— A Look at Baseball's All-Time Best
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Hall of Fame’s 2006 Negro League Election
This is phenomenal news, especially this:
Written recommendations for inclusion on the ballots from fans, and historians not a part of the committees, will be accepted through the month of October. Recommendations can be sent by e-mail to info@baseballhalloffame.org, or can be submitted by mail to: Committee on African-American Baseball, 25 Main Street, Cooperstown, NY 13326. A letter or e-mail of receipt will acknowledge all proposals. All proposals will be made available to the Screening Committee and a final set will be kept for archival purposes.
A few of the committee members will be at the SABR Convention. I think it’s very obvious that we should submit something from our group of Negro League experts, recommending our electees to them. At the convention I will make a point of explaining the Hall of Merit to any of them that will listen, so they understand the context in which these players were elected - not just against each other, but also considered against white players of their eras as well.
Thanks to Chris J. for pointing this out!
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The next SABR Monarchs Chapter meeting is February 4, 2005, from Noon to 3pm. It will be held at the Johnson County, Central Resource Library, 9875 W. 87th Street, Overland Park, KS 66212. Dave Anderson will be giving a presentation about umpiring and home field advantage, Phil Dixon will present his research about John Donaldson, one of the pre-Negro Leaguers on the HOF ballot this year. We will also have a discussion and vote on the 39 Negro Leaguers that are on the special February ballot of the HOF.
No doubt Negro Leagues literacy is relatively high in the KC chapter, with the most famous team, the star of Ken Burns' Baseball, the museum, and sometimes the annual Jerry Malloy conference (including 2006 July 6-9).
What the hell is the difference?
What the hell is the difference?
As a Yankees fan, I'm required to say:
Only about 20 World Champiomships. ;)
Shades of Glory Book
As for why there aren't any new 'classics'? I don't think you can refer to a book as a classic until its withstood the test of time. That said, Moneyball certainly has had an impact -- high sales, visibility and written by a baseball outsider.
Impact? What was the impact of Babe or The Natural?
Classic? As David Foss said,
I don't think you can refer to a book as a classic until its withstood the test of time.
Celebrated? David Halberstam, George Will, and Roger Angell represent this score of years rather well.
Meanwhile, there has been a boom in encyclopedias and serious works of history and business and biography, and appreciation of black and Latin American and women's baseball.
Boston Red Sox/ Fenway books has grown exponentially, triggering an increase in the purchase of barf bags here in the Windy City. . . . My only concern is that they'll stop cranking out Red Sox/Green Monster books. I need more Jim Rice and Pudge Information!
Maybe you aren't reading enough of the Ted Williams genre. Splinterific!
The shelf space of everything at Barnes & Noble and Borders seems to be declining of late. The square footage of some of the stores hasn't changed, so what's new in the past ten years?
At Barnes & Noble and Borders, more shelf space is devoted to types of pastry, flavors of coffee, today's newspapers.
The NBHOFM website lists Donaldson both among 30 leaguers with 9 predecessors (the main listing of 39) and among 10 pre's with 29 leaguers (the daily biographies now in progress). He is a better fit with the leaguers.
Shades of Glory Book
Also, there's a good interview with Larry Hogan, the principal author and one of the Negro League HOF electors, on MLB.COM.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/079225306X/sr=8-1/qid=1139494222/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-4641260-0839947?_encoding=UTF8
Robert W. Peterson, whose pioneering history of the Negro leagues, "Only the Ball Was White," recaptured a lost era in baseball history and a rich facet of black life in America, died Saturday at a hospital in Salisbury Township, Pa. Mr. Peterson, who lived in Lower Macungie Township, Pa., was 80.
.
.
.
Mr. Peterson was named to the 12-member unit that will vote Feb. 27 on the possible induction of additional figures from black baseball. In view of his failing health, he had cast a ballot in absentia.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/sports/baseball/26chass.html
"That baseball is aware of Donaldson and all black players from the Negro leagues era and earlier is largely the result of Robert W. Peterson's seminal work "Only the Ball Was White," the book that put a spotlight on the forgotten black players. Peterson was a member of the committee but was dying of lung cancer and knew he would not be able to attend the Tampa meeting.
Jeff Idelson, a Hall official, said Peterson mailed his ballot. The envelope was postmarked Feb. 10, Peterson died the next day. The envelope arrived at the Hall on Feb. 13.
"When we tally the votes at the end of the meeting, we'll open his ballot and include it," Idelson said."
there's also a push by Fay Vincent for John Donaldson.
