Veterans Committee Results

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Posted By: Paul

Five elected. Walter O'Malley, Barney Dreyfuss, Billy Southworth, Dick Williams, and Bowie Kuhn.

Anybody got a Dreyfuss to sell me? I am really regretting not buying the one with the badly torn corner that was in a Collectibles Classics auction a few months ago.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Great News!!!!!! Another Nebraskan makes it in to the Hall ----> Billy Southworth.

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Posted By: Paul

I was lucky enough to pick up a card of Southworth as a player a few weeks ago, just by coincidence. I've picked up Southworth as a manager this morning.

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Posted By: Alan

A special Mazel Tov to fans/supporters of Barney Dreyfuss. Oh yeah !!!
Can everyone post scans of his cards ?

Thanks.
Alan

edited for spelling

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Posted By: Rhys

I can think of at least 5 more deserving early owners/comissioners/pioneers than Barney Dreyfuss that should have been elected. If that is a list of Hall of Famers than the Hall's Standards have absolutely been diminished considerably. Walter O'Malley is the only one I even remotely agree with. If the Hall was going to stretch to let in some borderline or underserving people, they stretched in the wrong direction with this crop.

Rhys

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Posted By: Anonymous

Post your cards of the new HOFers!!

I believe Drefuss only has the D322 and Southworth has at least an E120 and an E121.

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Posted By: Peter_Spaeth

Bowie Kuhn? What the heck for?

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Posted By: jay wolt

Here's a 1961 check, contract & Topps Dick Williams.
I collect Hall Of Famer cancelled checks
so I can now add Williams to that collection.

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Posted By: Chris Counts

It's great to see Dick Williams make it. I pretty much rate him, Southworth and Billy Martin in the same category. I'd like to see Martin get in as well. The election of Bowie Kuhn, though, makes me a bit uneasy. Basically, every commissioner before him got in ... does that mean every commissioner after him gets in? I believe the HOF places too much emphasis on rewarding executives whose greatest assets were their bank accounts. My worst nightmare will be the inevidible campaign to put Bud Selig in the HOF ...

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Posted By: William

Dick Williams? Billy Southworth? So I suppose any manager that had 4 appearances in a World Series should be elected to the Hall-of-Fame.

How long will it be before three trips to the World Series is reason to be elected to the HOF. How long before 2 trips to the WS or 1 trip gets one elected to the HOF?

Automatically have all commissioner's in the HOF and skip the Veterans Committee election.

I think the Veterans Committee should be disbanded anyway. Anyone who retired before 1960 or so that is worthy should be in by now. The other players has 15 years of eligibility to be elected. If they aren't elected by the end of the 15 years, they aren't worthy of the HOF to me.

There has been times that the Veterans Committee did not elect anyone. What did these 5 do since the years no one was elected to make them worthy now?

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Posted By: Matt

William - not that I agree or disagree with the selections, but as a form of argument (I'm not even sure I agree with the logic, but it could be argued):

The Hall was started in 1936 with a huge backlog of deserving players not inducted in the initial class. One could argue that in the process of including that backlog into the HOF over the years, members who were worthy at the time were passed over due to the inclusion of these older players and as such, the veteran's committee serves as a review of the process to ensure anyone who slipped through the cracks gets elected.

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Posted By: Jason L

This election is a bit farcical.
This kind of wholesale induction does more to diminish and dilute the HOF membership than if they were to elect even 3 of the top 10 names that were being discussed in a related thread last week.

What makes more sense?
A) to put in 5 execs (& ignore Mr. Miller)?
or
B) to vote in recently hotly contested PLAYERS like Dawson, Gossage and Blyleven?

The answer is B.
every day of the week.

I know it's not a choice between A and B, but boy, doesn't A look stupid if we can't get B done?

I'm not being very eloquent here, so some may not understand me, but this kinda thing (wholesale elections of execs, umps, admin, etc) makes me livid.

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Posted By: William

Matt:

I agree with the Veterans Committee role from the outset.

My point is the first time they failed to elect someone for the HOF, why should they continue to elect players, managers, etc after that point?

It is not a situation where these people were not elected in the past because there were too many people worthy of election ahead of them. There were times no one was elected.

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Posted By: JimCrandell

Ugh!! Disband the veterans committee!

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

Bowie Kuhn in, and Hodges not....something really strange is going on that I don't understand. And, I was never a Dodgers or Mets fan.
But, Gil Hodges should have been in the HOF long time ago.

