Thank you, Chris--that was a most helpful article. Sorry for any confusion in the earlier posts, the last couple of days have been extremely busy ones--including a very tricky and complicated set of logistics in pulling off a surprise birthday party for my girlfriend--so I have been more distracted than usual...

Not that it matters what I think, but I think it should be 1+ years from retirement for players from 1936-1954, then 5+ years. So, Ruth, eligible 1937, Hornsbry 1939, DiMaggio 1953, and Feller, 1962.

I can live with all this except Ruth, who was elected in 1936. I think he should be on our ballot, as was the case in real life. If he had not been one of the first five enshrined, I'd be more inclined to apply the 1+ rule to him.

As for Gehrig: I think it's just best for us to assume that he will be elected in a 1939 Special Election as was the case in real life. There are some events that simply supersede the "rules." To make his election conform in this way doesn't seem to add any meaning to what this process is designed to capture. He will go in one way or another, and his circumstances were exceptional.

So, unless there are really strenuous objections, let's use this set of guidelines (most Misirlou's):

Ruth eligible in 1936
Hornsby/Cochrane/Frisch in 1939
DiMaggio in 1953
Feller, Robinson in 1962

I will revise my own ballot accordingly.

As for Jackson and Rose: has anyone collated the various historical polling data regarding eligibility for Jackson and Rose? I have found two or three of these on-line, and while they are divergent, all of them suggest that people reading Internet baseball content are roughly 80% in favor of Jackson being eligible. An ESPN poll suggests that over 80% of poll participants think Rose should be in the Hall of Fame (including a group that thinks he should still remain banned from the game itself).

We can safely conclude that this voting group will endorse eligibility for these two. For those who already voted, you're permitted to submit a revised 1936 ballot if Jackson's eligibility affects how you would have filled it out. I personally wouldn't get Jackson on the ballot for several more years after '36, but if anyone who's voted needs to revise because of this, please feel free to do so...simply indicate "revised ballot" in your post.

So, also:

Jackson eligible in 1936
Rose in 1992

As for the Negro Leagues: I think the approach of having separate votes in the years where there were no BBWAA elections will work in a way that's analogous to what Brock and Chris are suggesting. In the interest of streamlining the process and thus not requiring the structural logistics of the Hall of Merit, I think that people can simply decide if they've put in enough work to vote for Negro Leaguers. All of the HoM folks who are willing/interested in participating here would unquestionably belong in such a voting group, and will become a "de facto" committee anyway.

What i would envision doing is simply providing a list of the Negro League players eligible (retired for 1+ years) for each of the first four years (1940, 1941, 1943, 1944). By the time this voting resumes (1957), length of retirement will no longer be an issue, and we'll just work with the remaining list of eligible players.

Thanks for all the perspectives thus far, please feel free to keep chiming in. I think what we have here is workable, but any other thoughts on how to improve it are welcomed.

Regarding the Negro Leaguers - it seems to me that if we're trying to be consistent with the BBWAA process, the first votes for Negro Leaguers should not occur until after the color line was broken in '47. I'm not aware of any evidence that the BBWAA as a group considered integration of any aspect of the baseball world as a cause to pursue.

Revised ballot:

Ruth
Cobb
Speaker
Collins
Lajoie
Wagner
Johnson
Mathewson
Young
Alexander

Still unsure about whether we are supposed to vote for 19th cent guys, but I assume Young is kosher.

Don, here’s my two cents, three little words: don’t do it. Forget trying to replicate the ever-evolving pile of feces that is the HOF voting system. It’s like trying to build a palace on a major fault line. The foundations of their system are so poorly considered that no matter how fine of an edifice one builds, it will ultimately slide into the abyss.

Here’s what you might consider doing instead. Rather than holding an election for each time the HOF held one, you should hold an election each time the HOF inducted someone. In other words, replace each player they inducted with our own. It’s the Hall of Merit approach: here’s who we would replace your guys with.

Here’s how many they elected each year:

