Tuesday, September 16, 2008

The 2008 Hall Of Fame Veterans Committee Modern Era (Post-1942 Debut) Ballot -- Introduction

The Baseball Hall Of Fame today announced the ten finalists for this December's Veterans Committee ballot for players who made their major league debut later than 1942. The Hall released some other details -- candidates that didn't make the final ballot, review committee members, voters -- that I'll get to as well. No surprises among the names, and I'll do a complete ballot review very soon, but I wanted to toss this out quickly.

The ten candidates:
Dick Allen, Gil Hodges, Jim Kaat, Tony Oliva, Al Oliver, Vada Pinson, Ron Santo, Luis Tiant, Joe Torre, and Maury Wills.

I'm certain I've reviewed most if not all of these men previously -- I'm not sure about Oliver -- but they amount to the usual suspects. I am very pleased (but not surprised) that Santo is here, as he is my perpetual sterling candidate, the one I really want to see elected (at long last). Among the others, I don't really see anyone who played at Hall level, though whenever Torre gets on the manager ballot I'll support his candidacy.

Full review coming, of course.

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