HOF: Schechter: A CLOSER LOOK: THE TOUGHEST ELECTION EVER

Good stuff from Gabriel “Who Is?” Schechter on the “whopping 55 future Hall of Famers that received votes in 1945”.

That’s exactly what the BBWAA voters faced in 1945. I’ve taken the 55 future electees who got votes that year and divided them into three groups: pitchers, hitters and leaders (managers and catchers). In this column, I’ll try to put together a 10-man ballot just from the pitchers. Next time, I’ll do the same thing with the other two groups, before daring to narrow the field from 55 to my own final ballot. When you see how hard it is to limit each group to 10, you’ll appreciate why something had to be done in 1945 to ease the burden on the writers.

Here are the 17 future Hall of Fame pitchers who got votes in 1945, in the order of their vote total: Rube Waddell, Ed Walsh, Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown, Herb Pennock, Joe “Iron Man” McGinnity, Charles “Chief” Bender, Eddie Plank, Lefty Grove, Carl Hubbell, Addie Joss, Dazzy Vance, Dizzy Dean, Lefty Gomez, Kid Nichols, Ted Lyons, Eppa Rixey and Amos Rusie. I am not including Clark Griffith, an outstanding hurler who falls more properly under the “leaders” heading.

Ten non-Hall of Fame pitchers also got votes: Nap Rucker, Babe Adams, Bill Donovan, Deacon Phillippe, Howie Camnitz, Bill Dinneen, Dickie Kerr, Van Lingle Mungo, Charlie Root and Johnny Vander Meer. These guys weren’t chopped liver; the best five averaged 189 wins, compared to an average of 178 for the five lowest totals among the enshrined pitchers on that ballot. But don’t worry — even if Waddell, the runner-up in the total ballot, had received every vote cast for those stragglers (topped by Rucker’s 10 votes), he still wouldn’t have had enough to get elected. How tough is that!