At ESPN, the teaser for Rob Neyer on 2/23/06 said “Seven of the new Hall of Fame candidates have compelling cases to get into Cooperstown.” Someone who is an “Insider”, can you tell us which Negro league candidates this refers to?
All in one fell swoop? I suppose there is no reason for delay, but I kinda figured they'd do one or two a year to stretch it out (and allow for a stronger spotlight on the inductees).
I suppose the number of inductees has been mentioned many times before. Apologies for not re-reading the thread.
Remember who you're talking about. The HOF seems to lack the sense to do something like you mention, and AFAIK, intends to be one-and-done with this whole ordeal of dealing with the Negro league remnants.
Deep breaths....
Mackey
Donaldson
Lundy
O'Neill
and a bunch of executives
I'm going to set Fay Vincent's remaining hairs on fire.
One man's opinion about locks, but I am not an insider:
Mackey
Suttles
O'Neil
Minoso
I don't think the committee will overlook the all-time lists that Mackay and Suttles top. Obviously O'Neil and Minoso are also the only living candidates. O'Neil would have more of a "pioneer/manager" status than player status, and in my opinion, is probably deserving of that HOF status
Others whom I think are on the infamous "list of seven"
Torriente
Wilson
Ray Brown
I would have to think that Torriente and Brown have the most open/shut cases of anyone in the group of 39, but you just never know when 12 people come together what'll come down.
DanG,
I wouldn't mind if they did what you've suggested, as long as it happens. On the other hand, if they elect 15 guys and they are all goo choices, I don't mind that either.
Mackey
Suttles
Redding
O'Neil
Minoso
I suspect they'll probably do 10-15; of the rest, Torriente, Mendez, S. White, R. Brown, J. Wilson, Manley, and Wilkinson seem good bets. From that Times article the other day, it appears that Fay Vincent is pushing Donaldson pretty hard (not really sure why).
AFAIK, they are NOT doing any more elections, so NeLers will in effect be permanently ineligible after this (or until somebody else changes the rules again).
It's in less than an hour, so we'll see...
-- MWE
Willard Brown
Andy Cooper
Frank Grant
Pete Hill
Biz Mackey
Effa Manley
José Méndez
Alex Pompez
Cum Posey
Louis Santop
Mule Suttles
Ben Taylor
Cristobal Torriente
Sol White
J.L. Wilkinson
Jud Wilson
http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/news/2006/060227.htm
The other 12 are players.
Positional breakdown:
C: 2
1B: 2
2B: 1
SS: 0
3B: 1
LF: 1
CF: 2
P: 3
Owner/executive: 4
Historian/infielder: 1
OK, so my fretting might have been a bit excessive.... ; )
We've got to wonder if in fact they've some compelling information that we don't that would make them leap at a first baseman with average power and a lefty who pitched forever for great teams.
On the other hand, until we get our hands on that information, what good is it to bump a candidate upward?
And what does this to Dick Redding's candidacy?
I said this a month or two ago. If MLB really gave a #### about the NeL they would have had annual elections for awhile to let the names get bandied about and to sink in among baseball fans.
But no. The people being honored are just part of the Cooperstown 17 and those not honored have no known opportunities for their case ever again to be made. Meanwhile every MLer that ever played is eligible throught the VC. Not a fair shot.
EXEC - none
MGR - Jim Taylor, C.I. Taylor, (O'Neil)
P - Bell, Brewer, Byrd, Donaldson, Redding
C - none
1B - (O'Neil)
2B - Allen, Hughes, Scales
3B - Beckwith, Marcelle
SS - Johnson, Lundy, Moore
OF - Dixon, Jenkins, Minoso, Oms, Parnell, Poles
And while I'm disappointed that Beckwith and Johnson didn't make it, I can understand how it happened (Beckwith has an overblown reputation, Johnson has a lack of notoriety even for his era).
I agree that HR Johnson is a big oversight. I was not a huge Beckwith fan and I never thought Dobie Moore would make it, nor did I really think that Oms or Lundy or Poles would pass muster, so no real complaining there.
Along with Johnson, I AM surprised however that Andy Cooper would rank ahead of the Cannonball, Dick Redding. And I'm a little surprised that John Donaldson didn't make it, not that I thought he deserved it, but he had more of a campaign going than anybody.
Other mild surprises: Minnie Minoso?
Oh, Buck O'Neil is more than a mild surprise. Who knew that Cooperstown could really have an election without politics?
Meanwhile, of the 17 that went in I won't complain about any of them. I don't know enough about the executives to complain there. Andy Cooper maybe.
My big complaint is that instead of electing Torriente and Suttles this year, and Santop and Mendez next year, nobody will hear those names more than once or twice. All the average fan will ever know is "17."