TED Z

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Posted By: Bruce Babcock

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Posted By: Matt

Borrowed image of the E121:



is that his kid holding the bat?

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Posted By: Steve Murray

as I'm not really up on HOF voting but is this the committee that would have considered Ron Santo?

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Posted By: Paul

For those of you who haven't seen them, here are the vote totals:

Managers/Umpires Ballot results (by vote percentage): *Billy Southworth (81.3%), *Dick Williams (81.3%), Doug Harvey (68.8%), Whitey Herzog (68.8%), Danny Murtaugh (37.5%) and Hank O'Day (25%). Davey Johnson, Billy Martin, Gene Mauch and Cy Rigler each received fewer than three votes. (* earned election to the Hall of Fame)

Executives/Pioneers Ballot results (vote percentage): *Barney Dreyfuss (83%), *Bowie Kuhn (83%), *Walter O'Malley (75%), Ewing Kauffman (41.7%), John Fetzer (33.3%), Bob Howsam (25%) and Marvin Miller (25%). Buzzie Bavasi, John McHale and Gabe Paul each received fewer than three votes. (*earned election to the Hall of Fame)

This committee did not consider players like Santo. I think that's next year.

I was looking at Dick Williams' record. His .520 winning percentage as a manager seems pretty week for a Hall of Famer. Does any HOF manager (other than Connie Mack) have a lower winning percentage?

Also, it looks like Billy Martin was not well liked by the voters. Or Marvin Miller for that matter.

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Posted By: Corey R. Shanus

What did he do/accomplish to warrant election?

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Posted By: Ricky Y

I'm happy Dick Williams got in as well. He led one of the most colorful and best teams of the modern era to two titles. Imagine the difficulty of meshing together that motley bunch and on top of that having to deal with Charlie O. I still remember that play in the World Series when Williams pretended to point to first base to intentionally walk Johnny Bench and Fingers snuck the ball down the pipe for strike 3...brilliant.

Ricky Y

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Posted By: Larry

<Bowie Kuhn!? December 3 2007, 1:39 PM
<What did he do/accomplish to warrant election?

Pretty sad. I have no idea. Maybe they were rewarding him for his stance against the integration of black players and his prejudice toward them?

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Posted By: Randy Trierweiler

Larry, I'm not familiar with Bowie Kuhn being a racist. Can you elaborate?

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Posted By: barrysloate

All five who were elected today certainly made some contribution to the game, but none of the five did anything extraordinary that merits their election.

This is yet another example of how mediocre some of the Hall's members are, and how with each passing year it loses some of its luster.

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Posted By: Tom

Seems to me that having 10 present or former executives of the 12 people reviewing the "executives/pioneers" ballot might skew the results a bit. Not sure what Kuhn did to merit consideration. O'Malley brought MLB to the west coast but that would have happened anyway. Dreyfuss, okay. Southworth and Williams, borderline at best.

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Posted By: J Levine

Being a Dodger fan and growing up in L.A., O'Malley should have been in awhile ago. Walter was in Rickey's shadow for awhile and worked behind the scenes for years. Walter helped finance the building of Ebbets. He was the Dodger attorney for a time and if I recall helped with the legal matters concnering the signing of Jackie. Of course he was instrumental in moving the Dodgers west (a surprising and eventually ground breaking move). He did create 4 world series championship teams. He was also a surprisingly nice guy and his son Peter was also a great owner and nice man. I was very sad when they sold the team to Murdoch. I always felt Walter was turning over in his grave at that sale.
Anyway...not sure that Kuhn should be there after screwing Curt Flood, letting the American league use a DH, forced Aaron to play 2 out of 3 games in a series when he was chasing Ruth, strikes in baseball, requesting that Negro league players have their plaques in a different wing of the HOF because the Negro leagues was not "an offical major league." He skipped Aaron's record breaking HR. He, IMHO, was not Hall worthy and caused more problems for baseball than he solved.

Joshua

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

After these "dufuses" (or dufi) elected Mazeroski, based essentially on one World Series HR....Then why haven't they
elected Maris, based on one super season of HR's ?

Their decisions these past several years defy everything we know of this great sport....BASEBALL.

TED Z

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Posted By: Chris Counts

"I was looking at Dick Williams' record. His .520 winning percentage as a manager seems pretty week for a Hall of Famer. Does any HOF manager (other than Connie Mack) have a lower winning percentage?"

