New Hall of Fame Rules

Great Debates
1

The National Baseball Hall of Fame yesterday revamped the Veterans Committee. In short, the new rules are (with the old rules in italics for comparison):

[list]
[li] The Veterans Committee will now be made up of all living Hall of Famers, recipients of the Spinks (for baseball writers) and Frick (for broadcasting) awards, as well as any current VC members whose terms are not yet expired. This brings the total membership to 90.[/li]Previously, the VC consisted of 15 former players, reportes and managers/executives.

[li]Player elections will be held every other year. Elections for managers/executives/umpires will happen once every four years.[/li]* Previously, elections in both categories happened every year.*

[li]All Players with 10 years of major league service, not on the ineligible list and not on the BBWAA ballot are eligible for election by the VC. (Personal note: This would seemingly open a loophole for newly retired players to be elected by the VC, since they are not on the BBWAA yet. However, I’m sure they’ll rewrite the rules to close this one in a hurry.) 19th century players will be included in the group of eligible players. A commission will be set up to determine the status of any future possible Negro League candidates.[/li]* Previously, the VC could only consider a player starting three years after their BBWAA eligibility expired. In addition, the only candidates who were eligible were those with 10 years of service whose careers started before 1946; or those that started after 1946 who got at least 100 votes in any one BBWAA election.*

[li] A screening committee will put together a list of 25-30 names for the ballot.[/li]* Previously, there was no ballot. The VC could vote for any eligible player.*

[li] All candidates receiving 75% of the vote will be elected. All voting results will be made public.[/li]* Previously, the VC could only elect one player and one umpire/manager/executive in any year. Ballotting results were kept secret.*

There has been a lot of talk (and there is evidence for this) that the VC selections to the Hall of Fame have been of lesser quality than the BBWAA selections. As a result, many fans have been unhappy with the VC for a long time in electing players who were marginal Hall of Famers (and some not even that, back in the early days of the VC).

This revamping is a step in the right direction, but, IMHO, not quite the answer. The way I see it, there were two reasons for these changes:

  1. To improve the quality of the selections. Now, you’ll need 68 votes, rather than 12 to get in. This should reduce some of the cronyism that the VC has been noted for in the past.

  2. To give renewed eligibility to those that were dropped from the BBWAA ballot and were not eligible for VC election.

Goal number one was accomplished. A number of current HOFers publicly made statements to the effect that they were disappointed that Maz was elected this year. By including more voters (including current HOFers and award winning writers and broadcasters) the bar should be raised somewhat.

The second goal, IMHO, is a mistake. If a player does not make it in with 15 years of voting by the BBWAA, why should he make it in with the VC? Dick Allen was eligible to be elected by the voters from 1982 to 1997. In every year, he failed to get 75% of the vote. What has (will have) changed about Dick Allen’s playing career between 1997 and 2003 (when the new VC will vote for the first time) to merit a new look? The answer, of course, is nothing. He has not and (presumably) will not play another game. What will we know about Dick Allen’s career in 2003 that we didn’t know from 1982 to 1997?

Part of the problem was that the HOF wanted to give another shot to players who were dropped from the BBWAA ballot because they didn’t get 5% of the vote in any one year. I can understand that. I don’t necessarily think a player’s chances of getting to the HOF should be done in by one bad year at the ballot box. But there are better ways to fix that problem than granting perpetual eligibility through the VC. Maybe don’t drop a player from the ballot unless he gets under 5% of the vote for three years. Maybe don’t drop him at all. Keep him on the ballot for 15 years and then, finito.

The floor is open to debate.

Zev Steinhardt

2

I think the Veterans’ Committee has wandered FAR from its original purpose, and should be disbanded entirely.

The whole idea of the Veterans’ Committee was to find little-known stars from long ago, worthy players who’d been forgotten, or who’d never gotten enough publicity. More recently, the Veterans’ Committee had the important task of finding Negro Leagues stars to honor.

PERHAPS there’s still a player or two from the 19th century who deserves inclusion in the Hall of Fame. And there are almost certainly a few great Negro Leagues players who’ve been unjustly overlooked. THOSE are the players a Veterans’ Committee should be looking for. They’re NOT supposed to be a Court of Appeals, overturning the decisions of the sportswriters.

