Lowering Standards at the Hall of Fame

This is not fun to write, folks.

So as you probably are now aware, the Baseball Hall of Fame "Veterans Committee" voted last week to induct two new members to the Hall of Fame.  This was not the usual process for selection to the Hall; normally a player becomes eligible five years after his last game, and can receive votes for the subsequent ten years until they receive 75% of the votes and are selected -- or they don't, and aren't.

There is a Veterans Committee, however, to sort of "clean up" what the main voters -- the Baseball Writers Association of America -- have done "wrong", and each year vote on candidates from a particular era of the game.  This year, they voted on more recent-era players who had dropped off the ballot, maybe 10-12 of them, and they actually voted to induct two of them.

Jack Morris was a pitcher for the Tigers, Twins and Blue Jays.  He will go into the Hall of Fame with the highest ERA of any pitcher elected.  He was an good-to-excellent pitcher for many years, but he went before the "judges" -- the BBWAA voters -- not ten but fifteen times (the rules were changed recently).  Each time, his name came up for discussion, and each time he did not get close to the requisite votes.

Alan Trammell was another Tiger, who also played for a long and distinguished career, in his case just for one team.  He was an excellent shortstop over that time but, like Morris, not excellent enough for the people who evaluate candidates to think worthy of induction.

I don't have to go into the arguments for their candidacy, to trot out this stat or that.  It was already done -- 15 times -- and each time there were not the votes.  So I would be pretty ticked off if I were a baseball writer right about now.  I would feel like a jury member who deliberated and determined a 26-year sentence for a felon after a guilty verdict, only to have the judge drop it to ten.  I know that feeling, as I was that juryman once myself (that's for you, Judge Robertson).

You have to know that every year over that time, the baseball writers would debate the arguments for Morris and Trammell and ultimately not get close to electing them.  So we have to ask.  The process for evaluating new candidates -- ten years (15 in the case of these two) of grinding over history and numbers -- is incredibly rigorous and laden with debate and writing.

So why is there a Veterans Committee in the first place, and why in God's name are they bothering to look at players from the last 60 years?  Is there an assumption that BBWAA voting members, who don't even get a vote until ten years of membership, don't know what they're doing? 

I will stretch a bit and say that players from the 19th Century, and a few from maybe 1900-1950, might warrant more scrutiny.  But Morris and Trammell were subject to that scrutiny in just the past few years, and were assessed for a really long time.  They didn't get any better as players during the process, and surely their numbers didn't improve after they retired.  Again -- I'm not debating whether or not they were good enough to be in, and I don't want to hear why they should have been in before.  But when they went before the court 15 times and failed to make a case 15 times, why was anyone still looking?

Another person was put before the Veterans Committee but failed to get the votes for induction.  That was Marvin Miller, who was not a player but the head of the Players' Association, the union that, for good or ill, revolutionized the business of baseball.  I couldn't stand the man myself; he was a classic union boss, a lawyer who came in at a time the players were subject to an abusive system and then pushed until it was the fans' wallets which were abused.

But he was, as any baseball historian will tell you, a huge force in the game for decades.  Because his impact is still being felt -- and assessed -- it is arguable that, even though the writers never voted him in, unlike a player, he could have been reassessed decades later and considered.  His argument was a heck of a lot greater than Morris or Trammell, in terms of impact on the game.

So the Veterans Committee decided to overturn the diligent work of several hundred baseball writers, most of whom take their votes incredibly seriously -- plenty of them regard that duty as a sacred trust.  The writers examined Morris and Trammell not once but fifteen times and decided "not quite", every time.  But the Committee decided they knew better, and there is no recourse.

At the same time, they voted "not quite" on Marvin Miller, whose influence, regardless of what I think of it, or of the man, was greater.

I don't know what will come of this, and I congratulate Jack Morris and Alan Trammell on their induction.  God bless them.  But if there's anything that should tell the Hall of Fame to dissolve its Veterans Committee, or at least not have them consider post-1950 era ballplayers, well, this is it.

I hope they consider this.

Copyright 2017 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton.