MLB's Hall of Lame
January 21st 2012 09:09
What characterizes a Hall of Famer? Is it consistent greatness despite being on a losing team? Is it moment of greatness in the postseason sprinkled into a very good career? This very question is so vague and open ended, as well as subjective it's practically impossible to answer. When you're asking baseball people and baseball fans that question, they usually respond with the oft-used I-don't-have-to-think-about-it phrase. That means if a name is brought up, that player is either defined as a Hall of Fame type player or not. Pretty black and white. But it's hardly that easy in the realities of the MLB Hall of Fame process.
Much of how the Hall of Fame process works is muddled with details and secrecy with regards to who actually gets to vote in terms of the "qualified voting members of the Baseball Writers Association of America. Whomever gets to place a vote each year, a player is inducted if he garners at least 75% of all accumulated ballots. Each voting cycle, the BBWA gets to submit at least 10 players who can be on the ballot for consideration. A player can stay on the list for up to 15 years for induction and then is removed or is removed if he fails to get fewer than 5% of total votes.
Every year since 1936 a HoF vote has been done for the MLB and in 2012 Barry Larkin was inducted into the Hall getting over 85% of votes for his induction. My question has always been do certain voters have to check themselves each year by allowing only a certain amount of players in the Hall of Fame even if they have been on the ballot in the past? To me if you are a Hall of Fame player then why can't these players simply be inducted in their first go round on the ballot? What's the point of keeping a retired legend on there as if there is a rule against inducting more than one or two worthy names. I will use Larkin as a mere example, but he is easily not the best one to use for the sake of argument.
Still, in 2010, Larkin's first year on the ballot, the voters gave him 51%. Andrew Dawson was the only player inducted that year. In 2011 Larkin received 62% as Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyleven were inducted. By year three on the ballot Larkin got 86% to be enshrined in his third year on the ballot. I don't really understand how Barry Larkin became more eligible one year after the other when he was retired other than the fact the HoF makes certain players wait to be inducted. There seems to be some type of unwritten code that the voting committee has which wants to limit the amount of inductions each year to toy with the media and nominees' minds.
I say that tongue and cheek, but in the first year of inductions in 1936, the HoF put in five of the game's greatest to ever play. Ty Cobb received the most votes of the five at 98% along with Honus Wagner, Babe Ruth, Christy Mathewson, and Walter Johnson. That was the only time the Hall made five players eligible and inducted in the same year. There's also this fact of revelation I found looking at just the 1936 ballot. There were 50 names on the ballot including the five men inducted. 45 names remained on the ballot and all but seven of them eventually were inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame. If you want to make a rule no more than five players per season can be inducted make the rule. Don't play patty-cake with your votes and pretend a retired player deserves to go in one year more than another when their playing days are finished.
Doesn't that seem a little odd? The ballot had all these retired players but only inducted certain guys in the first year and the process continued each year after that. People don't want to look back that far but that is how things have always been done like it's some type of game to limit the amount of inductees each year. If that is the case then why doesn't the voting committees make a rule that says so? Instead there are retired players deserving of a place in the Hall of Fame almost every year who may have to wait up to 15 years after their first year on the ballot to become a member? It makes no sense to me and comes across as nerdy, petty, and downright childish.
Per the Hall's voting rules, a player can be voted in five years after his retirement with at least 10 years of playing experience after passing a screening committee. Barry Larkin's career was over in 2004. Again using the classy Cincinnati, Ohio native as an example, the voting committee had five years to decide whether or not he was a Hall of Fame player. So in 2008 why wasn't Barry Larkin voted in as he was in 2012? Will names like Jack Morris, Jeff Bagwell, Lee Smith, Alan Trammell, Edgar Martinez, Larry Walker, Dale Murphy, and Tim Raines be more Hall of Fame worthy just because they spent another year with their name on the ballot? If they aren't worthy the minute they are on the ballot as retired players then good riddance to their chances I say. But I probably would be scoffed at the notion of being simple minded by the BBWAA.
