Mount Rushmore of Industry Icons

[Leon]

Originally Posted by polakoff

Some wonderful nominations we hadn't gotten yet, and some that we'd received previously but will give more credence to given their support here. Please keep them coming!

If Leon allows, when we finalize nominations, I will post a link to the poll for voting.

I agree about nominations and have no issue with any of this.The history of the hobby is an enjoyable subject.
It reminds me of, about 40 yrs ago, when I volunteered at the Houston Zoo reptile department. It was a great department back then (don't know anything about today). One main reason it was great is that the curator of the museum was a herpetologist. Go figure.
To me, The first 3 hobbyists (already mentioned) as shoe ins are Burdick, Berger and Beckett.
And I would vote to make it the Mt. Rushmore of the top 5. (if there were a vote.) That way more can be on it.

ps...I like Conor's idea right above here too.

[polakoff]

I like a HOF idea but, if you could, please wait until after January 7th so as to not take the wind out of the sails of this project!

I agree that the 3 B's are on my list. The other person involved is on the fence about Burdick (we have had many a fight about this) but Berger and Beckett seem to be absolute certainties. I do think Burdick will pull it out, and then the 4th spot is anyone's guess. We'll see!

The plan is to accept nominations through December 3rd. Next Monday there will be a blog post introducing the idea formally to the masses. On December 3rd we will have a culled list of nominees (knowing that, even though there are many nominees, not everyone can make the final list). That final list will be made into a poll with voting open for 4 weeks and closing on December 31st. On January 7th the Mount Rushmore will be formally announced.

Per Leon's blessing above I will post links when applicable in order to direct folks to the voting.

During the voting I also plan on running several blog posts featuring debate and discussion, so if you feel passionately for (or against) a certain nominee, feel free to elaborate, and I will contact you for permission to include it in a post.

Thanks everyone -- keep 'em coming!

[Dewey]

Jacob Warren Bowman
Sy Berger
Jefferson Burdick
James Beckett

[Fred]

Ted Z for T206 (and probably lots of other stuff). Love reading his posts.

[darwinbulldog]

Burdick
Berger
Lemke
Lifson

[glynparson]

Some of the names on the original list are an abomination

[TCMA]

Nice to see that what my dad, Mike Aronstein was able to achieve during his time in the hobby still resonates. Thank you to the guys who have already mentioned his name here in this thread.

You can listen to Keith Olbermann speak fondly of my dad during his speech at the inaugural meeting of the SABR Baseball Card Committee at the link below. Some stories about a quarter of the way through, then at the end during the Q&A:

https://sabr.app.box.com/s/kxgpod56h...b882u4npvipmao

[barrysloate]

I think there should be a greater emphasis on hobby pioneers like Burdick and Barker, who were involved purely for the knowledge and the love of collecting, than for some of the people who got into the business solely to make money. Maybe the latter group made some important contributions to the industry, but they don't seem Rushmore-worthy to me.