What does this whole process say about Quincy Trouppe and Dobie Moore? Should I be adding salt?
I wonder how much Beckwith's character issues played a part in his selection?
Also, it is kinda cool that now the HOM is more exlcusive than the HOF, or at least will be by about 17 people in after our '2006' elections.
However, overall decent job. Jud Wilson, Cristobal Torriente, Pete Hill, Ray Brown, Mule Suttles, these gusy are easily deserving of the honor and it is nice to see them elected.
I think I've said this before, but among all the MLB players who earned 200 raw Win Shares, about 35% of them were inducted eventually into the Hall. About 600 of the 16000+ players have earned 200+ Win Shares. If parity with that rate were a goal and was assumed, then we could estimate how many Negro Leaguers should be enshrined. Jim Riley's book suggests that over 4000 people played in the NgLs. Since 16000 men have played MLB, we can figure that one quarter of the number of HOF players would roughly equal the number of NgLs who should be inducted. Or in other words, around 50 Negro Leaguers.
Of course that's kind of high. There's a bunch of factors that might reduce it, including uneven levels of competition among leagues and teams, integration, etc.... OK, so reduce the number by 20% and call it 40 instead. That's 11 more guys than we've got now. And the HOF apparently intends to never have another NgL election.
Hmmm....
I realy wish we had Quincy's numbers that the committee put together, but the fact he wasn't among the 39 is telling. Dobie Moore's problem is he probably isn't getting any non-league credit from this committee, Larry Lester said as much about Chino Smith.
I have to say the poster on the other thread who claimed Effa Manley was the HOFs worst selection, and PC run riot needs to join the real world. She's the owner of a VERY important team, so even if male she'd have a decent shot. More important, I would think there are millions of marginal family visits to Cooperstown that will now happen because of the reduction of wifely resistance. Given her looks, it can't hurt with the marginal members of the young male demographic, either. NOBODY except possibly the odd descendent will schedule a visit to the HOF for Morgan Bulkeley.
Does anyone have a defense for this selection?
Political correctness run amuck.
Karl, give me a hint, why is she important? I know one thing she did that MIGHT be considered significant, and it is something below the Don Larsen and Johnny Vandermeer level.
In fact, neither Trouppe nor Easter was on the larger list of 94 candidates, prior to the cutdown to 39.
Meanwhile Trouppe has other peculiar issues:
1) He played in North Dakota for a long period of time (three years IIRC) during which time his play is essentially undocumented.
2) Before he left for ND he had a couple undocumented seaons in the States when the NNL collapsed in on itself (just like Andy Cooper did)
3) He played his peak years in Mexico
4) He was an old player when he finally got into white baseball and the big leagues.
5) He played a lot of baseball in the Caribbean, some of which is not thoroughly documented.
That's the anatomy of a guy whose career is so fractured that it's hard to make a compelling throughline for when you've got 97 other guys to get through on a weekend of cutting down the provisional ballots to the final 39.
I'd agree that the results are pretty good, justifying having experts vote, but that the "induct them all in one bunch, one time only" stinks.
One question for us: should the sudden addition of 12 players to HoF change our election schedule?
If the goal of the HoM is to get the right best X players in the history of the game, where X is the number of possibly not right players picked by the Coop, does this big shift affect what we do, or not?
Got the Cool Papas book with me right now. 8 of the 12 voters were in this book & asked to pick 27 players not then in Cooperstown who they thought were most worthy. Not all the respondents filled out 27 names. But here's their results:
Biz Mackey 8
Turkey Stearnes 8
Oliver Marcelle 8
Cristobal Torriente 7
Mule Suttles 7
Dick Redding 7
Dick Lundy 7
Pete Hill 6
Louis Santop 6
Hilton Smith 6
Ben Taylor 6
Jud Wilson 5
Ray Brown 5
Jose Mendez 5
Willard Brown 5
Chet Brewer 5
Sammy Hughes 4
Spot Poles 4
Sam Bankhead 4
Wild Bill Wright 4
Frank Grant 4
John Beckwith 3
Newt Allen 3
Sam Jethroe 3
Bruce Petway 2
Andy Cooper 2
Bill Byrd 2
George Winters 2
Grant Johnson 1
Sol White 1
Bingo DeMoss 1
Bernardo Baro 1
Alejandro Oms 1
Fats Jenkins 1
Tetelo Vargas 1
Rap Dixon 1
Minnie Minoso 1
Vic Harris 1
Frank Wickware 1
Frank Warfield 1
John Donaldson 1
Horacio Martinez 1
Dobie Moore 1
Dizzy Dismukes 1
Double Duty Radcliffe 1
Larry Brown (catcher) 1
The info they have on Andy Cooper must be really good. And pretty damaging to Marcelle.