It's a question I have no answer for, but it is one the entire Hall of Fame committee should have to with regards to how its writers treat each voting year leaving deserving players on the ballot to wait more years which is wildly unnecessary.
Much of how the Hall of Fame process works is muddled with details and secrecy with regards to who actually gets to vote in terms of the "qualified voting members of the Baseball Writers Association of America. Whomever gets to place a vote each year, a player is inducted if he garners at least 75% of all accumulated ballots. Each voting cycle, the BBWA gets to submit at least 10 players who can be on the ballot for consideration. A player can stay on the list for up to 15 years for induction and then is removed or is removed if he fails to get fewer than 5% of total votes.
Every year since 1936 a HoF vote has been done for the MLB and in 2012 Barry Larkin was inducted into the Hall getting over 85% of votes for his induction. My question has always been do certain voters have to check themselves each year by allowing only a certain amount of players in the Hall of Fame even if they have been on the ballot in the past? To me if you are a Hall of Fame player then why can't these players simply be inducted in their first go round on the ballot? What's the point of keeping a retired legend on there as if there is a rule against inducting more than one or two worthy names. I will use Larkin as a mere example, but he is easily not the best one to use for the sake of argument.
Still, in 2010, Larkin's first year on the ballot, the voters gave him 51%. Andrew Dawson was the only player inducted that year. In 2011 Larkin received 62% as Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyleven were inducted. By year three on the ballot Larkin got 86% to be enshrined in his third year on the ballot. I don't really understand how Barry Larkin became more eligible one year after the other when he was retired other than the fact the HoF makes certain players wait to be inducted. There seems to be some type of unwritten code that the voting committee has which wants to limit the amount of inductions each year to toy with the media and nominees' minds.
I say that tongue and cheek, but in the first year of inductions in 1936, the HoF put in five of the game's greatest to ever play. Ty Cobb received the most votes of the five at 98% along with Honus Wagner, Babe Ruth, Christy Mathewson, and Walter Johnson. That was the only time the Hall made five players eligible and inducted in the same year. There's also this fact of revelation I found looking at just the 1936 ballot. There were 50 names on the ballot including the five men inducted. 45 names remained on the ballot and all but seven of them eventually were inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame. If you want to make a rule no more than five players per season can be inducted make the rule. Don't play patty-cake with your votes and pretend a retired player deserves to go in one year more than another when their playing days are finished.
Doesn't that seem a little odd? The ballot had all these retired players but only inducted certain guys in the first year and the process continued each year after that. People don't want to look back that far but that is how things have always been done like it's some type of game to limit the amount of inductees each year. If that is the case then why doesn't the voting committees make a rule that says so? Instead there are retired players deserving of a place in the Hall of Fame almost every year who may have to wait up to 15 years after their first year on the ballot to become a member? It makes no sense to me and comes across as nerdy, petty, and downright childish.
Per the Hall's voting rules, a player can be voted in five years after his retirement with at least 10 years of playing experience after passing a screening committee. Barry Larkin's career was over in 2004. Again using the classy Cincinnati, Ohio native as an example, the voting committee had five years to decide whether or not he was a Hall of Fame player. So in 2008 why wasn't Barry Larkin voted in as he was in 2012? Will names like Jack Morris, Jeff Bagwell, Lee Smith, Alan Trammell, Edgar Martinez, Larry Walker, Dale Murphy, and Tim Raines be more Hall of Fame worthy just because they spent another year with their name on the ballot? If they aren't worthy the minute they are on the ballot as retired players then good riddance to their chances I say. But I probably would be scoffed at the notion of being simple minded by the BBWAA.
It's a question I have no answer for, but it is one the entire Hall of Fame committee should have to with regards to how its writers treat each voting year leaving deserving players on the ballot to wait more years which is wildly unnecessary.
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