If you want a unanimous Hall of Fame election, the road toward that goal is clear: Make all the votes pubic.

At first glance, inspecting the 2017 Hall of Fame roster of candidates, it appears nobody approaches Ken Griffey Jr., the most popular inductee in history by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America with 99.3 percent of the vote.

Shortstop, actor, gentleman.

On their first full day as Hall of Fame electees, Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Piazza looked natural together — though it’s worth noting this union could have happened much sooner. Griffey was very nearly a Met before nixing a deal in 1999.

Kenta Maeda’s unusual eight-year contract with the Dodgers says a couple of things about the Japanese right-hander: He has tremendous upside, but also comes with some real risk.

The decision of what team’s cap to wear into the National Baseball Hall of Fame is sometimes met with some consternation. But not this year. Ken Griffey Jr. will be the first to go in as a Mariner, and Mike Piazza chose the Mets over the Dodgers, the two latest electees revealed on Thursday.

Baseball’s trade market has slowed in the wake of the wheeling and dealing earlier this offseason that sent Aroldis Chapman, Craig Kimbrel, Todd Frazier, Shelby Miller, Andrelton Simmons, Ken Giles, Starlin Castro and many others to new homes.

The catch was eerily familiar for so many, right down to the family name. But to Ken Griffey Jr., it was a fresh experience that he’d repeat many times over the course of what became a Hall of Fame career.

It’s not like anyone expected Mike Piazza to go into the Hall of Fame in a Marlins cap. But the new electee paused during the introductory news conference on Thursday to contemplate his fabled five-game Florida career and those eight strange days that led to his time with the Mets.

We’ve come so far in such a short period of time. We’re closer than we’ve ever been. We’re better informed, too. We know how fast the center fielder runs and how hard the shortstop throws. We see the spin on pitches, the break, the everything.

Lookin’ sharp.

Dear Catastrophe Waiter

Maybe 2017 will be the year another Astro of note finally has it in the Bag-well. Maybe it’ll be the year it Raines on the Hall of Fame parade. And maybe one of the all-time great ninth-inning arms will close it out.

Look, no player is ever going to be a unanimous Hall of Famer. If we’ve learned anything about the voting of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America these last 80 years, this is it.

Shout it from the actual rooftops.

Major League Baseball extended its reach in a huge way on Wednesday with the announcement of a three-year deal to live stream 125 games and an array of other programming into mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau beginning this month.

These are civilized times, right? It would probably be the wrong thing to do a freedom of information request and find the names of the Junior Griffey Three.