I'll take care of the 2013 ballot thread, as well as player pages, within the next week or so. IOW, keep your britches on! :-)

Jim Rice is listed twice, at #64 and #81. Unless there's two candidates by that name... :)

Oh, and I thought it was interesting that I voted for the top two vote getters, and then no one till #12. I'd guess I didn't do well on the consensus list, but I suspect there was little consensus to begin with.

And thanks, as always, for running this project, guys.

Jim Rice is listed twice, at #64 and #81. Unless there's two candidates by that name... :)

Heh. I had been notified of that error earlier, but I guess I forgot to edit it. Thanks for pointing it out!

We're getting requests to run the mock HoF ballot. Can you make that happen first?

The "consensus" is all over the place once you get past 4th place. 18 candidates with a 1st place vote. Below 4th place nobody was on more than half the ballots. Rizzuto has clear support ahead of the rest of the field but he's going to have to wait quite a while.

It is fun when three guys I voted for make it.

Rising - Hilton Smith
Falling - Kirby Puckett

all-time 'votes points' thru 2012 - those still eligible in 2013 election are in CAPS
electees are not in caps
I think it was Ron W originally doing these; Rick A now fixes my mistakes

Van Haltren only got one vote this time; I believe he led Duffy for a number of years back in the day
Ryan, a compatriot, again gets no votes and remains 17th all-time
The 1st change of order comes at 30th, grabbed by Bob Johnson over electee Harry Stovey
the rest of the top 50 is unchanged, but Redding could grab 6th from Childs next year and Leach could claim 11th from Charley Jones
Willis will take Keller out of the top 50 next year

TOP 50, ALL-TIME, unofficial (pts this year)
DUFFY...... 27613.5 (215)
VAN HALTREN 26913.5 (8)
Beckley.... 25856
Browning... 24502.5
WELCH...... 18683 (70)
Childs..... 18484
REDDING.... 18349 (219)
Griffith... 17924
Waddell.... 17596
Jennings... 16976

CJones..... 15875
TLEACH..... 15829 (169)
Bresnahan.. 14965
Sisler..... 13892
Pike....... 13399
Sewell..... 12769
RYAN....... 12663.5X
Mendez..... 12555
Thompson... 12349
CRAVATH.....12275 (211)

Roush...... 12005
WALTERS.....11797 (164)
Bennett.... 11503
Moore...... 10904
Rixey...... 10789
Caruthers.. 10704
Beckwith.... 9896
DOYLE....... 9816 (22)
GRIMES.......9739 (126)
BJOHNSON.....9623 (94)

HStovey......9576
Mackey.......8930
AOms.........8385
Start........8378.5
McGinnity....8232
McGraw.......8145
DPearce......8073
McVey........7985.5
FGrant.......7969.5
BMONROE......7941 (80)

Kiner........7746
Suttles......7690
NFox.........7587
Trouppe......7494
WFerrell.....7259
CBell........6968
SCHANG.......6874 (37)
WILLIAMSON...6820 (140)
Galvin.......6585
Keller.......6424

Others in active top 50
Willis 6344, DDean 5923, Elliott 5195, Bridges 5024, Rizzuto 4902, Joss 4810, BTaylor 4668, TPerez 4297, Tiant 3886, FChance 3842, Traynor 3783, NCash 3751, CMays 3746, Cepeda 3456, SRice 3301, Cicotte 3286, McCormick 3269, LBrock 3157, BoBonds 2909, EHoward 2890, Tiernan 2709X, Singleton 2703, FJones 2636X, Klein 2601, VStephens 2576, BClarkson 2527, Puckett 2459, Staub 2396, Veach 2388X, GJBurns 2388X, Mullane 2348, Dunlap 2283, Lombardi 2241, Concepcion 2098, Bancroft 2083, Poles 1842X
(Newcombe 1774)

Yeah, I noticed the same thing about 18 different players receiving first place votes.
WOW.
I know it's a backlog ballot, but even so 18 out of 37 voters still surprises me!
I know there had been discussion (I think last year) about 3 or 4 electees. Was the decision to stick with 3 and maybe down the road maybe have an elect 4 year(s)? Or was it decided to stick with elect 3 on a go forward basis?

Rizzuto has clear support ahead of the rest of the field but he's going to have to wait quite a while.

Next year is an elect 3? I know there had been a plan to go to elect 4 at one point, but I guess that's been scrapped?