Actually, the difference isn't that much. When our election schedule was established five years ago, the HOF had 211 players (188 MLB, 18 NeL, 2 Mgr (Griffith, McGraw), 3 Pioneer). Our schedule calls for 213 through the 2001 election.
Since then, our schedule has added 3 per year (15 players, brining our total to 228), while the HOF has added only 8 BBWAA selections. So these 12 elected by the Black ball committe gets us nearly back on schedule. The HOF now has 231 players, only three more than we will elect throught the 2006 election. In all likelihood, we will catch up with their total by 2008.
Sorry about that. Fixed?
Still out of the HOF are:
Owners - none
Managers - Jim Taylor, C.I. Taylor
Catchers - none
First Basemen - O'Neil
Second Basemen - Allen, Hughes, Scales
Third Basemen - Beckwith, Marcelle
Shortstops - Johnson, Lundy, Moore
Outfielders - Dixon, Jenkins, Minoso, Oms, Parnell, Poles
Does anyone have a defense for this selection?
Political correctness run amuck.
Joke yes
biggest well there's a lot of compition there
of the 17 I would have only included 5 given the information I currantly have
though even if we had the information for everyone who got in simmiler to todays major leauge players and complete information abought every controbtion to the game I highley doubt I would get more then 12
Didn't Mrs. Manley actually do some stuff? Even if it was simply her job? What I mean is that I thought Bulkelly actually did nothing and that his figureheadom was short lived as it was ineffectual. If my sense of Bulkelly is correct that puts her behind him (or ahead?) for the worst executive in the Hall.
My main point is she has no more credentials than literally hundreds of people that owned minor or major league teams. Is she the only women to every inherit and run a minor league team? I read in the other thread she worked against lynching - and there is no diminishing that, but does that count in her favor for this honor?
And Karl, I was gong to let this pass, but I have to ask,
Are you married? I mean you don't really believe this do you? You wrote it and then sent it without reading it, right?
Karl: "Honey, lets go to Cooperstown this summer to the Baseball Hall of Fame."
Mrs. Karl: "Oh, I don't know, it doesn't sound that great, I was thinking Las Vegas, or Chicago or Seattle."
Karl: "Well you know, there is a woman in the Hall of Fame now. They gave her a plaque and everything."
Mrs Karl: "They do, well the heck with shopping on the Miracle Mile, let's go!"
Quantity of experience with wives considerable, quality suspect as I'm now on #3. Current vote has been 2-1 against Cooperstown, but a well marketed Manley might swing the result!
I think the concern about Effa Manley is that when you do get the missus up to Cooperstown, and you show her the first woman ever to be enshrined within its walls, and she asks, "How interesting. And what did she do?", you'd like to be able to come up with something a little more compelling than "Well, she owned a team, and she was a woman, and that kind of surprised a lot of people."
Nonetheless, there can be little doubt that she contributed far more to the game than Morgan Bulkeley ever contemplated. As is ever true in the Hall of Fame, you could always do worse.
RRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrroooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!
I wasn't aware that we would be pulling ahead of the HOf at all. I must say that I would like us to not pass the HOF by more than a hadnful of players at a time. This probably means a slimming down of players once we reach the end (assuming we continue on) maybe 2 per year. Enough not to screw that generation but so that we aren't electing a ton more backloggers.
Effa Manley was the owner of who exactly? I have heard the Newark Eagles. Isn't this the team that Phil Rizzuto played on? Also, we have to remember that the chances of George Steinbrenner being elected are roughly 95%. Unless, of course, he is even more hated by MLB than he is right now.
Yeah, it was kinda scary. While the 1936-39 Yankees were one of the top dynasties of all time at the MLB level, they also had three of the top sixteen minor league teams of all-time in the 1937-38 Bears and the 1939 Blues.
Top 100 Minor League Teams
Doby: 42-43, 46-47
Irvin: 37-42, 45-48
Paige: 38
Suttles: 36-40, 42-44
Wells: 36-39, 42, 45
We've been ahead of the Hall all along in number of electees, by about 65 when the HOF had its first election. This has declined to about 40 (depending on how you count McGraw/Griffith/etc.) by 1970 and now the profligate 1970's VC will get that down under 20 by the 1977 election.
