Well, the ballots are in, and the Hall of Fame voters have spoken. I'm not sure what they said, exactly. But that's what this blog is here for. We don't have George Stephanopoulos or Chuck Todd around to help us sift through another year of fascinating Hall of Fame election returns. So let's turn this over to our very own election team:

• Clearly, these voters agreed that Barry Larkin was a great player. What's hard to make sense of is how many of them needed three years to figure it out. In the history of the modern voting format, which began in 1968, there has never been anyone elected who took a path quite like Larkin.

He went from 51.6 percent of the vote in 2010 to 62.1 last year to 86.4 this year, an upsurge of nearly 35 percent in just two years. The best way to put that in perspective is with this nugget:

Larkin was the 27th player since 1968 to get that huge a percentage of the vote in the year he got elected. But almost all of the others -- 22-of-26 -- were such slam-dunk Hall of Famers, they reeled in all those votes in their FIRST year on the ballot.

There was Roberto Alomar, who went from missing the cut to getting 90.0 percent last year. But the only two other exceptions were players who got elected more than 30 years ago: Duke Snider in 1980 (on his 11th ballot) and Robin Roberts in 1974 (on his fourth ballot). But neither came close to a 34.8-percent surge over any two-year period. That's just crazy.

• Larkin got 134 more votes this year than he got last year. Think about that. He somehow convinced 134 people to change their votes in one year -- without playing a single game. How hard is that to do? He's the first player in the history of the modern voting system to make that humongous a jump in votes in a single election. But apparently, this is now some kind of bizarre trend -- since the old record (126) was set last year, by Alomar.

• Larkin also became just the second player to increase his vote total by 80-plus votes in two elections. The other? Gary Carter, who went from 168 to 248 to 334 between 1999 and 2001. And after that, it still took Carter two more years to get elected. But other than Larkin, nobody has made jumps that hefty between his first and third elections.

• Then again, it was that kind of year. With no overly compelling first-year candidates to attract a bunch of votes, we had four players (Larkin, Jack Morris, Jeff Bagwell and Alan Trammell) take leaps of 70 votes or more and a fifth (Tim Raines) who got a 61-vote bounce.

The only other election in the last 20 years in which anything like that happened: 2000, when the high-jumpers included Jim Rice (111), Tony Perez (111), Carter (80), Bruce Sutter (71) and Carlton Fisk (67).

• That brings us to Monday's runner-up, Morris. He got 66.7 percent of the vote, in his 13th year on the ballot. He was still 48 votes away from election. And to be honest, I'm not sure he'll be able to find another 48 votes in the next two years. But the good news for him:

A) No player has ever gotten that high a percentage without eventually making it into the Hall of Fame, either via the writers or the Veterans Committee.

B) The last 21 players who reached that level (and were still eligible) got elected by the writers within two years. So history, at least, says Morris is going to make it. But he's such a unique case, I'm still not convinced the holdouts are ready to change their minds.

• Right behind Morris is Bagwell, who jumped 79 votes and wound up at 56.0 percent. In modern voting history, nobody has ever had that big an increase and not gotten into the Hall. And the only player who reached 56 percent in ANY election and didn't eventually make it was Gil Hodges, who topped out at 63.4 percent. Hodges didn't top 56 percent until Year 5, though. And no player who reached that percentage within his first two years on the ballot has failed to pull into Cooperstown sooner or later.

• So here's a fun question to contemplate: If Bagwell and his longtime amigo Craig Biggio both get elected next year (when Biggio makes his ballot debut), have there ever been two guys who played together as long as those two did (15 seasons) who got inducted together?

The correct answer: Yes! In 1974, Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford went in on the same day. They, too, were teammates for 15 seasons.

And when was the last time the BBWAA voted in two men in the same election who played together for any length of time? That would be 2001, when Kirby Puckett and Dave Winfield -- teammates on the 1993-94 Twins -- were elected together.

• In an election in which 11 candidates increased their vote totals by double or triple digits, only two players on the ballot actually lost votes. That would be the dynamic duo of Mark McGwire (who dropped three votes) and Juan Gonzalez (who dipped seven and plummeted below 5 percent and will disappear from voting entirely).

If there was any doubt about how McGwire's confession of performance-enhancing drug use would affect his candidacy, that mystery has been officially solved. He's gone from 128 to 115 to 112 votes since he came clean. So at this point, if he even quadrupled his votes, he would barely get elected. And that ain't happening any time soon.

• McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro (who actually gained eight votes) are both in the 500 home runs club. Once, that meant automatic election. Now it means 112 votes for McGwire and just 72 for Palmeiro. Oof.

So perhaps you're wondering: Have any 500-homer men ever collected fewer votes than that? And the answer is: Oh, yeah.

Back in the early days of the voting, the great Jimmie Foxx got just 10 votes in his first election after retiring (in 1947). He actually had gotten more votes than that (21) in the first Hall election ever in 1936, when he was still playing and hadn't even approached 500 homers yet. But remember, voting patterns in the '40s are a bigger mystery than the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Here's a list of the lowest vote totals in modern balloting history for a 500-HR man:

64: Palmeiro, 2011
72: Palmeiro, 2012
112: McGwire, 2012
115: McGwire, 2011
118: Eddie Mathews, 1974

• Let's not abandon the topic of Gonzalez yet. This guy was a two-time MVP -- and it earned him a whopping 23 votes. But that's not the fewest votes ever by a multitime MVP. Two-time MVP Hal Newhouser got FOUR votes in 1962 -- and still went on to become a Hall of Famer, thanks to the Veterans Committee.

• Finally, it's time to welcome Eric Young and Javy Lopez to the distinguished ranks of one of my favorite, quirky All-Star teams:

The All-I Got One Vote in a Hall of Fame Election team.

And just to prove what an honor that is, I'm going to add them both to the 2012 edition of that fine squad. Ready? It's quite a group:

1B: George (Boomer) Scott
2B: Eric Young
SS: Walt Weiss
3B: Tim Wallach
LF: David Justice
CF: Lenny Dykstra
RF: Ellis Valentine
C: Javy Lopez

Starting rotation: Dock Ellis, Kevin Appier, Chuck Finley, John Candelaria and Dennis Leonard

Bullpen: Al Hrabosky, Jesse Orosco, Bill Campbell, Steve Bedrosian and Clay Carroll

Designated postseason hitter: Lonnie Smith

All-Postgame Interview Team: Jim Deshaies, Bret Boone, Darren Daulton, Jay Buhner and Jose Rijo

Broadcast booth: John Kruk, Jerry Remy, Mike Krukow and Ron Darling

DL: Danny Tartabull and David Segui