The 2022 Baseball Hall of Fame Election, Part One
Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever. Napoleon Bonaparte
November 19, 2021
For the Baseball Hall of Fame Election of 2022, the potential candidates for election are being chosen from three separate groups. The first group of candidates would be those players being voted on by the Baseball Writer’s Association of America [BBWAA]. The membership of this first group consists of all players recently retired (for at least 5 years) and also qualified (minimum of 10 years in the Major Leagues). These players then have ten years to be chosen by the BBWAA before being kicked off the ballot. Any player named on 75% of the BBWA ballots during this ten year period gets inducted into the Hall. Of course, in the imaginations of most Baseball fans, these candidates are what the Baseball Hall of Fame is all about. Recently retired stars vying for their chance at immortality. You could say that this first group of nominees are the equivalent of First Class on an airplane.
The second group of potential candidates for election to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2022 consists of various players, executives, managers, and umpires who were active primarily from 1950 to 1969. They are being considered by the Baseball Hall of Fame’s Golden Days Era Committee. Why this time frame is assigned the qualifier “Golden Days” is just unexplained. In any event, this Committee consists of 16 members appointed by the Hall of Fame itself and any candidate receiving 12 votes (75%) from the Golden Days Era Committee will be inducted. The Golden Days Era Committee will get to vote on 10 pre-selected candidates. These ten pre-selected candidates were chosen by yet another Committee which was also appointed by the Baseball Hall of Fame. This second group of candidates could be considered the equivalent of Coach Class on an airplane.
The third group of potential candidates for election to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2022 consists of the players, executives, managers, and umpires who were active primarily before 1950. In other words, this group consists of all the White players who played on the Caucasian side of the Color Line; and all the Black and Latin players who were discriminated against and had to play out their careers in the Negro Leagues and other Blackball related teams and leagues. This group is being considered by the Baseball Hall of Fame’s Early Baseball Era Committee. This Committee is structured exactly the same as the Golden Days Era Committee and will vote on the 10 candidates who have also been pre-selected by yet another Hall of Fame appointed Committee. This third group of candidates up for consideration could perhaps be equated with the Steerage Class of Passengers on the Titanic. A select few will be rescued from the Ocean… but most are going down with the ship.
The Reanimated Corpses of the Veterans Committee
The Early Baseball Era Committee (candidates before 1950) and the Golden Days Era Committe (1950 to 1969) are two of the four Committees that are allowed to elect new members to the Baseball Hall of Fame. The other two Committees, the Modern Day’s Era Committee (1970 to 1987) and the Today’s Game Era Committee (1988 to the present) are not voting this year. All four of these Committees were created in 2016 when the Hall of Fame once again restructured its voting procedures. But, basically, all four Committees are the dismembered corpse of the original and much maligned Veterans Committee. The Baseball Hall of Fame allows the Today’s Game Era and Modern Day’s Era Committees to elect new members four times each decade. The Golden Days Era Committee holds its election twice every ten years. The Early Baseball Era Committee, the misbegotten stepchild of these Committees, is allowed to hold its election just once every decade.
The Baseball Hall of Fame has limited the Early Baseball Era Committee to one election every decade to slow the inductions of players, executives, managers, and umpires active before 1950 to a slow trickle. An argument can certainly be made that restricting any and all inductions for anyone participating in the White Major Leagues before 1950 makes a lot of sense. This is a field that has been plowed over again and again. Every eligible player of the White Majors from this period, who is not already in the Hall of Fame, has already had many many chances to be elected. Of course, the Baseball Hall of Fame could have simply ruled that anyone active before 1950 is now no longer eligible to be elected. This was apparently too easy or perhaps just made too much sense. However, in the history of the Baseball Hall of Fame, it has never completely closed the door to anyone.
Ironically, Major League Baseball, which basically controls the Baseball Hall of Fame, decided in December 2020 to recognize seven major Negro Leagues as (apparently co-equal) Major Leagues. One year later in December 2021, the Early Baseball Era Committee got to hold its first election since its conception. Any inductee who is elected this year by the Committe will then be allowed to enter the Hall in 2022. After that induction, the Early Baseball Era Committee will not get to hold its next election until December of 2031. In other words, despite finally being considered Major Leaguers, the chance that many more Negro Leaguers will be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame is slim and none. And slim is on life support with no oxygen. Unlike their white contemporaries from before 1950, the Negro League Players from before the fall of the Color Line are not a field that has been completely plowed by the Baseball Hall of Fame. Now the Negro Leaguers have reached the promised land only to find the door to the Baseball Hall of Fame is a locked vault door which only opens once a decade.
Conclusion
Apparently, the members of the Early Baseball Era Committee (or whoever selects the 10 candidates for this Committee) seem to realize this paradox. Of the ten candidates selected for possible election in 2022, seven played their careers on the wrong side of the Color Line. Only three players are from the contemporary White Leagues. For all pratical purposes, the Early Baseball Era Committee has become the Negro Leagues Era Committee. We will see how this works out and then wait 10 years if a course correction is needed
NEXT:
In The 2022 Baseball Hall of Fame Election, Part Two, this blog will examine the credentials of the 10 candidates who are being considered for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Early Baseball Era Committee.
NOTE:
I have changed the name of my blog from the exceedingly unoriginal “My Baseball Blog” to “Endless Fields of Green” because my eldest daughter’s only comment upon seeing the blog was: “It’s green.” I am not sure yet whether I actually like this rebranding. But I do like the acronym for “Endless Fields of Green.” From now on, in honor of Rickey Henderson, I will probably switch from the first person to the third person and speak on my blog as EFOG.
[Update 12/31/2021: After trying out the third person, I have decided to return to first person singular. All respect to Rickey H….. because speaking in the third person is harder than it looks.]