Hall of Merit: 1901 election discussion

I don’t have time to list the newly eligible players (I’m in Pittsburgh for a training class this week), but I figured I can start the thread at least. If someone wants to list the newbies with links to their BR pages that would be great. I should still be able to check in around lunch time and after the Pirate games at night.

Hall of Merit: 1900 Results - John Clarkson and John Ward elected

John Clarkson and John Ward have been elected to the Hall of Merit in balloting for the 1900 election. Clarkson was easily elected, receiving 19 of 35 first place votes and 756 points. Ward finished with 617 points, edging Tim Keefe (582) and George Wright (580). Wright was actually named first or second on 11 ballots, Ward 10, but Ward had deeper support, being named no lower than 10th on every ballot. Wright was left off of 1.5 ballots completely.

Pud Galvin made the biggest jump, from 16th to 13th. He received 19% of the potential points in 1899, 34% this year.

Harry Stovey and Tip O’Neill experienced the biggest drops. Stovey fell from 5th to 9th, he lost 38 points in the voting despite 4 more people casting votes. O’Neill has fallen from 14th to 18th to 23rd. He was named 13 ballots in 1898, 7 in 1899 and just 4 in 1900.

30 of 31 voters from 1899 returned for 1900, and we added 5 new voters.

The Boston Beaneaters and Chicago Orphans will play the Hall of Merit Game in 1900. In 1900, these are the only two original teams remaining from the NL’s inaugural season of 1876. Boston is led by 3B Jimmy Collins, CF Billy Hamilton, pitchers Bill Dinneen, Vic Willis and Kid Nichols. Chicago’s stars include 2B Cupid Childs, OF Jimmy Ryan and pitchers Ned Garvin and Clark Griffith.

RK  LY  Player          Pts Ballots 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 12 13 14 15
 1 n/a  J.Clarkson      756  35.0  19  5  4  3  3     1
 2 n/a  J.Ward          617  35.0   3  7  6  5  3  1  3  3  3  1
 3   4  T.Keefe         582  35.0   1  5  6  7  3  5  2     1  4     1
 4   3  G.Wright        580  33.5   4  7  2  4  6  3  2     1     2  1        1.5
 5   6  C.Radbourn      484  32.0   3  1  3  2  6  4  2  4     1  3  2        1
 6   7  H.Richardson    452  33.0      2  3  1  1  3  7  4  3  4  1  2	2
 7   8  E.Sutton        441  31.0   1  2  4  3  2  5  1  3  1  3     1  1  2  2
 8   9  A.Spalding      403  30.0   2  2  1  2  3  3     1  3  4  1  3  1  2  2
 9   5  H.Stovey        382  30.0   1     3     1  3  6  3  2  2  3  1     5
10  10  J.Start         378  28.0      2  1  3  2  2  3  4  3  1  3  1     3
11  12  C.Bennett       287  26.0      1  1  1     2     2  3  2  4  1  5  2  2
12  11  B.Caruthers*    284  23.0   1  1     2     1  2  3  2  2  2  3  2     2
13  16  P.Galvin        284  26.0            2        3  3  2  2  6  2  4  1  1
14  13  P.Browning      256  26.0               2     1  1  1  3  5  3  6  3  1
15  15  C.McVey         193  17.0               2  2  1  1  3  2  1  2        3
16  14  E.Williamson    182  21.0                     1  1  2  1  1  3  3  5  4
17  17  L.Pike           96  11.0                           1  1  1  2  4  1  1
18 n/a  T.Mullane        83   9.0         1                 1        2  1  3  1
19  20  M.Welch          79  10.0                           1     2  1     2  4
20  19  F.Dunlap         49   6.0                           1           3  1  1
21  21  J.McCormick      46   5.0	                 1     1        2     1
22  22  D.Pearce         45   5.0                  1                 2        2
23  18  T.O'Neill        41   4.0               1           1              1  1
24  23  C.Jones          35   5.0                                       1  3  1
25  24  J.Whitney        24   2.0                        1     1
26T 25  T.York            9   1.0                                    1
26T --  H.Wright          9   1.0                                    1
28  27  B.Mathews         7   1.0                                          1
29T --  L.Meyerle         6   1.0                                             1
29T --  J.Creighton       6   1.0                                             1
29T 29  D.Orr             6   1.0                                             1
32  --  C.Welch           3   0.5                                             0.5
* wins tiebreaker, named higher than Galvin on more individual ballots.
Dropped out: Henry Larkin (26), Tommy Bond (28)

