Is Charlie Bennett a HOFer?

[GaryPassamonte]

Originally Posted by BobC

Jeremy,

Great thread and poll. I voted he should be in by the way.

And I especially found that one comment you posted about how if the HOF had opened in 1910 that he would have likely been a founding member, very interesting, and extremely relevant. It goes to show the modern-day bias element that can, and most definitely still does, exist in many things, and across different eras. The 19th century players have likely been subjected to modern-day bias since they originally announced and first opened the HOF. When you look at the original 1936 HOF class, Wagner is the only player to have even played at least a single MLB game in the 1800s (1897 start to his 21 year career to be exact) yet MLB is considered going back as far as 1869, right? So, no one who primarily played in that first 31 years or so of MLB deserved induction, or is this more because the people voting back then didn't know as much about the older players so they just voted mostly for the newer, more modern (to them) players that they did know? And if so, that is the classic definition of a then, modern-day bias. Remember, back then there was no radio or TV for everyone to have seen these 19th players playing, there was no internet or SABR site where you could just look up player records and stats online, or have easy access to newspaper and other information archives across the country. It wasn't until the fourth HOF induction class was elected, after Landis specifically put together an Old-Timer's Committee in 1939 to look at 19th century players, that they finally recognized and elected a HOF player that actually played the bulk of their career in the 1800s, with the election of both Anson and Ewing that year. I wonder if MLB and the HOF maybe started getting some questions and flak from people about how come they only kept electing the newer players and seemed to completely ignore the 19th century players up till then?

And for those that seem to just love their statistics and can't get enough quoting them over and over, if my math and counting are correct, there have been 25 individuals to date that spent more than half their MLB careers playing in the 1800s that are currently inducted into the baseball HOF as players, not pioneers, executives, managers, or so on, as actual players. And the HOF itself has, last I looked, a total of 268 players inducted into the HOF. So in the entire current 153 years MLB has been in existence, with the 31 years from 1869 to 1899 representing approximately 20.26% of that time, how come only about 9.3% of the current HOFs are from the 1800s?

Today's disparity (2022): 20.26% - 9.3% = 10.96%

Another statistical way to look at this and show the era bias against 19th century players is to just look at the gross number of players in the HOF versus how many years baseball has been around.

268 HOF players / 153 years of baseball existence = 1.75 HOFers per year

Now look at just the 19th century players:

25 19th Century HOF players / 31 years of 19th century play = 0.80 HOFers per year

And maybe even better yet, remove the 19th century players from the formular entirely, and just look at the HOFers from 1900 and on.

243 HOF players / 122 years of baseball existence = 1.99 HOFers per year

Anyone else beginning to see a maybe unfair bias that has been directed at 19th century ballplayers forever it seems? MLB has gone back and tried to correct the bias and so on directed at the Negro Legue players. But still no love for the 19th century guys apparently, huh? Or is that maybe because MLB and the HOF figure that 99+% of today's baseball fans wouldn't know who a 19th century baseball player was, or anything about them and their career, unless maybe their lives depended on it? Instead of this ongoing, veteran's committee type BS where they'll maybe elect another 19th century HOFer every so many years, these guys from the 1800's were done playing well over 100 years ago and none of their numbers or history is ever changing. They should cut the BS, decide what the parameters of a 19th century HOFer are/were, based SOLELY on the context of the era and how the game was played and looked at back then, not with anything at all to do with how the game is even remotely played today, and just put the rest of the deserving players in the HOF.........NOW!

A perfect time to have done this would have been when they finally recognized and put in all the deserving Negro League players as well.

There is not enough pressure on the HOF to give 19th century pioneers and players their due. Those of us that see the obvious slight to 19th century pioneers and players, myself included, are in an overwhelming minority. The little consideration that was once given to this era has been transferred to pre Negro League and Negro League players. This mirrors a general societal trend. I'm not saying it is wrong to give Negro League players their due, I'm just saying this attention has come at the expense of 19th century players. This is not the only factor, but is one that has pushed 19th century pioneers and players farther out of the focus of the HOF. Also, the committees that consider those related to 19th century baseball are generally composed of people that know little or nothing about 19th century baseball and its players. It was a different game and the benchmarks used to measure post 19th century players is generally not relevant to the conversation. I could go on and on, but in summary, there are not enough people to put enough pressure on the HOF to seriously correct the 19th century slight. Every recent move made by the HOF makes this fact painfully clear.

Jeremy, I admire your passion for Charlie Bennett. I have been beating the drum for Ross Barnes for thirty+ years through every iteration of the HOF election process and I believe it has never been more difficult than it is today to get an ear where it counts. It will take a 19th century HOF committee similar to the one done for Negro Leaguers in 2006 to impact the slight.