By RONALD BLUM, AP Sports Writer
March 2, 2005
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- Baseball's Veterans Committee kept the door to the Hall of Fame closed for the second straight time, leaving Gil Hodges and Ron Santo on the outside and raising doubts whether anyone can gain election.
Hodges and Santo fell eight votes shy of the necessary 75 percent, with each appearing on 52 ballots (65 percent) in totals announced Wednesday. Tony Oliva (45) and Jim Kaat (43) were the only other players to be picked on more than half of the 80 ballots.
It was the second straight shutout by the revamped committee, which includes all living members of the Hall and its writers' and broadcasters' wings, plus one holdover from the old Veterans Committee.
``It's almost impossible to go into the Hall of Fame the way the system is now,'' said Oliva, a guest coach for the Minnesota Twins during spring training. ``It's ridiculous.''
An eight-time All-Star and three-time AL batting champion, Oliva also said the committee favored those who got more exposure during their careers.
``If I came from New York, if I played in New York, I'd be there a long time ago,'' he said. ``You play in Minnesota, they stick it to you.''
Jane Forbes Clark, the Hall's chairman, defended the process and said the Hall's board will monitor each election. She said no changes are planned for the next ballot, in 2007.
``We feel the current process works by upholding the Hall of Fame's very high standards for election,'' she said.
Wade Boggs and Ryne Sandberg were elected to the Hall in January by the Baseball Writers' Association of America and will be inducted in a July 31 ceremony at Cooperstown, N.Y.
The old Veterans Committee, which usually had 15 members, was accused by some of cronyism and was abolished after it elected Bill Mazeroski, a career .260 hitter with a great glove, in 2001. The new committee first voted in 2003 and Hodges, the former Brooklyn Dodgers first baseman and New York Mets manager, received the most votes but fell 11 short.
The Veterans Committee considers players who didn't get elected during their 15 years on the BBWAA ballot. After two elections, it remains unclear whether the current veterans group can form a consensus to elect any candidate.
``I'm of the opinion it's going to be awfully hard, and maybe that's how it should be,'' Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver said.
Santo fell 15 votes shy in 2003, when 61 were needed for election. Oliva saw his vote total decline by three. Kaat was on the ballot for the first time,
New York Yankees manager Joe Torre, a former NL MVP, was fifth with 36 votes, an increase of seven. Maury Wills was next with 26, followed by Vada Pinson (23), Luis Tiant (20) and Roger Maris (19). Thurman Munson and old-time pitcher Smoky Joe Wood each received only two votes.
Voters averaged 5.7 players on their ballots, up from 5.3 in 2003. Clark said in her view the vote was not ``static'' because figures fluctuated
While 102 members of the Hall have been elected by the BBWAA, 149 by the Veterans Committee and nine by the Negro Leagues Committee, Hall president Dale Petrosky pointed out that the veterans group put in many 19th century players. Of the 60 living Hall of Famers, only 12 were elected by the Veterans Committee, just seven of them players.
``With 75 percent of the vote required, it's a very, very tough situation and it's more difficult than it used to be,'' said retired Hall of Fame broadcaster Ernie Harwell, a members of the current and previous Veterans Committee, which met annually. ``When I looked at the list this year, I saw so many deserving candidates that are on the same level, and I think that's why so many votes got split.''
The current Veterans Committee votes every two years on players, every four years on a ``composite'' ballot of managers, umpires and executives. In 2003, former NL umpire Doug Harvey led that category with 48 votes, followed by former Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley (38) and former players' association head Marvin Miller (35).
``Marvin Miller should be in the Hall of Fame, that's my feeling, for how he affected the game,'' Torre said in a thought endorsed by Seaver.
Oliva said the committee should have to wait until 2007 to vote again.
``I think Bud Selig has to do something about it,'' he said, referring to the baseball commissioner. ``Two years is too much to wait.''
Seaver said he voted for three or four players and thought the process was working.
``Will somebody make it out of this committee one day? Absolutely. I'm convinced they will,'' he said.
― Gear! (can Jung shill it, Mu?) (Gear!), Thursday, 3 March 2005 03:02 (twenty-one years ago)
one year passes...
one month passes...
From an article in the Naples(Fla.) Daily News which reported on Hall of
Fame president Dale Petroskey:
"Petroskey said there could be changes coming to the veterans committee
voting, where a player hasn't been elected in three sessions since the
committee was revamped in 2001. He also said the Hall is considering a
sort-of contributions wing, where baseball-lifers like Boston's Johnny
Pesky could be acknowledged for contributions to the game beyond their
lifetime average."
ie, a place to honor Buck O'Neil (and Marvin Miller?) as well.
― Dr Morbius, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 20:35 (nineteen years ago)
one year passes...
Marvin Miller has asked to be withdrawn from future HOF consideration.
Jay Jaffe: Why did you make the announcement now? The Hall of Fame isn't going to hold another election for about 18 months at least.
Marvin Miller: You're making it sound like it's premature, when actually you have to remember that, unlike players who are not eligible until they've been retired for five years, executives under their rules are eligible when they turn 65. In other words, back in 1982, I first became eligible and for the next 20 years I was never even on the ballot for the Hall of Fame Veterans Committee. Two decades, 20 years.
Then they abolished that Veterans Committee which had kind of been scandal-ridden in the sense that the only way they could elect anybody was to engage in vote trading. You support my guy and I'll support your guy, and out the window went merit. So they abolished that committee and that was understandable. Then they created a new one, this time composed of all of the living members of the Hall of Fame. For the first time I was put on a ballot in 2003, and my vote was far short of the 75 percent needed, and that was OK. Then they decided that they wouldn't hold another one for four years without explaining why.
... One of the reasons I haven't done this before is that I kept getting talked out of withdrawing my name. People who meant well kept saying, "They'll come around," when I knew that was never gonna happen. And I blame myself in a sense for not having withdrawn my name a long time ago, because one thing a trade union leader learns to do is how to count votes in advance. Whenever I took one look at what I was faced with, it was obvious to me it was not gonna happen.
Besides which, as I began to do more research on the Hall, it seemed a lot less desirable a place to be than a lot of people think. I was struck by the fact, for example, that when Reggie Jackson four years ago, with nobody asking him, publicly announced that he had voted for nobody.
My first thought was, look, that's his privilege, that's OK. But what he doesn't seem to understand when he says the Hall should be just for players is that it's not. The first commissioner, Judge Landis, is in the Hall of Fame, and if he had lived long enough, not only would Reggie Jackson not be in the Hall of Fame, he never would have had even one at-bat in the major leagues, because Landis campaigned far and wide among the owners against breaking the color line. As a matter of fact, when one of the owners at the time, Bill Veeck, insisted he was going to sign African-Americans, Landis threatened him with outright suspension. In addition, as you may know, some of the early people inducted in the Hall were members of the Ku Klux Klan.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=7608
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 5 June 2008 20:37 (seventeen years ago)