Now, guys like Phil Rizzuto and Bill Mazeroski were NOT unknowns who played in oscuirty. He was well known, widely admired, and had PLENTY of chances to be elected into the Hall of Fame. The sportswriters decided that, good as they was, Mazeroski and Rizzuto simply didn’t belong in the Hall of Fame, because they were NOT among the elite players of their time.

The Veterans’ Committee was NOT created to give such players a second chance. It was created to find players who never got a fair chance in the FIRST place! If they can’t stick to that simple, worthy task, they should be disbanded.

3

I’m unhappy.

As a Royals fan, I was very much hoping for the day that Frank White would have enough friends on the Veteran’s Committee to justify voting him into the HOF on the same basis as Bill Mazeroski’s friends did for him.

Seriously, though, I do think the Veterans’ committee has outlived its true purpose and should now be restricted to the Negro Leagues and non-players. In the odd chance that they can really come up with a pre-1946 major league player who they couldn’t think of all these years who merits inclusion, let them vote on him and then recommend the BBWAA consider him for inclusion and give the decision to them.

The Veterans’ committee has become nothing but a nostalgia club.

Ah, but it would have been nice to see Frank White in there…not that he deserves it, but a Royals fan doesn’t have much to dream about these days…

4

What makes one think that writers only have the right to decide who should be in the Hall? After all, it is not as if they are totally objective. They are the ones who are shafting guys like Jim Rice big time because throughout his career, he was schnubbing the nosy media. I think that it is a very good series of rules, and keeps in step with other awards in other professional sports which includes previous winners in the vote. The players already in the Hall have a more invested interest to make sure that the sanctity of the HOF is not desecrated by honring those undeserving.

Shortstops, and great defensive/light-hitting players in general, get shafted most of all by the writers because the shortstops and great defensive players don’t usually put up monster offensive stats that the writers slant so much in their decisions. Watch Mike Piazza get in the Hall of Fame, with, more votes than Ivan Rodriguez, although Rodriguez is a much better all-around catcher. Come on, power batters are usually placed in the OF because of its relative little need for sparkling defense.

5

I wasn’t suggesting that the writers should be the only ones to vote. If you want to talk about totally revamping the voting, that’s a whole different story. I was looking for a debate on the current changes to the VC. As it is now, at least the current HOFers and some of the broadcast folks will have a say. That’s a start in the right direction.

Zev Steinhardt

6

There are several players who can calim, legitimately, that they were screwed out of awards they deserved by sportswriters who didn’t like them.

Albert Belle DEFINITELY deserved an MVP award that went to Mo Vaughn, simply because Belle is a jerk and sportswriters didnt like him.

And if Eddie Murray had smiled a little more, and been less surly, he’d have been the 1983 AL MVP, not Cal Ripken.

But Jim Rice has NO beef. Sportswriters gave him the MVP award in 1978, even though he was a surly cuss, and DESPITE the fact that Ron Guidry of the Yankees (a very nice, polite individual, well liked by writers) had a phenomenal year (25-3, 1.74 ERA) and probably deserved it a lot more than Rice did.

7

I totally agree withastorian

In fact, I recommend that the Veterans’ Committee be replaced with a Pruning Committee. The PC would have the job of kicking ballplayers out of the HOF who oughtn’t to have been admitted in the first place. They could start with ex-Cub Billy Williams.

8

That’s completely untrue. Shortstops and defensive players are very well represented in the Hall of Fame, as evidenced by the induction of Phil Rizzuto, among others. Come on, Phil Rizzuto? You don’t see outfielders with his limited credentials making the Hall; it’d be like electing Devon White to the Hall of Fame.

The only classes of players that are significantly underrepresented in the Hall are pitchers and third basemen.

astorian

That would have been a shame, since Ripken actually deserved the award, not Murray.

Of course, you’re right: sportswriters do make their calls about ballplayers based, really, on only two things:

  1. How good an interview the player is
  2. Whether or not the player is white