The Baseball Hall Of Fame

In a quaint town in upstate New York -- Cooperstown; you've probably heard of it -- is one of the most compelling museums in the land: The National Baseball Hall Of Fame And Museum. These days pretty much every professional sport or competitive enterprise has its own Hall, but baseball did it first. I've been there twice, 1986 and 1989, and now live much further away so another visit is non-trivial; my next trip will probably be whenever Roger Clemens gets inducted, if he ever actually retires from playing the game. (I'm a Clemens fan of looooong standing and he's probably the only player I would go see be inducted, unless my li'l guy earns his own plaque someday, but these are topics for another time.)

The Hall has two primary methods of induction -- the annual ballot by the qualifying members of the Baseball Writers of America, and the biannual ballot by the Committee on Baseball Veterans (better known as the Veterans Committee, or VC). Last month the BBWAA elected, to no one's surprise, Cal Ripken, Jr., and Tony Gwynn. The VC, which releases its results next Tuesday, has elected no one since it was significantly reconstituted after the 2001 VC election caused a lot of uproar. The "new" VC, which has voted twice (2003 and 2005), now consists of all living honorees of the Hall, all living winners of the J.G. Taylor Spink (baseball sportswriting excellence) and Ford C. Frick (broadcasting excellence) Awards, and one guy left over from the old VC whose term will expire following the 2007 election. If everyone votes, there will be 84 ballots, with 75% (63 votes) needed for election to the Hall. (The voting honorees do not include the 2007 members, so Gwynn and Ripken won't get a ballot until 2009.)

Every other year, the VC votes on players selected through a multiple-iteration committee process, with a final ballot of between 25 and 30 candidates. Every fourth year, a second ballot is similarly comprised of non-playing individuals for consideration; this is the case for 2007. The non-player ballot (formally the "Composite Ballot") has 15 names. As this is the only mechanism at present for inducting non-players, the names deserve detailed consideration. The players do as well, but since these generally are men who the BBWAA bypassed for as many as 15 ballots, and the writers on the whole do a very good job of gatekeeping the Hall, any strong candidate should really jump out among the names. There's just not that many historical injustices still festering that demand redress. Given that the VC, granted in only two iterations, has been impressively stingy (so much so that any prediction of what will happen is rash, as it has set no positive precedents yet), this situation may propagate yet another election cycle. I have to think that, if the VC doesn't elect anyone after six or eight cycles, it may get disbanded and reconstituted yet again. Any committee that never elects anyone produces the same result as having no committee, and in that case having no committee is probably preferred. Be that as it may, the new VC is still a better method than the old VC, which was rife with horsetrading and favoritism throughout its decades of existence.

In the next few days I'll give short reviews of all the candidates, players and non-players, and how I would vote were I bestowed a ballot, which of course I am not.

The player candidates:
Dick Allen, Bobby Bonds, Ken Boyer, Rocky Colavito, Wes Ferrell, Curt Flood, Joe Gordon, Gil Hodges, Jim Kaat, Mickey Lolich, Sparky Lyle, Marty Marion, Roger Maris, Carl Mays, Minnie Minoso, Thurman Munson, Don Newcombe, Lefty O'Doul, Tony Oliva, Al Oliver, Vada Pinson, Ron Santo, Luis Tiant, Joe Torre (as a player, note), Cecil Travis, Mickey Vernon, Maury Wills.

The non-player candidates:
Buzzie Bavasi, August Busch Jr., Harry Dalton, Charley O. Finley, Doug Harvey, Whitey Herzog, Bowie Kuhn, Billy Martin, Marvin Miller, Walter O'Malley, Gabe Paul, Paul Richards, Bill White, Dick Williams, Phil Wrigley.

I will state, and will later defend, that I absolutely would vote for Santo and Miller, and would not vote for Maris; and I state these here prior to review because I've studied these men for years and have held these positions since the new VC first voted in 2003, if not long before.

Come along for the ride.