I take issue with the argument that if 19th-century players have not gotten in by now, they don't belong in the HOF for a number of reasons.
I will limit myself to one reason for now: we know much more about the early game now than we did even five or ten years ago. There is a vast amount of information from the 19th century that has only become widely-available in the last five years or so through online newspaper and genealogy databases, and there are a number of relatively new key resources for the researcher/reader/writer of 19th-century baseball (the journal Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game, work done by Peter Morris, work done by members of SABR's 19th-century committee, to give examples). Thus, we have a better idea of how early players stacked up in their time.
Through this relatively newfound information has come the revelation that there are worthy players who have been left out. Doesn't this make perfect sense?
Charles
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