The Hall's New Veterans Committee -- The Results

The Hall Of Fame has announced the results from the two ballots considered by different delegations of the revamped Veterans Committee. Electors are limited to no more than four votes among the ten candidates per ballot. Different electorates vote on each ballot.

Managers & Umpires (12 of 16, 75%, needed for election)

rank candidate...........votes..percentage

1t. Billy Southworth* (M)...13 81.3% -- ELECTED
1t. Dick Williams (M).......13 81.3% -- ELECTED
3t. Doug Harvey* (U)........11 68.8%
3t. Whitey Herzog (M).......11 68.8%
5. Danny Murtaugh* (M).......6 37.5%
6. Hank O'Day (U)............4 25.0%
7t. Davey Johnson* (M)......<3 ≤12.5%
7t. Billy Martin (M)........<3 ≤12.5%
7t. Gene Mauch (M)..........<3 ≤12.5%
7t. Cy Rigler (U)...........<3 ≤12.5%

* Candidates for whom I would have voted.

Executives (9 of 12, 75%, needed for election)

rank candidate.....votes..percentage

1t. Barney Dreyfuss....10 83.3% -- ELECTED
1t. Bowie Kuhn.........10 83.3% -- ELECTED
3. Walter O'Malley*.....9 75.0% -- ELECTED
4. Ewing Kauffman*......5 41.7%
5. John Fetzer..........4 33.3%
6t. Bob Howsam..........3 25.0%
6t. Marvin Miller*......3 25.0%
8t. Buzzie Bavasi......<3 ≤16.7%
8t. John McHale........<3 ≤16.7%
8t. Gabe Paul..........<3 ≤16.7%

* Candidates for whom I would have voted.

Interesting that the Hall now uses a "less than" mimimum return, which I suppose is a face-saving gesture for the bottom down-ballot candidates, as a return of zero really is very dismissive. Looking at the votes, and noting that each elector was limited to four votes maximum, 58 of a possible 64 votes on the M&U ballot, and 44 of a possible 48 votes on the Executives ballot, are accountable. If every vote was cast, that leaves six votes for the four M&U candidates and four votes for the three Executives candidates who went indeterminately reported. So there's a good chance someone, or more than one, did get zero votes. I think it is irresponsible of the Hall not to specify those downballot returns, but I suppose it isn't that important. Maybe this "less than three votes" notation is a way of backhandedly indicating that these candidates won't be on the ballot again any time soon (and reviewing the seven names, I don't think this sort of unofficial relegation would be a bad thing, at least for one cycle of the ballots).

Congratulations to the five newest Hall Of Famers, of whom only Williams is alive to appreciate the honor. I supported Southworth and (wanly) O'Malley already, so those are, to me, sound selections. I have no real objections to the elections of Williams and Dreyfuss. And among my choices not elected, I feel little disappointment for Harvey, Murtaugh, Johnson, or Kauffman.

The election of Kuhn does nothing to improve the Hall's execution of its mission. His administration was lengthy and effected some good changes to the great game, but he had more liabilities than assets. The Hall was not a lesser repository and chronicler of baseball history without him.

The omission of Marvin Miller is a sore point, though I cannot summon genuine outrage because the composition of the voting committee was so obviously stacked against his candidacy. The Hall does suffer for Miller's absence; among off-field personnel, he is one of the two or three biggest influences across all of baseball history. Not honoring the person responsible for that sort of enormous impact is detrimental to the entire institution. Perhaps the Hall board, when appointing the voting committee for executives next time (2009), will take this into consideration and compose a more equitable electorate.

An update -- the Executives ballot was composed by the same committee members who ultimately voted on that ballot. The Hall hadn't made this readily apparent before, or if so I simply missed it. This strikes me as somewhat fishy (although the Hall can, and does, charter these things however it wants), as one thing the final vote does is shine brighter light on the election agenda of some subset of the committee -- the entire process appears to be for show. The Hall board should know better -- and in fact, it does -- and I'd rather not go down the pathway of conspiracies, but electing Kuhn does help pave the way for eventually electing sitting Commissioner Selig, and right now I'm not at all sure if I'd support his candidacy. But, no doubt, he's got friends. Such a two-iterative ballot process should use separate delegations.