[molenick]

I think that we need to take into account both the opinions of people that saw the players play and the statistics available to later voters that were not available at the time. I like to think of our evaluation of players as an evolutionary process...we get farther and farther away from having seen them play but we know more and more about them statistically (and not only are there more statistics available now, they are much more easily accessible than they were to earlier voters).

And I don't just mean advanced statistics (which some people don't like), I mean traditional stats as well...people voting in 1936 did not know about Sam Thompson's RBI totals (zero votes) that were only retroactively calculated while producing the 1969 Baseball Encyclopedia. Besides Thompson, there are other players in the 1936 election that many people consider top-tier 19th century stars that got no votes (Roger Connor) or few votes (Nichols three votes, Brouthers two votes, Hamilton two votes, Keefe one vote). On the other hand Jerry Denny got six votes (probably because he was a "suggested" player, while Nichols, Brouthers, Hamilton, and Keefe were not).

So while I think it is interesting that some players with a lot of votes did not later make it, I don't think we can make a blanket statement about the voting and say that Herman Long should be in the Hall because he got 15-1/2 votes. It might mean that we should reassess his candidacy, and maybe there is something about him that statistics are not capturing...but I would take Glasscock (two votes) or Dahlen (one vote) over him as a 19th century shortstop that should be in the Hall. And I think it is safe to say that despite his place in the voting, he wasn't the eighth best 19th century player.