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Friday, December 12, 2008
Flaws and honor in Hall of Fame voting
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Las Vegas — It must have been easier to escape old Alcatraz than it is to get into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Its gates are zealously — and jealously guarded.
This is the fellowship that Joe DiMaggio couldn’t make in the first round. Or the second. Or the third. Nine members of the Baseball Writers of America, the voting constituency, passed over Henry Aaron.
Look, it’s not the Supreme Court. It’s about baseball, the national pastime. A sport.
Guys who hit supremely well, and pitch, and field baseballs hit at them. It has nothing to do with saving lives, or winning wars. Though I must say that team budgets are beginning to near the size of a third-world economy.
But in Las Vegas this week, we were not there to find fault and correct flaws. It was a sort of extra-inning electorate, to open the sacred hall of Cooperstown to some worthies who otherwise had not been admitted. There were two clusters of players to be considered, Post-WWII and Pre-WWII, 1943 being the line of division.
All 64 living members of the Hall had dealt with the post-war candidates. Our group, seven members of the Hall and five labeled as historians, some members of the press and keepers of records, had two lively sessions before voting on the players who broke into the major leagues before WWII.
The Hall of Fame voters were Phil Niekro, Bobby Doerr, Duke Snider, Robin Roberts, Dick Williams, Don Sutton and Ralph Kiner. The 10 candidates we considered were Wes Ferrell, Mickey Vernon, Allie Reynolds, Joe Gordon. Carl Mays, Sherry Magee, Vern Stephens, Bucky Walters, and two from the dark ages of the l800s, Bill Dahlen, an infielder and later manager, and Deacon White, a catcher.
Vernon passed away just this year, otherwise all other candidates have been long gone. So the scene was set and the floor was open for opinion, of which there no shortage.
The main purpose of this belated vote has never been stated, but it would appear that the Hall of Fame organizers felt there were so many candidates who had come close, and “fallen through the cracks,” as it was put, that it was time to give them one more chance. This had never been done before, and it was apparent there was hope that a whole new class might be inducted.
Ron Santo, Jim Kaat, Gil Hodges and Maury Wills had come close over the years, but in the end, not one member of the group considered by the 64 living members made it, and that included Joe Torre, who was considered as a player.
This had to be disappointing to Jane Forbes Clark, chairman of the Hall, and Jeff Idelson, the president. It was interesting to be among, and to hear player-members of the Hall of Fame talk about the candidates, most of whom few had known.
Say this, there was little said that was not upgrading, though some of our group had never seen some of the candidates play.
Only one candidate made it, Joe Gordon, second baseman for the Yankees and Indians, a stellar fielder who hit with power, played on six World Series teams, most valuable player one season and a nine-time All-Star. He also figured in the only kind trade known to man, manager for manager in 1960, swapped to Detroit for Jimmy Dykes.
We delegates were allowed to vote for four, and mine went to Ferrell, Vernon, Walters and in the end, Gordon. Something Bobby Doerr had said, a Hall of Fame second baseman himself, swayed me. “There were times I used to wish I was as good as he was,” he said, an honorable admission that I took seriously, and admired him for it.
In retrospect, inspiring experience that it was, I regret that the Hall of Fame wasn’t further endowed with more than one new member able to share this “greatest honor in the game.”
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