Please invite your friends to join and vote! More votes will make this more interesting.
Sorry for missing this so far! So, just a top fifteen guys? Let’s go with:
Babe Ruth
Willie Mays
Ty Cobb
Hank Aaron
Honus Wagner
Stan Musial
Ted Williams
Rickey Henderson
Mickey Mantle
Jackie Robinson
Cy Young
Walter Johnson
Sandy Koufax
Tom Seaver
Pedro Martinez
Ten position players and five pitchers (though I almost went 11/4), aiming to cover as many eras as reasonably possible. I put a premium on peak when appropriate, driving Koufax and Pedro in particular, and I also have no problem using importance to baseball history and lore as part of this list. I support the steroid era guys as half of famers, but on a list as stacked as this, I don’t mind using that as a sliver-thin reason to cut things down a little. I really wanted to include Mike Trout, in a half-joking-half-serious way, but I had enough trouble getting to 20, never mind 15. Last cut was Rogers Hornsby, but I could put ten names in as “last-cut” worthy.
I really struggled with this, so I decided to go by who I felt was the best player at any given position.
1B - Lou Gherig
2B - Roger Hornsby
SS - Honus Wagner
3B - Mike Schmidt
LF - Ted Williams
CF - Willie Mays
RF - Babe Ruth
P - Cy Young
C - Johnny Bench
To that list I would like to add:
Jackie Robinson
Ty Cobb
Hank Aaron
Walter Johnson
Sandy Koufax
Greg Maddux
So many great players not listed, I feel bad, but when you have over 150 years of achievements, picking just 15 people out of that 150 years is hard.
That’s actually a pretty cool way to go about it, too.
Bear in mind we have future voting rounds. I am sure most of the great people you feel bad about will get in. 
Thanks for your votes.
Because there was a tie for 15th, we have elected sixteen players in Round 1, “The Inner Circle.” They are:
Babe Ruth, outfielder/pitcher
Ty Cobb, outfielder
Lou Gehrig, first baseman
Walter Johnson, pitcher
Stan Musial, outfielder/first baseman
Ted Williams, outfielder
Willie Mays, outfielder
Henry Aaron, outfielder
Honus Wagner, shortstop
Cy Young, pitcher
Barry Bonds, outfielder
Mickey Mantle, outfielder
Rickey Henderson, outfielder
Roger Clemens, pitcher
Jackie Robinson, infielder (multi-position)
Rogers Hornsby, second baseman
Just missing were Greg Maddux, Mike Schmidt, Tom Seaver, and Tris Speaker. Over 50 players got at least one vote.
Some observations:
- We mostly elected outfielders.
- The highest ranking player by WAR not elected (according to Baseball Reference) was Tris Speaker, followed by Eddie Collins, who didn’t get a single vote.
- The lowest ranking was Jackie Robinson, but as Bill James said, “lots of players had more hits than Jackie, but not many were on their own postage stamp.”
Please stay tuned; in our next round we will vote on First Basemen!
Thank you, and please encourage your baseball loving friends to sign up and vote in future rounds!
The following threads:
Interesting that people elected Barry and Roger here, while neither have ever gotten the 75% needed in the yearly vote thread…
No easy task.
Babe Ruth
Ty Cobb
Honus Wagner
Cy Young
Walter Johnson
Ted Williams
Stan Musial
Warren Spahn
Willie Mays
Hank Aaron
Roberto Clemente
Mike Schmidt
Barry Bonds
Greg Maddux
Randy Johnson
Ugh. No catcher.
Just to put Moonchild at ease, that ballot would not have changed the results.
John DiFool, that is interesting, and I think speaks to the difference in how the voting systems works. The “vote for a set of people and anyone over 75 percent gets in” thing allows people to deliberately vote against someone, or for that matter essentially vote against everyone.
This system essentially assumes 15 people are worthy (to start; we’ll end up with 150+) and proceeds from there. You can vote FOR Barry Bonds, but it’s harder to vote against him. Incidentally, under a 75% rule, he would not have been elected. Only Cobb, Ruth, Walter Johnson, Musial, Williams, Mays and Aaron met that standard.
Fun! Quite a list there, and almost a full defensive alignment. Though as Stengel said, without a catcher there would be too many passed balls. The lack of a third baseman might result in the opposition bunting us to death, too. And it’s a good thing that 2 of the 3 pitchers are used to pitching every couple of days…
Funny you should mention Eddie Collins, as he was one of the very last I dropped from my ballot. I eventually picked Hornsby over him, but by the narrowest of margins. Collins was one of the two Hall of Fame players born and raised in my county (this had nothing to do with my choices). There’s a youth sports field named for him in the little town where he grew up.
“Only” 12 of my choices won, but there’s not a single person on Rick’s final list who isn’t worthy. Truth is, there are far more than 15 slam dunks.
Besides, I had to hold my nose while voting for A-Rod, so I’m not really sorry he lost.
Voting is now available for First Basemen: