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Posted By: Greg Ecklund

The huge backlog of players to be inducted at the time of the Hall's founding is probably the reason for the lengthy eligibilty period. Imagine the players who might have been left out of the Hall in 1936 if the rules had been that you had to get in on the first ballot (Lajoie, Speaker, Cy Young, Eddie Collins, Alexander). I imagine they put the rule in place in order to clear the backlog and then never bothered to change it.