The intent was for the HOF to catch up to us by the end of the project, but the VC reforms have dried up their electees, cutting the number of new HOF members from a pretty steady 4 per year to only the BBWAA 1 or 2. These new 12 pretty much make up for the absence of VC electees during 2002-6.
I don't think Taylor is a horrible choice, per se, though I haven't supported his candidacy. OTOH, the NeL Committee might know something that we don't about Cooper.
A week ago, I observed to SABR-L that Grant Johnson may have the best playing credentials of the 39, and I called him a shoo-in.
A couple days ago, I remarked sarcastically (not believing that it might happen) on the neat symmetry if Bill Dahlen and Grant Johnson, two 19-aughts shortstops, become the best 20th century players not in the Hall of Fame. (Ted Knorr had prayed semi-privately that this committee treat its candidates as white candidates from the first half of the 20th century were treated. Be careful what you wish for, I said.)
I realy wish we had Quincy's numbers that the committee put together, but the fact he wasn't among the 39 is telling. Dobie Moore's problem is he probably isn't getting any non-league credit from this committee,
Trouppe wasn't nominated
The big data-gathering project focused on the Negro major leagues, roughly 1920s to 1940s. Maybe compiled data only for official games in those leagues. (As a whole, what I have read and heard is equivocal. I hope someone will clarify it soon.)
Biz Mackey 8
Turkey Stearnes 8
Oliver Marcelle 8
Cristobal Torriente 7
Mule Suttles 7
Dick Redding 7
Dick Lundy 7
interesting how radically opinions have changed
<i>BTW - I do think the committee did a good job, Manley aside.
Still out of the HOF are:<i>
Are there any pitchers left in the foyer, Mister PC?
Election results as reported on this board. Career spans as presented with thumbnail portrait photos and biographical blurbs on the NBHOFM webpage for all 39 candidates.
1886 Grant
1887 White
1895 Johnson
1899 Hill
1904 Taylor C.I.
1904 Taylor Jim
1908 Taylor Ben
1908 Mendez
1909 Santop
1909 Wilkinson
1909 Poles
1911 Posey
1911 Redding
1913 Donaldson
1913 Torriente
1916 Pompez
1916 Beckwith
1916 Lundy
1917 Oms
1918 Marcelle
Whew. That's the first half of the candidates ordered by career start date. This table maybe distorted for some purposes by the relatively long non-player and player-plus careers. Limiting myself to the eleven pre-1910 "debut" dates, Taylors Jim and Ben and Wilkinson are League rather than pre-League candidates.
A clerical error or two may be expected.
I was wrong, however, in referring to them as "the Cooperstown 17." It is "Effa Manley and the Cooperstown 16."
Andy Cooper? Ben Taylor? Cristo-what Torri-who? Never heard of 'em.
However, there's one thing that's a much bigger joke than Manley's election: The contention that her election was a bigger joke than Morgan Bulkeley's.
Monte Irvin was quoted in one of the articles today talking about how nice Mrs. Manley was to her players. (Cue the Lenny Pearson jokes...) This differs somewhat from her reputation when she was actually alive -- after all, she was such a skinflint that Ray Dandridge and Willie Wells ended up going to Mexico for extended periods.
I'll second that, Eric. While he distinguished himself outside of baseball, Bulkeley did practically squat for the NL.
Eventually, people who look into the Hall of Fame will find out that yes, there were excellent black ballplayers even in the late 1880s, and they sometimes played against white players.
One can quibble with his selection to the HOM or HOF, but that is a pretty little-known fact that will now become more apparent to many young fans.
The concept in general is a useful one - black players have starred throughout baseball's history, not just in the 1930s.
I do wish they had elected four per year for four years instead, but c'est le vie.
REPOST
Life is always full of surprises.
I would have bet substantial money that O'Neil and Minoso, as the only two living candidates, were surely going to be elected. I wouldn't have actually agreed with either selection; but I wouldn't have been too upset under the reasoning that 1) O'Neil deserves it for his combination of playing, managing, and post-career (especially with the Negro Baseball Hall of Fame) work and 2) Minoso deserves it for his career and role in the Latin integration of Baseball.
That neither was elected shocked me.
But not as much as the election of Effa Manley. I never really picked up on the fact that she might go in. Which is actually pretty stupid, considering that 1) her biographer, James Overmeyer, was on the committee and 2) Leslie
Heaphy, a female expert on 'Woman Studies' and the Negro Leagues, was also on the committee. With these two advocates on her side, her election was probably a foregone conclusion.
Quite frankly, her selection is ridiculous.
