Totally Random

Rickey Henderson received votes from 94.8% of the eligible voters for baseball's Hall of Fame.

One who didn't vote for him was Corky Simpson, a retired Tucson Citizen sports columnist who now writes for the weekly News and Sun of Green Valley, Ariz.

Simpson was ripped hard and often in the cyberworld.

One example quoted by the Columbia Journalism Review was posted on the News and Sun website by reader Reeds Johnson, who wanted to know if Simpson was "stupid or just senile.''

Perhaps, in this one case, the former, Simpson later acknowledged, apologizing to the Oakland Tribune for not voting for Henderson.

But he apparently doesn't care much for the medium used by many of his critics.

"I think of the literature on the Internet in the same way that I think of the literature on the walls of public bathrooms,'' he told Megan Garber of the Columbia Journalism Review. "With the exception that the literature on the walls of public bathrooms is a little higher class.''

Read more on our LATimes blogs. (Kidding, Corky. You've suffered enough.)

Trivia time

Henderson is one of five Hall of Famers to have played for the Dodgers and Angels. Who are the others?

A vote for Big Mac

Mark McGwire fell short of the 75% of votes required for the Hall of Fame for the third consecutive time, receiving less support this year than the previous two. Of the 21.9% of the ballots on which he was named, one was cast by Yahoo Sports' Gordon Edes.

Edes, who didn't vote for McGwire before, said he can't distinguish which players were and weren't using performance-enhancing substances during the so-called Steroid Era.

"I can have my suspicions, many of them compelling,'' he wrote, ''but outside of David Eckstein, there are few players I would name with 100 percent certainty as being pure.''

He didn't say whether he would vote for Eckstein when he becomes eligible.

What critics hear

Norman Chad, who writes a column for the Washington Post, lost a bet to ESPN Radio's Colin Cowherd over how many games the Cleveland Browns would win (Chad said more than eight).

As a result, he had to let Cowherd write part of his column.

Chad, however, couldn't resist a parting shot at Cowherd, quoting him "verbatim'' from his radio show last Thursday.

"Blah blah blah blah Pete Carroll walks on water. Blah blah blah blah BCS. Blah blah blah blah Bob Stoops is Sponge Bob Bowl Flop. Blah blah blah blah BCS.''

Trivia answer

Eddie Murray, Frank Robinson, Don Sutton and Hoyt Wilhelm.

And finally

Dallas Cowboys linebacker Anthony Spencer was arrested in the early-morning hours Sunday for public intoxication and disturbing the peace in Indianapolis ... at the Have a Nice Day Cafe.

-- Randy Harvey

Photo: In 1999, Rickey Henderson was with the Mets doing what he did best. Credit: Ezra O. Shaw / Allsport