Hall of Merit: 1900 Ballot

After an excellent week of discussion, let the balloting for 1900 begin . . .

Hall of Merit: Pitchers

On this thread, I’ll put the adjusted W-L records for each pitcher who has received a vote, or is likely to in 1900.

I’ll describe the methods as well, although I might not get to this until later, see the 1900 newbies thread for an explanation until I can put it here.

Hall of Merit: New Eligibles for 1900

The 20th Century is almost upon us (that starts in 1901). William McKinley will be facing off with Williams Jenning Bryan in the Presidential Election. Some other facts about our nation this year:

- 76 million people
- median age is 23 (35 in 1998); life expectancy is 47 (76 in 1998)
- average salary is 18.7 cents an hour (52 hour week on average); $11.48 an hour for a 37.9 hour week in 1998.
- 1 in 7 homes have a bathtub
- 1 in 13 homes have a telephone
- Brownie camera: $1
- lb.of sugar: 4 cents
- dozen eggs: 14 cents
- lb. of butter: 24 cents
- there were 4,000 cars sold, world wide
- 42% of the workforce are farmers (3% in 1998).

Oh yeah, we’ll be electing 2 new members to the Hall of Merit. The top newcomers:

Elton Chamberlain
John Clarkson
Charlie Comiskey
Jerry Denny
George Haddock
Tony Mullane
Paul Radford
Danny Richardson
Larry Twitchell
John Montgomery Ward
Farmer Weaver

Hall of Merit: 1899 Results - Jim O’Rourke and King Kelly Elected to the Hall of Merit

Jim O’Rourke and King Kelly have been elected by an overwhelming majority to the Hall of Merit. O’Rourke, 48, will be at the ceremony, Kelly died in 1894 and will be honored posthumously.

Buck Freeman, Dan McGann, Gus Weyhing, Bill Dinneen and the Washington Senators will face John McGraw, Wilbert Robinson, Jimmy Sheckard, Joe McGinnity and the Baltimore Orioles in the Hall of Merit game this year.

Tim Keefe, who finished 4th, was the only player besides the electees to be named on all 31 ballots. Twelve players received at least one first or second place ballot, but Wright and the electees were the only ones to receive more than 3 such votes.

