The Atlanta Braves’ top executive has two words for the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.: John Schuerholz.
Braves chairman and CEO Terry McGuirk believes Schuerholz, the team’s general manager throughout its unprecedented streak of 14 consecutive division titles from 1991 through 2005, merits induction into the sport’s Hall of Fame.
“My fondest hope is that the Cooperstown Hall of Fame notices all that John has done … and that he gets a call from them in the very near future.,” McGuirk said this week.
Schuerholz’s candidacy could be considered by a Hall of Fame voting panel as soon as baseball’s winter meetings this year.
He is one of the more successful general managers in baseball history, having put together World Series championship teams in both leagues: the 1985 Kansas City Royals and the 1995 Braves. His Braves teams won five National League pennants in the 1990s.
Schuerholz this week stepped aside as president of the Braves and moved into an advisory role as the team's vice chairman.
Twenty-eight executives have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Executives are considered by the Hall of Fame’s Eras Committees, which also consider players retired 16 years or longer, managers and umpires. Executives retired at least five years and active executives older than 65 are eligible for consideration. As the Braves’ vice chairman, Schuerholz, 75, remains an active executive.
There are three Eras Committees, each assigned a certain period in baseball history. The panel that would consider Schuerholz is the Expansion Eras Committee, which weighs candidates whose greatest contributions to the game came after 1973. The Expansion Eras Committee consists of 16 members (Hall of Famers, executives and veteran media members) appointed by the Hall of Fame’s board of directors.
The committee for each era votes on candidates once every three years. Expansion Eras candidates will be considered at MLB’s 2016 winter meetings for induction in 2017.
“I would hope John is somebody they look at,” McGuirk said.
The committee will choose from 12 candidates placed on the ballot by a screening panel. (The ballot includes not just executives but also players, managers and umpires.) Electors can vote for up to five candidates. Any candidate getting 75 percent of the votes is inducted.
In the past two years, the Hall of Fame has inducted four members of the 1990s Braves: pitchers Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux and John Smoltz and manager Bobby Cox.
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