Bucky Harris (.493) had a sub-.500 record ...

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Posted By: boxingcardman

You can add to his list of "accomplishments" founding one of the worst run law firms in history (Myerson & Kuhn) and then moving to FL to establish a bankruptcy-proof homestead so that the clients and creditors ripped off by that firm couldn't get to his assets.

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Posted By: Corey R. Shanus

So besides having questionable qualifications, he flunks the character test.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Joe Jackson flunked the character test but at least he had a .356 lifetime average.

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Posted By: Paul

Another "accomplishment" of Bowie Kuhn was awarding the 1981 Dodgers a playoff appearance for finishing 1/2 game ahead of the Reds among games played before the strike that year. No make up game. No special playoff. Nothing. Just a free pass. A brilliant man by all accounts.

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Posted By: Rhett Yeakley

Not that I necessarily agree with the elections, but here are a few Southworth's



-Rhett

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Posted By: Peter_Spaeth

I was the first one here to question Kuhn, but I am not aware of any racism in his service as Commissioner. He did oppose Curt Flood's desire to be a free agent, and prevailed in the Supreme Court, but I highly doubt that was racially motivated.

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Posted By: Mark Tylicki

Hello Rhett-

What issue is the Southworth? Neat card!

Thanks.
Mark

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Posted By: Rhett Yeakley

It is from a newly discovered premium set of players from the Rochester Red Wings from 1930. I have found 9 different players, although the ones I own are admittedly lower grade. The scan is obviously reduced, but the actual item is about 8"x10".

Like I said, I have 9, which may or may not constitute the set. They can be seen here:
http://www.starsofthediamond.com/gumcards.html

-Rhett

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Posted By: Ricky Y

Hmmm..I saw that Whitey Herzog missed out by one vote..he should have gotten in...he was one of the best managers..Bowie Kuhn...uhh..why?

Ricky Y

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Posted By: Phil Garry

I thought that someone would have already asked this question by now but what (if any) are the earliest "cards" of each of the 5 new HOF'ers?

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Posted By: dennis

why kuhn? because he just died in march of this year.

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Posted By: bobw

I thought Marvin Miller deserved to be named but after seeing that 7 out of the 12 memebers of the Committee are executives (management),it's going to be tough for him.

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Posted By: Alan

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/sports/baseball/04chass.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=baseball&pagewanted=print

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Posted By: Anthony

Just realized Southworth was in the '41 Cards Team issue as well

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Posted By: Chris Counts

For anybody who hasn't seen this, here is another take on the vote. Personally, I agree with just about everything Vincent says. The HOF selection process has long been compromised by cronyism, diluting its credibility ...

Op-Ed Contributor
Union-Busting at the Hall of Fame

By FAY VINCENT
Published: December 8, 2007

THE National Baseball Hall of Fame, itself based on the historical error that baseball was invented in Cooperstown, N.Y., has just let one go right through its legs. On Monday, a committee of 12 baseball executives, newspaper reporters and former executives and players posthumously elected Bowie Kuhn, the earnest but unsuccessful former commissioner, to the Hall while overlooking Marvin Miller, the former union leader who dragged baseball, against strenuous resistance, into the modern age of labor relations. There is simply no way to comprehend this absurd decision by the Veterans Committee.

Here are some facts that even this historically challenged committee would have to acknowledge as accurate. Free agency came to baseball during Kuhn’s tenure. He fought it with the owners’ total support. The concept of baseball players having the same legal rights as the rest of us to bargain with their employers on even terms caused Kuhn to warn that baseball might not survive such a cosmic alteration in the relative power of the two sides.

Kuhn’s devotion to baseball was genuine, but his judgment was not sound. He was unwilling to seek middle ground with the baseball players’ union, despite protracted legal battles that the union repeatedly won, because to have done so might have cost him owner support and even his job. And he loved the job and title.

When Andy Messersmith, a pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers, sought free agency in 1975, the arbitrator in the case encouraged Kuhn and the owners to settle on the best available terms. Kuhn arrogantly dismissed the suggestion. He took the ridiculous legal position that he and his side would have the arbitrator’s decision overturned in federal court. Of course, he was wrong, and free agency has now become an accepted part of baseball.

