be enshrined although, so Rolen’s leak was far more important, and even obtained a shoutout from ESPN’s Joon Lee on MLB Community proper earlier than the outcomes have been introduced.

The lesson right here is the web is all the time watching, and as an entire most likely understands internet design higher than the Nationwide Baseball Corridor of Fame.