If it's three, I assume Bonds and Clemens sail in, and probably Piazza as well. Schilling, Sosa and Biggio would slot in ahead of Rizzuto too, I'd think, but I don't see one of them getting elected unless one of the top three get really hurt by boycotts. And for Rizzuto to have even the slimmest of chances, the boycotts would have to be extreme and applied to Bonds, Clemens, Piazza and Sosa in pretty much equal measure. I really don't see that happening.

As for the guys after Rizzuto, by the time there's another backlog election the electorate will probably have had enough turnover that their current support won't really mean anything.

I also think the main point of discussion needs to be how many to elect next year. I think one alternative would be to grant 21 points to a 4th place vote, but require a minimum percentage of the vote to allow in a 4th member. In other words, if there is a strong enough consensus over the top 4 candidates in the upcoming elections, we can elect a fourth, but if not strong enough, three will do.
Congrats to fans of Palmeiro (do they exist?), Cone and Reuschel.

I don't see a reason to go elect 4. The HoF has clamped down pretty tight on new members and looks to slow to a trickle pretty soon.

I'm guessing Bonds, Clemens and Piazza next year (that's my top 3). There are 3-5 guys who meet the standard every year for the next few years. Even Palmeiro got lucky with his timing.

OK, for fun, here's who I think will get elected in the coming years from the new candidates and who has a good chance to join the high backlog and be elected eventually, since I was just looking at the upcoming eligibles at BR to see when another backlog year might happen.

2013: Bonds, Clemens and Piazza are locks, the only thing that could delay any of them is a one-year boycott, and that would just shift things to the second tier of Biggio, Schilling and Sosa. The only other players I could see getting any significant number of votes are Kenny Lofon and David Wells, but I think they'll fall down into the lower backlog somewhere. Maybe Steve Finley gets a vote, but I don't see any one else drawing even one.

2014: Maddux, Frank Thomas, and Glavine are shoo-ins, unless somehow one of the top three from '13 slips to this year on the strength of a boycott, which might make things interesting. Jeff Kent and Mike Mussina might join the high backlog, but I don't see them as quite as strong as the second tier guys from '13. I guess Luis Gonzalez could get some votes, but I don't see him or Moises Alou as serious candidates.

2015: The Big Unit and Pedro for sure. Smoltz will go in as well eventually, I'm sure, but I don't know if he makes it this year, or falls to one of the hold-overs from '13. It would be interesting if he did go in (or if Schilling was the one to pass him, I guess), because that would have 3 pitchers going into the HoM in the same year. Has that happened before? I'm sure Sheffield, and I guess Nomar and Carlos Delgado as well, will get some support from this class too.

2016: This is actually sort of a backlog year. The only slam-dunk I see is Junior. I mean, the best candidates after him are Pettitte, Trevor Hoffman, Billy Wagner, and... Jason Kendall? Heh. Pettitte I think has a decent chance of being elected, but probably not this year. And the relievers... well, relievers are weird, but (without doing any in-depth analysis so far) I like Lee Smith better than both of these guys, and he wasn't in my top 20 in a backlog year (and finished #42). But I suspect recent guys would go in ahead of Rizzuto, so probably something like Junior, Biggio, and Smoltz, with Sosa being elected in '15?

2017: I'm not sure. This would be based on who retires this off-season, right? Manny Ramierez would be this year if his underetirement doesn't result in him catching on with a team in 2012, but he'd catch some boycotts for sure. I'm blanking on who else might be retiring after this past season.

You left out Jim Edmonds. I think Kent and Mussina are at least as good as Sosa. Omar Vizquel hasn't retired yet but I don't see him getting much support here. Thome appears to be 2018 but an injury could keep him in 2017.

Guesses at my PHoM picks:

2013 - Bonds, Clemens, Piazza
2014 - Maddux, Thomas, Glavine
2015 - Johnson, Martinez, Smoltz
2016 - Griffey, Schilling, Mussina
2017 - Biggio, Kent, ??? : Edmonds, Sosa, Manny and Sheffield will have to slug it out

I dug up my old consensus scores spreadsheet. It seems I didn't update it last year. And in not doing so, I missed an all-time record for consensus score furthest below average: -43 points, yest, 2011. (yest did not vote in 2012).

I'm not quite sure I picked the right 2011 ballot tally document - did we really have only 27 voters in 2011?

