Quote:
Originally Posted by molenick
It's possible that Young was not in the initial class is because there were two separate ballots meant to cover pre- and post-1900 players. The ballots did not have names on them...my understanding is that there were essentially 10 blank lines and you were meant to write in the names yourself.
So it's possible that the people voting in the separate elections assumed Young would be covered by the voters in the other election and left him off (or just weren't sure if he was considered pre- or post-1900). Just conjecture on my part...
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This just helps demonstrate the initial stupidity of the HOF voting, and helps to underscore the obvious bias they had against the 19th century ballplayers. If you look at the entire lists of who got votes, there were many more than just Cy Young who got votes from both the current and veteran's committees. Honus Wagner, John McGraw, Jimmy Collins, and Napoleon Lajoie, among others, got votes from the 19th century veterans committee AND the current players committee as well. When they set up the voting, they originally only gave the 78 voters on the 19th century veterans committee instructions to vote for only 5 players each, while giving the 226 current committee voters instructions to name 10 players per ballot. They purposely wanted to limit the potential number of HOFers from the 19th century to no more than just 5. Which begs the question, why? Unless it was an obvious bias against the much older players, and/or maybe that they really only wanted more current players elected so as to get a better reaction from fans who likely wouldn't know much at all about many of the 19th century players.
And then to make matters worse, when most of the 19th century veterans committee voters put down 10 names, instead of just the 5 they were supposed to, those in charge ended up counting each of those votes on those ballots as only a 1/2 vote, which ended up making it virtually mathematically impossible to have ended up electing any 19th century players to the HOF at all. That, plus the fact that there were also no specific instructions given, nor efforts made, to restrict a player to only being voted on by the current or 19th century players committees, further shows how biased the people in charge were against the older players from the 1800s. If the people running this initial HOF election had really been on the up and up, and fair to ALL players, they should have clearly designated prior to any voting which committee was voting on which players, and not allow any player to be voted on by both committees Also, when they found that some of the veterans committee voters were naming 10 players, instead of only the 5 they were supposed to, their ballots should have been immediately returned with additional instructions to limit their voting to only 5 names like they were supposed to, and to then return their corrected ballots ASAP. That way at least a one or two 19th century players would have likely made it into that initial HOF class also.
It was also my understanding that there wasn't a specific set list of player names on the ballot to vote on, but that for the more current players committee there was an initial list of 33 players included as suggestions, and that when they later sent out some revised ballots, they added 7 more names to the list. But voters were free to write-in any other players they felt deserved it, and those write-in votes counted. There was a suggestion list for the 19th century players as well, but there was even more confusion as many thought they were to vote for a 10 player all-star team, and others argued about including some players on the suggestion list that had already been included on the current players suggestion list as well. And it apparently wasn't till during the tabulation and after the voting that those in charge finally decided to limit the 19th century to only 5 players per ballot, but because so many had included 10 names, they retroactively decided to count each named player as only getting a 1/2 vote, which as I said earlier, made it impossible for any 19th century player to be elected.
In retrospect, it is downright appalling how biased and asinine the procedures and rules in place for this initial HOF class election were. And how those responsible for putting it together and seeing to the compliance and follow-through to these rules so easily bypassed and abandoned their own original instructions to committee voters. Whoever set this initial class election up and ran it should have been barred from having anything to do with any future HOF elections, ever!