Posted By:
Judge Dred (Fred)Ryan,
You are without a doubt a very passionate person when it comes to the Negro League players. Your point regarding "It's crazy how bad black players were before 1947 and how good they immediately became after that" was a very good point and one that I've heard many times in the past. The sad part about this is that the records for the Negro Leagues are so incomplete and the only things left are stories, some probably embellished others probably modest accounts.
I've been somewhat short sighted because I've always looked at the HOF as a major league HOF rather than a National HOF. Wouldn't you say that it's been something that's pretty much been bred into the institution (HOF) until this recent injection of polictical correctness? Look back 30 years, did people even consider a huge influx of Negro League players? This is a recent phenomena. I suppose the "better late than never" cliche applies here.
Rather than begin a debate over "who" should be eligible for election into the Baseball HOF I'll leave it at this. Most people relate the BB HOF with MLB. Obviously, before the recent consideration given to the Negro League players (owners and historians), the baseball writers of America pretty much influenced many generations of us into making that exact correlation between the BB HOF and MLB.
Edited to add - by the way, your post was very good and well taken. 