The average consensus score this year was -14.6. Which is low, but we've had lower: -18.0 in 2006, -19.0 in 1996. -20.4 in 1997. The thing is, this wasn't quite totally a backlog election, since by the definitions I would use, Palmiero was a frontlogger - a candidate whose totals never fell below anyone who was on the ballot before him. He may have been our least enthusiastically supported frontlogger ever, but a frontlogger he was. Still, it wasn't easy to be a contrarian, because what was there to disagree with? The highest possible consensus score would have been +5. Some actual consensus scores:

Bleed the Freak: -4
Mike Webber: -5
Dan R.: -6
Brent: -7
DL from MN: -8
Devin: -8
...
Joe Dimino: -11
OCF: -11
...
Yardape: -14 (median)
...
John Murphy: -19
...
Rob Wood: -22
Daryn: -23
bjhanke: -25
sunnyday2: -27
karlmagnus: -29

The new, near-new, or returned from long ago voters mostly had moderately high consensus scores: Carl Goetz -9, Alex King -10, theorioleway -10, Archimedes Pozo -15, Nate the Neptunian -17, Ardo -18.

These upcoming years really are an embarrassment of riches!
Makes me wish I managed to (finally) get a semblance of a system up so that I could have voted in this backlog election.
Not that it would have changed anything except help some faves of mine like Luke Easter and George Van Haltren.
But they're so far down it's not like anything would have changed.
Still kinda wish I had, though!

You left out Jim Edmonds.

Yeah, true. I must have been distracted by the fact that BR lists Johan Santana as a candidate for '16. I don't think that's happening. Anyway, I don't see Edmonds as beating out the high backlog guys like Biggio, Smoltz, Sosa, et al, much less Griffey, so I don't think he's going to be elected in '16, but he's better than the other guys I listed for that year. Actually, looking at rWAR, it really loves him. He ranks ahead of both Smoltz and Sosa, among others, in it. Maybe he's a more serious candidate than I thought. I haven't run him through my system yet, so I don't know how I feel about that.

I also left out Brian Giles for '15, who might get some peak support. I happened to glance back at the beginning of the '12 discussion thread and noticed Dan R likes him in his system.

Looks like either none of the oft-debated old-time, around-forever candidates ever gets in - or maybe Rizzuto does in 10 years. Reuschel's recent ascendancy may have killed the old days of a fossil getting chosen forever...

By the way, Jim Rice is only listed once in the results now, but I still don't think he's right. He has two votes, but fra paulo, myself and Daryn all voted for him, by my count. Sorry for being a pain about this.

The plan is to go elect four at some point, at least once every few years. Need to go back and check the records for when.

The fact that the Hall of Fame is clamping down does not impact us.

Our goal was to match the size of the Hall of Fame when. We started. The fact that we may elect more (or less) is actually a good way to point out that they are getting to tough or too lax. We matched them for 65 years. If we get out of sync with them while using the same system, it points out how they are bei g u fair to the recent players if they don't keep up.

Would like to thank to the counters and the voters!

I'm especially happy about Reuschel, I feel like I kind of 'discovered' him as a candidate. (Pats self on back). :-)

Looks like either none of the oft-debated old-time, around-forever candidates ever gets in - or maybe Rizzuto does in 10 years. Reuschel's recent ascendancy may have killed the old days of a fossil getting chosen forever...

Rizzuto, or someone else, will probably get in eventually, but it's going to be quite awhile if we stick to elect 3.

'16 looks like it only has two serious candidates (Griffey and Edmonds... well, and maybe Pettitte, but I'm lukewarm on him at best), and '17 might be Manny only (or not even him), but I think the slots those years will go to recent high backlog players. Then 2018 might be... Thome and Chipper Jones? Then '19 would be... Jeter? Todd Helton? Ichiro? Bobby Abreu? Johnny Damon? I guess some of those might play through '14, which would push them back to '20. '20 might be Vlad Guerrero as well as some of the previous names. (Oddly I don't see much in the way of pitching candidates in these years.) This is getting really speculative, so I'll stop there.

I think there are years where there won't be 3 slam-dunk candidates, but the problem is '13 adds at least six serious candidates, '14 five, and '15 four. After those three years are in the books, that's going to be six guys for the high backlog (and probably some other lower backloggers, who still might edge out some of the older candidates), who'll then eat up the extra slot or two in '16, and the two or three backlog slots in '17. If then '18 and '19 result in a number of good candidates (and it looks like they probably will), then yeah, it could be another ten years before we elect a fossil (by which I guess I mean guys who started prior to WWII). If that's the case, then the last one to be elected for awhile would be... McGraw in '09. Kinda funny it was a guy who sat way down in the backlog for ever without much support, before beginning a big rise over a couple of years, rather than a guy who hung around the fringes of the top ten for a long time, like Van Haltren or Duffy.