1936: (5) 20th century players
1937: (3) 20th century players + (1) 19th century player (Wright)
1938: (1) 20th century player
1939: (4) 20th century players + (3) 19th century players (Anson, Ewing, Radbourn)
1942: (1) 20th century player
1945: (6) 20th century players + (3) 19th century players (Brouthers, Kelly, O’Rourke)
1946: (9) 20th century players + (1) 19th century player (McCarthy)
1947: (4) 20th century players
1948: (2) 20th century players
1949: (3) 20th century players
1951: (2) 20th century players
1952: (2) 20th century players
1953: (4) 20th century players
1954: (3) 20th century players
1955: (6) 20th century players
1956: (2) 20th century players
1957: (1) 20th century players
1959: (1) 20th century players
1961: (2) 20th century players
1962: (3) 20th century players
1963: (3) 20th century players + (1) 19th century player (Clarkson)
1964: (4) 20th century players + (2) 19th century players (Ward, Keefe)
1965: (1) 19th century player (Galvin)
1966: (1) 20th century players
1967: (2) 20th century players
1968: (3) 20th century players
1969: (4) 20th century players
1970: (3) 20th century players
1971: (6) 20th century players + (1) Negro leagues player (Paige)
1972: (5) 20th century players + (2) Negro leagues players (Gibson, Leonard)
1973: (3) 20th century players + (1) 19th century player (Welch) + (1) Negro leagues player (Irvin)
1974: (3) 20th century players + (1) 19th century player (Thompson) + (1) Negro leagues player (Bell)
1975: (3) 20th century players + (1) Negro leagues player (J.Johnson)
1976: (3) 20th century players + (1) 19th century player (Connor) + (1) Negro leagues player (Charleston)
1977: (3) 20th century players + (2) Negro leagues players (Lloyd, Dihigo)
1978: (2) 20th century players
1979: (2) 20th century players

And so forth. I recommend that the project only deal with electing players active after 1900 (ignoring post-career stunts, as the HOF did with O'Rourke, Brouthers and Thompson). If you want a separate Blue Ribbon panel for 19th century players that would be the way to go. The same for the Negro leaguers.

Understand this about the HOF “rules“: it was never given much thought as to what would be a good system for determining the greatest in the Game’s history; until the current generation they often functioned more as suggestions than rules; they were frequently unknown or simply ignored by a majority of the voters.

The HOF was established on a lark, with the aim being to have a tourist attraction, not to have any standing as The Bestower of Baseball’s Highest Honor. Thus, the rules for the 1936 election essentially said “vote for ten guys you think should be in the hall of fame for baseball.” The concept was to emulate the Hall of Fame for Great Americans, founded in 1900, to wit: “the hall stands as a shrine not just to great men, but to Roman ideals of fame favored at the beginning of the 20th century.” So they also had the clause about “the player's record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team,” and that was it. Oh, and they were to vote for 20th century persons (a separate vote was held for 19th century). Nothing else about who was eligible so active players, managers, war heroes, etc, whomever the voter deemed as great. Simple.

With so few guidelines and an undefined pool of candidates, within a few years the result was a mess. They immediately realized that including active players was wrong so in 1937 they said you had to be retired. Again, they didn’t define just what that meant, resulting in inconsistent approaches among the electorate. Until the 5-year wait rule came along in 1954 it was left up to the individual voter’s discretion as to who he thought of as being “inactive”.

Even after the 1936 elections the BBWAA continued to consider all “20th century” players (apparently meaning anyone who played after 1900). In the mid-1940’s there were players getting votes who last played more than 40 years ago. This lasted through the 1946 election. In 1947 they apparently said you had to be retired less than 30 years to be eligible. Sort of. You still find voters ignoring this rule and writing in their old-time favorites.

Writing in. Well, ALL votes were write-ins. I don’t believe they had a check-off ballot before the 1960’s. Voters had ten blank lines, they could write in anyone. The HOF apparently counted all of these “write-ins” even if they were not officially eligible, so you see a lot of strange results among the guys getting one or two votes.

You see, it was No Big Deal. Nobody cared enough about the process to try to do it right. If a writer voted for an ineligible player that was OK. As long as nobody complains. When that happens it’s “OMG, we gotta fix the system” - and another band-aid gets patched onto this abomination of an election system. So I recommend you don’t feel the need to replicate it in every detail.

It still leaves you the problem of specifying who is eligible for each election. I would attempt to follow the HOF rules as they seem to have been intended, condensing the BBWAA voting with the VC voting:

For the elections 1936-53: allow eligibility to anyone active after 1900; allow eligibility to players immediately after their last MLB game, unless they received less than two votes in the actual voting, in which case make them wait until the next election. So Babe Ruth is eligible in 1936, Hornsby in 1938, Frisch in 1939. And give Gehrig early eligibility in 1939.

For the elections 1954-2012: allow eligibility to anyone active after 1900; allow eligibility to anyone retired at least five years.

Dispense with the 10-years played rule, the 5% rule, and the 15-year limit on candidacies. They have no purpose for us, they would only be counter-productive restrictions.

The ballot structure can be pretty simple. Have each voter rank the candidates on a ballot size of twice the number to be elected, but not less than five. So the 1936 ballot would be rank ten players (elect 5); the 1937 would be rank six players (elect 3); the 1938 ballot would be rank five players (elect 1).

You would want to provide a list of leading eligible players (about 40 to 50) for the first election; then each succeeding election provide the leading newly-eligible candidates (about 10 to 15 would be more than adequate).

That’s my proposal. Feel free to use it or not.