Her husband, Abe Manley, has exactly the same qualifications as her, i.e the co-owner of a Negro League team (the Brooklyn/Newark Eagles)for 14 years - 1935 to 1948 - that won one championship (in 1948). The only difference between Effa and Abe is that Effa was 1) female and 2) liked to bask in the publicity. The assertion made in the interviews that Effa, because she did all the team's paperwork, actually ran the Eagles is completely untrue.
If this is the standard, why not elect Branch Rickey's secretary?
In fact, Abe ran the team and Effa did the paperwork and publicity. In Overmeyer's book, there is an interesting example of this. Abe traded fan favorite Murray Watkins for Pat Patterson, a far far superior player, in 1946 (an unquestionably great trade). The fans were upset and Effa questioned the wisdom of Abe's move. Abe just laughed and said that the fans would appreciate Patterson quick enough.
Abe Manley was the baseball brains behind the Eagles, not Effa.
In any case, neither Abe or Effa would have ever been a good choice. For Christ's sake, what does either Manley have over Ed Bolden. Bolden owned the Hilldale and Philadelphia Stars, won multiple championships, and was the founding father and Commissioner of the Eastern Colored League. He would have been a far far better choice.
It is obvious that Effa's main qualification is simply gender.
Which makes her election a travesty of political correctness. It will be interesting to see if any negative spin comes out of this. Effa was well known for sleeping with her better looking players (Terris McDuffie, Leonard Pearson, etc.) and Monte Irvin's description of her attempted seduction of him ('her dress just kept getting higher and higher') in his autobiography is kinda gross. The fact that the first female elected to HOF was guilty of sexual harassment of her players is actually somewhat funny.
Of course, the phrase 'hostile work enviroment' did not exist then.
The actual announcement of the election also annoys me: "The electees include seven Negro leagues players: Ray Brown, Willard Brown, Andy Cooper, Biz Mackey, Mule Suttles, Cristobal Torriente, and Jud Wilson; five pre-Negro leagues players: Frank Grant, Pete Hill, José Méndez, Louis Santop, and Ben Taylor; four Negro leagues executives Effa Manley, Alex Pompez, Cum Posey, and J.L. Wilkinson; and one pre-Negro leagues executive Sol White. Manley, an owner in the Negro leagues, becomes the first woman elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame."
Notice how Effa is singled out simply because of her gender.
On the other hand, the election of Sol White is a wonderful thing. White was a fantastic player (he and Frank Grant spent three years in the same minor leagues and White, who was young, was a much better hitter than Grant, who was in his prime), fantastic manager (his Philadelphia Giants were the best black team from 1904 to 1908), founded the Lincoln Giants, and was black baseball's first historian.
If Rube Foster was the father of the Negro Leagues, Sol White was the grandpappy.
As for the rest:
Ray Brown-
Fantastic choice.
Willard Brown-
Ditto.
Andy Cooper-
Almost surely elected because the research turned up a great lifetime won-lost percentage. On the other hand, he spent his whole career with the KC Monarchs. Will be interesting to see how much of the won-lost percentage is his and how much is just the context, i.e. the Monarchs. This selection may end up not looking so good.
Biz Mackey,
Mule Suttles,
Cristobal Torriente,
Jud Wilson-
All fantastic choices.
Frank Grant-
If he had actually played in the Majors, he would now be forgotten, like Fred Pfeffer or Jack Glasscock; but ok.
Pete Hill,
José Méndez,
Louis Santop,
Ben Taylor-
Hill and Santop are great great choices, Taylor is ok (no love for brother Candy Jim, an equally good player?) and Mendez surely gets in becuase of how he pitched against Major League teams in Cuba despite a short career (John Donaldson was just as good).
Cum Posey,
J.L. Wilkinson-
The best Negro League exective in the East (Posey) and the West (Wilkinson)? Hell yeah!
Alex Pompez?
May be the first man elected to the Hall of Fame as a scout. As a Negro League exective, Pompez' greatest asset is simply longevity (1916-1952) with one real championship (1947). As a scout, he supplied the New York/San Francisco Giants with an amazing amount of Latin talent (which the Giants pretty much simply squandered). He may be the one man elected who still has an effect on today's game (Felipe Alou). Somewhat of an odd choice.
Biggest Omissions:
1) Grant 'Home Run' Johnson (think 'Black Honus Wagner')
2) Cannon Ball Dick Redding
3) John Beckwith (think 'Black Rogers Hornsby')
Although I've been looking forward to this election for months, I'm actually surprised at how disappointed I was in the actual selections, especially Effa Manley. But all's well that ends badly, just as long as it ends.
Eric, John, I'm just asking, based on the qualifications of the committees that did the selecting, isn't the Manley selection just as bad or worse? Do you think the 1937 committe was made up with people with these types of credentials?