ETA: I wrote the above before I saw Joe's #19. I'm fine with going to elect 4 for some years. I think the BBWAA is too hard on modern candidates, whether it's because of the steroids issue (McGwire, Bagwell) or because they just can't figure out the guy was great (Trammell, Martinez, etc). And when they do elect someone, it's often clearly not the best guy on the ballot. I mean, I was one of the few who voted for Rice this year for the HoM, so I kind of like him, but there's no way he was the best guy on the HoF ballot the year he went in. The same with Dawson, really. Anyway, there's at least 8 guys on this year's HoF ballot that I think clearly belong, and a couple more borderline guys. And it's just going to get worse over the next few years. I think being too stingy in their elections is the biggest problem with the HoF right now (it's not helped that the VC basically punted for a few years, before finally electing Santo this year), so I'm not too concerned with exactly matching their numbers.

We're getting requests to run the mock HoF ballot. Can you make that happen first?

I was planning on doing that Monday and leaving it open for a week. We would then have the results ready a couple of days before the actual election in Cooperstown.

If it's three, I assume Bonds and Clemens sail in, and probably Piazza as well.

If Piazza doesn't get in next year, there's something wrong, IMO. Inner-circle all the way.

By the way, Jim Rice is only listed once in the results now, but I still don't think he's right. He has two votes, but fra paulo, myself and Daryn all voted for him, by my count. Sorry for being a pain about this.

You're not being a pain. It needs to be right. OCF pointed it out to me last night, too.

My ballot counter has to differentiate between all of the Rices on the ballot, so I had to type "J. Rice" and "S. Rice" to do that. However, it's so easy to just type "Rice" by mistake instead. It appears that was the case here.

The plan is to go elect four at some point, at least once every few years. Need to go back and check the records for when.

If we do that, I hope it's not just thrown in willy nilly. It should only be used if there's a clear-cut, no ifs, ands or buts inner-circle candidate who would be left off during a three-man election, IMO.

Still would rather stay synchronized with the HOF, but I know I'm in the minority there.

Would like to thank to the counters and the voters!

Thanks for conceiving the HoM, Joe! :-)

I'm especially happy about Reuschel, I feel like I kind of 'discovered' him as a candidate. (Pats self on back). :-)

Hmmmm... as a HoM observer glancing over the list my initial thought was 'Reuschel, but Gooden way down the list'? For some reason -- even though you probably couldn't find two more different pitchers stylistically -- I had always thought of them as having similar cases... but a closer look shows that's clearly not the case.

Question for the group - if you give Gooden another 700 IP (giving him roughly the same number as Reuschel) of ~100 ERA+ ball, does he get more support? He's still an inferior career candidate to Reuschel, but if I were a voter, I think that early peak would equalize things for me.

I also think the peak voters need to starting touting Albert Belle more...

Then 2018 might be... Thome and Chipper Jones? Then '19 would be...

Pudge, Posada and Rivera are going to retire some day.

The plan is to go elect four at some point, at least once every few years. Need to go back and check the records for when.

If we do that, I hope it's not just thrown in willy nilly. It should only be used if there's a clear-cut, no ifs, ands or buts inner-circle candidate who would be left off during a three-man election, IMO.

C'mon John, give me a little credit :-)

It wouldn't be willy nilly. It would definitely be systematic, and it would definitely not be to add an extra guy in a big year.

We were supposed to go to four a year or two ago, but we missed it. If you go back to the thread where we talk about how many will be elected each year, it's very clear.

It's all based on a formula that looks at the number of teams, projects that out X years (I want to say 12?), etc..

And the fact that we missed that "4" year, and that we have one backlog candidate who is way ahead of the rest is pretty decent evidence that we are right on track, aside from that, in terms of the number we have in.

I need to find that thread . . . but kind of busy right now. But I'm pretty sure 2013 will be an elect 4 year to make up for the missing elect 4 year (not that that will help Rizzuto any in the near future) and then we'll get back on the schedule set there.

Here it is:

http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/hall_of_merit/discussion/number_of_electees_by_year

Last year should have been elect 4. Can't believe we missed that, but it's easy to forget things that were decided 8 years ago.

