Baseball Hall of Fame

They write songs about center fielders, from (where have you gone) Joe DiMaggio to Willie, Mickey and the Duke. They write books about center fielders.

Catchers, shortstops and first basemen are important, but center fielders live on.

And yet in all the years of the Hall of Fame, only six players who started at least 1,500 games in center field have been voted in by the Baseball Writers Association of America. On Wednesday, it will become seven.

It sat on my desk for several days just before Christmas. In the envelope. Unsealed. Stamp affixed. Questions nagging.

Finally, into the mail it went.

Last-minute Christmas card? No.

My Hall of Fame ballot.

Get ready, folks. On Wednesday afternoon, the results of the Baseball Writers' Association of America vote for the 2016 Baseball Hall of Fame class will be announced.

It's unlikely that the 2016 class of inductees will be as big as last year's, which saw a whopping four players elected into Cooperstown. But with enough cunning, we can make a fair guess about what is going to happen with the 32 players on the 2016 ballot.

Mike Piazza, the best offensive catcher in baseball history, isn't in the Hall of Fame. And nobody can really explain why.

Yes, you will hear phrases like "stain of the steroid era" and "cloud of suspicion." But these are the facts: Piazza was never suspended for performance-enhancing drug use. His name did not appear in the Mitchell Report, and it hasn't surfaced in any subsequent PED revelation.

The Hall of Fame ballot arrived in the mail last month, filled with tough choices. Too many steroid guys, too many close calls.

And one sure-fire, no-doubt Hall of Famer.

If the Hall allowed us just one vote a year, this would have been the easiest ballot ever.

Put a check next to Ken Griffey Jr. Sign the ballot and mail it in.

And I would have been fine with that.

Just four years after World War II ended and two years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball, Minnie Minoso made his major league debut with the Cleveland Indians.

The 2015 MLB Hall of Fame class has officially been announced, as it will be a four-player class of Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz and Craig Biggio earning enshrinement in the hallowed halls of Cooperstown this year.

The three pitchers are each first-ballot selections and deservedly so, as they were among the greatest to ever toe the rubber. But for Biggio, it took three tries to finally gain induction.

If you think Mike Piazza is worthy of Cooperstown, you're not alone. For the third year in a row, he drew votes from the majority of the Hall of Fame voters.

…But not quite enough to actually get into the Hall of Fame.

The 2015 MLB Hall of Fame class is historically impressive.

The following four players are all be headed to Cooperstown this summer, per the MLB Twitter account:

• Craig Biggio
• Randy Johnson
• Pedro Martinez
• John Smoltz

As ESPN Stats & Info points out, this is the first time since 1955 and just the third time overall that four players will enter the Hall in the same year.

What once was a tremendous responsibility that brought joy and awe has degenerated into an exercise in frustration. But I'm not going to bore you with whining no matter what the Steroid Era has wrought, because let's be honest: Being entrusted with a Hall of Fame ballot remains a tremendous responsibility, no matter what.

So my 16th Hall of Fame ballot has been cast, and before I get into the names, there are a few things you should know.