No One Elected Again

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Posted By: Chris Counts

The Hall of Fame is first and foremost a museum dedicated to baseball's rich and complex history. If you study the history of any subject, you'' will see it is constantly being revised as those who study it gain a perspective that is only possible after a lengthy passage of time. Baseball history, in this sense, is no different than art history, political history or the history of the Civil War. With a greater access to information (thank you Bill James!), statistics and personal accounts, baseball historians have a better perspective now than they ever had before. Plus, there are more people than ever with access to this information.

In the early days of the HOF, one writer's opinion of a player like Roger Bresnahan was enough to carry the day. Frankie Frisch, as leader of the vets committee, played kingmaker for nearly a dozen of his cronies.

Now the pendulum has swung the other way, and the gatekeepers are saying enough is enough. Under the circumstances (Mazeroski, Rizzuto, etc.), such sendiment is admirable, but I doubt many of the voters are even considering players they didn't play against. Since inductees need 75% of the voters to vote for them — and the ex-players voting now played in seven different decades — we now have a system where it's impossible to get elected. Which is too bad, because guys like Tony Oliva, Ron Santo and Minnie Minoso were truly great players who deserve to have plaques in Cooperstown ...

By the way, Joe Morgan was also a truly great player ... but if someone ducktaped his mouth shut until the end of time, I would not shed a tear ...