Either way I'll stop saying it.
On more calm reflection, the interesting thing about the election was that 4 executives got in. Although this came as a shock to me, it really should not have. The Hall of Fame has always been way too liberal in giving out memberships to the ownership/executive branch. Historically, the baseball owners, who do actually control the Hall of Fame, have always liked to honor themselves. They never seem to get that the fans root for the players. It simply seems strange to me that this would affect the Negro League election. I don't know why.
It's like I never noticed that the committee was led by Fay Vincent. I actually like old Fay, but that doesn't excuse him for his tendency to be a pompous self-important windbag who overrates his place in Baseball history. If they ever get around to electing Bowie Kuhn, I'll have to throw up in my mouth (not to mention, shudder, the inevitable deification of Budzilla).
Well, if your stating that Manley's selection process was worse than Bulkeley's, then I could agree with that, Mike.
Ray Brown
Willard Brown
Andy Cooper
Frank Grant
Pete Hill
Biz Mackey
Effa Manley
José Méndez
Alex Pompez
Cum Posey
Louis Santop
Mule Suttles
Ben Taylor
Cristobal Torriente
Sol White
J.L. Wilkinson
Jud Wilson
Is the Hall of Fame better off than it was 24 hours ago? I would say so. The tone taken by some is perplexing. The money, time, and effort put in by dozens of people to expand the Negro League historical collection should be applauded. Instead we get classic Monday morning quarterbacking.
So they want to put in Effa Manley. If the same process brings in Torriente, Santop, Wilson, and others than let them do what they want. It's the Hall of Fame - a women part-owner of any sports team 60 years ago would have had a good deal of fame.
Sorry for the rant - just seems like people are dismissing the work of some pretty smart individuals and I'm not for all that.
Gadfly, does this suggest to you that the committee was "stacked" by someone who might have favored electing Mrs. Manley?
Their selections fall under two headings: the obvious and the questionable. Am I missing something? Would any of their electees be more properly termed as being "insightful"?
It's ironic that the HOF had the right idea from 1995-2001: elect one per year. Where they blew it then was in failing to identify the top candidates in any organized, scholarly manner. The seven NeL individuals elected in those years were at the impetus of one or two person's personal viewpoints.
As to Al Peterson's comments: for better or for worse, honorary organizations are generally going to be judged by the quality of their weakest selections, because enshrinement is forever, and these are the selections that show what your standards are. This committee was right more often than it was wrong: one obvious mistake and a couple possible mistakes of inclusion, a couple obvious mistakes of exclusion and maybe four to six more possible mistakes of exclusion. That's a good record, especially given the ill-designed "one-and-done" format they had to work with. However, their one obvious mistake was a doozie!
The committee may perhaps be getting less credit for their good selections than they should, because most folks here believe that most everyone that the committee picked would have been in the Hall of Fame a long time ago if that Hall had taken seriously its responsibility to honor Negro-League players. Overcoming the Hall's lack of seriousness about this responsibility to the extent of getting this election to happen is a major accomplishment of all who made it happen, but the Hall of Fame itself only gets credit for wiping egg off of its face through the process. If the process also makes a lasting contribution to the study of the Negro Leagues by providing better statistics than we've ever had before, that will be a real accomplishment for the Hall--an example of that organization taking a lead in the study of baseball's history, rather than just stepping in behind the work of others.
I don't actually know how the Committee worked, but (going where Angels fear to tread) I assume it worked like the old Veteran's Committee. In other words, the twelve (well, eleven) people got in a room and debated the merits of the 39 candidates, each trying to sway the others to their particular favorites. If this is true, Effa Manley - with two people highly invested in having her elected - would have been undoubtedly helped by the dynamic.
Of course, this is the same system that resulted in some of the Hall of Fame's worst additions and the abolition of the Veteran's Committee. At various times, mediocre or even awful (Kelly, Lindstrom, etc.) choices were made by the Veteran's Committee when certain members (Frisch, Williams) swayed the voting process. I don't know if this means the Committee was "stacked" for Effa Manley, but it would explain a lot.
Interestingly, Neil Lanctot, who wrote two books about Ed Bolden's teams, was on the Committee and I wonder why he did not (maybe he did) point out how much more qualified Bolden was than either Effa or Abe Manley. Of course, the real kicker is that Abe Manley is exactly as qualified as Effa, but Atlantis will rise from the sea before he gets in.
OK, I see your point Chris. The chain is only as strong as the weakest link argument. But the Hall showing it's "standards" is not happening. They've been different at different points in the HOF history. And trying to put a standard on an executive position? Good luck with that one.
