HOF voting

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Posted By: jay behrens

Here's a useful link that showed up on the SABR list today. It's the HOF voting for all players that wre on each ballot.

http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/history/hof_voting/

Jay

I've just reached Upper Lower Class. I am now officially a babe magnet for poor chicks.

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Posted By: T206Collector

Cool site. It deserves some real exploration.

A couple of preliminary thoughts...

In 1936 Lefty Grove got 12 votes -- 5 years before he retired, and 11 years before he was subsequently elected.

In 1936, Cubs catcher Johnny Kling got more votes than his 1908 HOF brethren: 3-Finger Brown, Tinker, Evers or Chance. Kling is still not in the HOF.

Bill Dahlen, who some say should be in the HOF, only ever got one vote, and in 1938.

In fact, there's a ton of examples of guys who got only a couple of votes early that later made it into the HOF (e.g., Marquard), while others, like Kling, Hal Chase and Lou Criger, who got a number of votes early never made it.

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Posted By: Mark

Jay, if they had gone with your "one shot and you're out" rule, guys like Cy Young, Lajoie, Speaker and Hornsby would have been eliminated after 1936.

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Posted By: jay behrens

I don't know, if the writers knew that they was only once chance the voting would have been different. But I am sure it was set up this way so that there would be new members entering every year. If you did a one and done vote from the get go, voting would be pretty lean early on and interest would wane fast. They've changed the rules for the VC, so why not for the general election too? These players aren't racking up more numbers, so if they aren't worthy after 5 years why would be worthy in another year? You either belong or don't. None of this no voting for a player his firt year crap. Those writers should have their vote taken away. And no voting for players because it's a weak group of newcomers.

Jay

I've just reached Upper Lower Class. I am now officially a babe magnet for poor chicks.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

I agree with Jay with a minor twist.

You get TWO shots with the Baseball Writers and ZERO shots with any "second-chance veterans committee."

This will still give the writers a way to HONOR the guys who truly deserve the be "first ballot" guys...

and then still have a way to let them in the next year.

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Posted By: Judge Dred

The VC elected a lot of members towards the end of their lives. You can find this out by comparing at a lot of VC "stars" (not super stars) election dates to when they passed away. Sure there were a lot of stars elected posthumously but a lot of VC selections were made in the "twilight" of the stars life.

It would be interesting to see the top tier HOFers enshrined in a wing that is dedicated to the best of the best.

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Posted By: Paul

It's amazing howlittle support Plank received. No votes in the first election, and not a whole lot after that. He finished behind Pennock in some elections. Why?

It's also hard to figure out what happened between 1946 and 1947. Hubbell, Frisch, Cochrane and Grove went from 20-30% to being elected in one year.