RK  LY  Player       Pts Bal    1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 12 13 14 15
1.  --  J.O'Rourke   699  31   21  4  3  2     1
2.  --  K.Kelly      625  31    4 12  5  7  1     2
3.   6  G.Wright     505  30    1  6  5  2  2  8  2  1        2           1
4.  --  T.Keefe      480  31       2  6  4  6  3  3  2  2  1           2
5.  --  H.Stovey     410  30    2     1  3  3  5  3  3  2  1  1  2     2  2
6.   5  C.Radbourn   401  29    2  1  3  2  2  1  1  5  3  2     4  2     1
7.   8  H.Richardson 378  29       1     5  1  2  1  4  6  4  1  1  2  1
8.   7  E.Sutton     370  27       1  3  2  6     4  2  2  1  2        2  2
9.   9  A.Spalding   307  23    1  1  3     2  2  2     3  1  3  2  1  1  1
10. 11  J.Start      286  24       1        2  2  1  2  5  2  4  2  1  1  1
11. --  B.Caruthers  279  23       1     1  2  3  2  2     1  4  4  1  1  1
12. --  C.Bennett    272  25       1  1  1  1  1     1  2  5  2  1  3  2  4
13. --  P.Browning   271  25                2  1  2  3  1  5  3  2  2  2  2
14. 10  E.Williamson 250  25                      3  1  3  3  3  6  3     3
15. 13  C.McVey      163  15.5        1        1  3  1        2  1  3  1  2.5
16. 12  P.Galvin     141  13             2        1  1  1  1  2     2  3
17. 15  L.Pike        91  11                      1              3  1  6
18. 14  T.O'Neill     69   7                1        1  1           2     2
19. 18  F.Dunlap*     59   7                               1     1  4  1
20. 17  M.Welch       59   7                         1     1  1        1  3
21. 19  J.McCormick   41   5                               1  1     1     2
22. 31  D.Pearce      32   3                   1                 1  1
23. 16  C.Jones       30   4                                     1     3
24. 22  J.Whitney     24   2                         1     1
25. 23  T.York        20   3                                        1     2
26. --  H.Larkin      10   1.5                                         1   .5
27. 28  B.Mathews      8   1                                        1
28. 24  T.Bond         7   1                                           1
29. 20  D.Orr          6   1                                              1
* won tiebreaker, ahead 7-6 on individual ballots naming either player.

Dropped Out: A.Dalrymple (21), H.Wright (25), J.Creighton (26), L.Meyerle (27),
J.Clapp (29), Hugh Nichol (30), B.Sunday (32), C.Cummings (33).

Hall of Merit: 1899 Ballot

For those of you that avoided the token appearances debate, we’ll stick with what’s in our Constitution for the time being, meaning that Pete Browning IS ELIGIBLE for this election.

If we decide to re-write the rule in the future, we’ll make sure it covers Browning being eligible for 1899.

Let the games begin . . . balloting will close some time Monday morning (April 28), after I’ve had a cup of coffee and get a minute to announce it.

Hall of Merit: Centennial Commission?

The short Dickey Pearce bio on the other thread inspired this.

Would you guys think it’d be reasonable to maybe open up 3 or 4 extra spots for guys that played primarily before the NA? I’m thinking guys like Creighton, Harry Wright, Dickey Pearce (are there any others?). These spots would not impact the other elections.

Obviously we can’t quantify them, and most of us are already pulling our hair out. But maybe if there’s a subset of this group that’s interested in doing the research, we could let them go out and pick 3 or 4 guys to add on to the list.

It’d be kind of our own Centennial Commission . . . but we make it short and quick and something on the side, and then we get rid of it, it won’t become a Veteran’s Committee.

Again, I’m think about guys that starred pre-NA and don’t have much else to offer. For the guys like Joe Start and George Wright, I think we still include them in the normal elections, but the Committee could give us some extra ‘guidance’ with regard to their pre-NA days. But for a Creighton, a Pearce or a Harry Wright (he was a great player too, right?) this would make a lot of sense. And the rest of us don’t have to deal with it.

If we do this, I’d initially say just 3 or 4 spots max, unless the Commission would come back and give convincing evidence that a few others are worthy.

Again, if we’re doing this, we may as well be complete, but if there isn’t any interest, that’s fine too.

Hall of Merit: Token appearances

Let’s discuss token appearances here, I’ll lead off with DanG’s post . . .

Hall of Merit: New Eligibles for 1899

The notable newbies on the ballot (positional thread listing as well). We’ll be electing 2 new members for 1899.

Charlie Bennett (C)
Jocko Milligan (C)
Harry Stovey (1B)
Henry Larkin (1B)
Sam Wise (SS)
George Pinckney (3B)
Jim O’Rourke (LF)
Pete Browning (CF)
King Kelly (RF)
Tim Keefe (P)
Bob Caruthers (P)
Mark Baldwin (P)
Jesse Duryea (P)

I could have missed token appearances, my spreadsheet was set up when I wasn’t worried about token appearances, so I definitely could have missed some, please let me know if we need to fix something.