Here's the post I wrote once we remembered that we missed one. And then I completely forgot about it again . . . I need to make notes or something. My sincerest apologies here . . . between moving 2x since March 2010, and having a baby and a new job where I travel a lot, things have just been too crazy in real life.

I just moved yesterday, so I'm going to be brief for now, I've only skimmed the comments. Still getting my bearings here . . .

I will need to go find the calculations that were used to figure the number of electees per season.

They were purposely backloaded, meaning I was conservative on how much 'team credit' to allow early where it was grey. Grey meaning things like Negro Leagues, Federal League, American Association, etc..

I also built in a 'lag' because just because we expand to 30 teams today doesn't mean the players impacted by that have retired. I believe I used a 12-year lag, with 5 years tacked on since players aren't eligible until after they retire.

Those assumptions could be re-checked, but I would still want to calibrate the numbers to equal the Hall of Fame as of 2001, since that's when this took off.

More importantly, that's also the year they radically changed the Veteran's Committee for the worse. So it's not just a random year.

Actually, I would say we could conceivably recalibrate to include those elected through 2001, plus the additional Negro Leaguers selected in 2006. That seems most reasonable to me.

If it turns out we should have elected 4 this year we can add that player to next year's election, so that no favoritism (or negativity) is shown to whoever should have been elected this year.

We do need to have a discussion on this. In my opinion, it will boil down to:

1) Did we backload the elections (we did)
2) If so, by how much (not sure)
3) What does the schedule look like once remove the backloading, and recalibrating to 1935-2001.

Then adjust future elections to get back on track. If we find we are off by more than one electee, we only alter by one per year, until we are on track.

So let's say we decide we are 3 short. We don't elect 6 for 2012. We elect 4 in 2012, 2013, and 2014. If we are -2 we elect 2 in 2012 and 2013.

Does that make sense. Sound reasonable?

Cone is a guy who will probably be amused to learn of his election. If anyone here runs across him, they should point him to the project.

23. John (You Can Call Me Grandma) Murphy Posted: December 29, 2011 at 07:38 AM (#4024963)

We're getting requests to run the mock HoF ballot. Can you make that happen first?

I was planning on doing that Monday and leaving it open for a week. We would then have the results ready a couple of days before the actual election in Cooperstown.


Thanks for this update, I'm looking forward to it! And thanks to DL from MN for getting this info for us!

Yeah 'zop, I tried to look up Twitter addresses for each of the electees, but none had one.

Thanks for maintaining your cool on the "Lima Time" ballot. I was ready to go off.

Best bets for contacting Cone

1) YES network
2) Posnaski follows the Hall of Merit

Re: Cone - I've asked Jay Jaffe.
Again - in light of John's concerns about electing extra people. We can absolutely add one more next year, as Joe has indicated that we missed one. Alternatively, if we no longer need concern ourselves with the HOF (at least quantitatively) we can discuss a method of determining extra inductees based on the voting pool - ie. through a threshold of votes.

rawagman . . . I don't really have any interest in threshold of votes balloting.

Any choice would be arbitrary - and this system was designed to get away from that. i.e. - what makes 75% 'valid' as opposed to 70%, 50% or 90%. We decided long ago that we should be electing a few players every year.

We are concerned with maintaining the standard (per team season) that was established by the Hall of Fame from 1935-2001 (before they made a mess of the Veteran's Committee), plus the extra Negro League players that were inducted in 2006.

Doing that is pretty simple.

First determine what to credit as a 'team-season' - i.e. we aren't giving the 1884 UA full credit.

Next determine the appropriate 'lag' time - i.e. 30 teams in 2011 doesn't mean that should be the basis for the 2012 election. Those 2011 players aren't eligible for awhile.

From there, it's just a math problem. In the first go round, we were VERY conservative in what we credited for the early years, due to the uncertainty involved - we didn't know nearly as much about those guys at the time as we do now.

I might be missing something...but why don't we just include Rizzuto this year? If it was supposed to be 4 based on the mathematical formula, why don't we just stick to it? It is not as if people would vote differently if it was remembered that it was supposed to be 4, because we rank the top 15 players we deem worthy in the order of what we believe is their worthiness. And this way we don't unfairly screw over Rizzuto.

C'mon John, give me a little credit :-)

I didn't know (or remember :-) that you had posted something about this, Joe. Based on that prior post of yours, your plan looks systematic and definitely not willy nilly.