During the era of free agency, baseball has profited beyond all possible expectations, with owners and players making enormous amounts of money. It is not possible to study that history without wondering how much baseball would have prospered in the 1970s and early 1980s had Kuhn provided better leadership at a much earlier stage.

The decision by the Hall to overlook Miller is grounded in a bad reading of history. Miller had a bigger impact on baseball than any commissioner, owner or player in the past 40 years. Part of his legacy is a powerful, well-run union. The more important part is the present legal and financial structure of the sport, including free agency, arbitration and the enormous pension and benefit programs for the players, all due largely to his efforts.

Miller was much smarter and more talented than Kuhn. Though not a lawyer, he was a public relations genius. He had been an economist with the United Steelworkers when he became the executive director of the players’ union. Miller presented the economic issues in baseball largely in moral terms. Kuhn was the lawyer who argued against change. Miller argued against evil. Guess which was more appealing?

Kuhn permitted Miller to portray the owners as unenlightened and mean-spirited rich men while casting the players as downtrodden and benighted workers who wanted only to be treated fairly. The owners never had a chance.

When Kuhn was pushed out of baseball — as I was years later — he went back to his law firm. In 1988, he and another lawyer started a new firm that was expected to be a grandly successful practice. At the end of 1989, Myerson & Kuhn filed for bankruptcy. At this point, Kuhn moved to Florida — a move that his creditors’ lawyers said was made to claim the protection of that state’s homestead exemption.

Under that law, the home of a debtor may not be used to satisfy debts, and so Kuhn, with a large, valuable and recently purchased Florida residence, was literally home free. In effect, he thumbed his nose at the banks and court in New York, and he left his partners, some of whom he had vigorously recruited, holding a huge empty bag. One such former partner, a tax expert, complained bitterly to me when I was in baseball. He has since died but I wonder how he would have felt about this latest honor by an institution that claims to value character when it considers candidates.

The members of the committee that elected Bowie Kuhn and passed on Marvin Miller should feel ashamed. But they do not. They almost surely believe that Miller and the union won the war, but they refuse him the honor of his victory. This is a set of actions by little men making small-minded decisions. Electing Kuhn and Miller together might have been a tolerable result. But electing Kuhn alone is intolerable.

These are old men trying to turn back time, to reverse what has happened. Theirs is an act of ignorance and bias. I am ashamed for them. I am ashamed that they represent our game.

Fay Vincent was the commissioner of Major League Baseball from 1989 to 1992

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Posted By: Paul

I agree with Fay Vincent's view of Kuhn, but I still don't see Marvin Miller as a Hall of Famer. I have a tough time putting any executive in the Hall of Fame, but I see it as legitimate for someone who most reasonable people believe made an overwhelmingly positive contribution to the game. So, for example, William Hulbert and Ban Johnson get in for founding the National and American Leagues.

A lot of rational people think Marvin Miller made an overwhelmingly positive contribution to the game. But a lot of rational people think he was an overhelming negative force. No doubt he improved the lives of players, but some think he hurt the game.

I know the Hall isn't supposed to be a popularity contest, but I wouldn't let any executive in (labor or management) unless there was a consensus that his contribution was positive. To me, it's sort of like voting politicians into a Hall of Fame. Abe Lincoln and George Washington get in. But most other politicians, no matter how sincerely their supporters believe in them, don't make the cut because 40-50% of the people think they were lousy. Only the few who rise above it all, to the point that everyone agrees they made a positive contribution, should be let in. Maybe that means Charles Comiskey and a few others should be booted out. But even if they were mistakes, I don't think that justifies more mistakes.

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Posted By: John H.

I like the selection of Dick Williams. He took three teams to the World Series from out of nowhere and he also did a good job in Montreal. He didn't have any good seasons with the Angels and only one respectable year in Seattle but, all in all, he had a lot of success with teams that hadn't had any before he got there.

One more thing in his favour; it is a Hall of FAME and Dick was pretty darn famous, as far as managers go. The Impossible Dream Red Sox and the Battling A's are two of the most legendary teams in history so I can't argue his spot in Cooperstown.

John

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Posted By: keyway

Marvin Miller, Marvin Miller, Marvin Miller. I see his name in so many posts. What is his claim to the hall of fame. NONE. Who cares if he ever gets in.

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Posted By: Phil Garry

Anybody know of any other career contemporary issues for Barney Dreyfuss other than the 1910 Tip Top Bread Pirates? Anything on Walter O'Malley?