So once we got down to the 39 on the ballot there were 4 possible combinations
A) Person X should be in, Person X voted in
B) Person X should be in, Person X not voted in
C) Person X should not be in, Person X voted in
D) Person X should not be in, Person X not voted in
Lets put a success rate on the committee. B & C are errors - how many fall into these groups? Or course you can argue the wrong 39 got on the final ballot but I won't go there...
But the "fame" in HOF is not about being famous, Al, but being meritorious.
As I stated above, they did a pretty good job overall, but they could have done a better one considering who was on the committee.
That's an interesting point about the wrong 39/97 because it wouldn't be as important if the perpetual eligibility question weren't already (seemingly) decided in the negative.
17 Selections:
NO QUESTION (11): R.Brown, W.Brown, J.Hill, J.Mackey, C.Posey, L.Santop, G.Suttles, C.Torriente, S.White, J.Wilson, J.Wilkinson.
QUESTIONABLE (5): A.Cooper, F.Grant, J.Méndez, A.Pompez, B.Taylor.
GOD AWFUL (1): E.Manley.
Of course, some would question Sol White as a "No Question" Hall of Famer, but that would just be through lack of knowledge. Mendez was fantastic, his selection is only questionable on the question of career length. Frank Grant and Ben Taylor are actually worthy, simply probably not the best choices. It is certainly obvious why Grant, with his 19th Century Minor League pedigree, was chosen. Alex Pompez can be explained for his role in the integration of Latins to the Majors, though is extremely questionable as a baseball executive. Andy Cooper is problematic, but there are certainly other pitchers in the Hall that rode in on team driven won-lost records (Waite Hoyt, for one).
But the selection of Effa Manley is just pathetic, though understandable in terms of political correctness, gender politics, and publicity.
There are two other weird things about the selections:
As already mentioned, one, of course, is the odd bias of the Selection Committee to the executive/non-player branch. They bent over backward to put the non-players in, obviously furthering the chances of Effa Manley and Alex Pompez. Like anyone goes to the Hall of Fame to worship, say, Lee McPhail, other than his relatives.
The second is even more interesting. The Committee was set up to study the Negro Leagues (1920-1960) and built a database for the Negro Leagues. However, their player selections are actually somewhat slanted to pre-Negro League players. Grant, Hill, Santop, Mendez, and (too a lesser extent) Taylor, plus even Torrienti somewhat, were all at their peak before the Negro Leagues were formed. You have too wonder about this data collection. The true Negro Leaguers (the two Browns, Mackey, Suttles, and Wilson) were all obvious Hall of Famers before the Negro League project even began.
So basically the Hall of Fame spent 250K to qualify just Cooper? Weird.
So, for me, the only question is how did they do on the players. They got three out of the top 4 eligible (Torriente, Brown, and Wilson, no Home Run Johnson); another three guys who obviously belong (Suttles, Santop, and Hill); a fair sampling of guys who have strong but not slam-dunk cases (Grant and Mendez who I support, Mackey and Taylor who I don't support but understand the arguments for, and Willard Brown on whom I haven't decided); and only one guy who I think was a mistake but on whom they have better information anyway (Andy Cooper). All in all, a very credible job. I'd give them a B+, docking them half a letter grade for our peripheral differences and half a letter grade for whiffing on Home Run Johnson.
Pre-League (4.5): Grant, Hill, 1/2 of taylor, mendez, santop
1920s-Depression (4.5): 1/2 of taylor, f cooper, mackey, torriente, suttles
Depression-WW2 (1): r brown, wilson
Integration ERA (1): w brown
That's a better mix than previous groups have done in as much as the vast majority of electees have come from the Depression-WW2 group in other elections. The 1920s and PreLeague eras are now closer to parity with the Depression-WW2 group, which strikes me as a positive step. On the other hand, the Integration era still lacks in membership.
Here's how it effects the total NgL membership (all chronological judgments my own and subject to error)
BEFORE MONDAY
[PRE]
NEGRO LEAGUE
ELECTEES BY ERA
-------------------------
Pre-League2
1920s 4
Depression–WWII 10
Integration era 1
[/PRE]
AFTER MONDAY
[PRE]
NEGRO LEAGUE
ELECTEES BY ERA
-------------------------
Pre-League6.5
1920s 8.5
Depression–WWII 12
Integration era 2
[/PRE]
The Depression ERA is still ahead of the others, but it's not so drastic now. Adding Johnson, Beckwith, and Oms would help, but the Integration era is still gettint the worst of it.
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