I might be missing something...but why don't we just include Rizzuto this year? If it was supposed to be 4 based on the mathematical formula, why don't we just stick to it? It is not as if people would vote differently if it was remembered that it was supposed to be 4, because we rank the top 15 players we deem worthy in the order of what we believe is their worthiness. And this way we don't unfairly screw over Rizzuto.

I don't have a problem with this, but Joe is the last word on that subject.

I might be missing something...but why don't we just include Rizzuto this year? If it was supposed to be 4 based on the mathematical formula, why don't we just stick to it? It is not as if people would vote differently if it was remembered that it was supposed to be 4, because we rank the top 15 players we deem worthy in the order of what we believe is their worthiness. And this way we don't unfairly screw over Rizzuto.

Makes sense to me.

Looks like either none of the oft-debated old-time, around-forever candidates ever gets in - or maybe Rizzuto does in 10 years. Reuschel's recent ascendancy may have killed the old days of a fossil getting chosen forever...

That's been the case for a while now, at least since Nettles jumped onto the stage from outside of the top ten. Even McGraw had a meteoric rise at the end, passing perennial top ten candidates like Duffy, Redding, Walters and Johnson.

Right now, the Hall of Merit pretty closely tracks the total membership of the Hall of Fame. We have 246 members, they have 236 (including Santo). But, the HOF has also inducted McGraw and Rube Foster as managers, and Joe Torre's managerial success has essentially rendered him ineligible as a player. The Hall of Fame has also inducted George Wright and Al Spalding as pioneers, which brings their total up to 241, including Torre. In addition, we've inducted Pete Rose and Joe Jackson, who are ineligible for the HOF, and also McGwire and Palmeiro, who while not actually ineligible, have been excluded because the BBWAA treats steroid cases radically differently from how we do. Subtracting those 4 from our total puts us at 242, right in line with the HOF's total.

And Clark Griffith, who was elected as a manager, so are we even without the 4 characters?

Sigh, no one listens to me anymore. Look at Post #180 at

http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/hall_of_merit/discussion/2011_hall_of_merit_ballot/P100/

Ron mentions electing 4 players

It is because I haven't voted for my favorite player yet, isn't it.

Right now, the Hall of Merit pretty closely tracks the total membership of the Hall of Fame. We have 246 members, they have 236 (including Santo). But, the HOF has also inducted McGraw and Rube Foster as managers, and Joe Torre's managerial success has essentially rendered him ineligible as a player. The Hall of Fame has also inducted George Wright and Al Spalding as pioneers, which brings their total up to 241, including Torre. In addition, we've inducted Pete Rose and Joe Jackson, who are ineligible for the HOF, and also McGwire and Palmeiro, who while not actually ineligible, have been excluded because the BBWAA treats steroid cases radically differently from how we do. Subtracting those 4 from our total puts us at 242, right in line with the HOF's total.

You make a good point, Alex.

I agree with Alex King's tallies up to this point:

and also McGwire and Palmeiro, who while not actually ineligible, have been excluded because the BBWAA treats steroid cases radically differently from how we do

The reason I disagree is that we don't yet have the last word on how the BBWAA will treat steroid cases. Right now, their electorate is allowed to express freely its opinion about 'cheaters' in a way we are not. However, this might change over the course of the next decade in ways we cannot foresee. It's too soon to tell. So, we are two ahead of the Hall of Fame, pending their current ballot results.

Also, I would be very disappointed if some ex post facto provision is allowed to induct Rizzuto, even though I much prefer him to Cone. If we made a mistake, we should have sorted it out before the results were announced. It is a bad precedent.

Also, I would be very disappointed if some ex post facto provision is allowed to induct Rizzuto, even though I much prefer him to Cone. If we made a mistake, we should have sorted it out before the results were announced. It is a bad precedent.

It wouldn't really change anything, other than Rizzuto (whom I don't support, FWIW) would be added to the HoM with the other three. It's not like it's six months later, either.

Makes no sense to induct 4 in a year with no front-loggers and then 3 in the following year that is stuffed with them. We should have elected 4 in 2011, which would have inducted Palmeiro and might have changed everyone's voting patterns for 2012. Bad in principle. Rizutto is dead and has waited 50 "years" -- it won't hurt him to wait another 10 if he is truly worthy (which I don't believe.)

It's awesome that Reuschel and Cone got in. I have never thought of them as all-time greats, and now I have to revise my opinion. You call Cone a "Met and Yankee pitcher". Does that mean his cap is undecided?