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.

Hall of Merit: 1898 Results - Deacon White, Paul Hines, George Gore and Ross Barnes Elected to the Hall of Merit

The Class of 1898 is . . .

Deacon White, Paul Hines, George Gore and Ross Barnes. All are alive in January 1898 and expected to be in at the induction ceremony this August.

The Hall of Merit game between the Cleveland Spiders and Louisville Colonels should be entertaining as well. Louisville has a 24 OF-2B named Wagner that looks like he might turn out okay and Cleveland features Cy Young, who won his 200th game last year.

Here is the full balloting, let’s hope the formatting comes out well smallest text on your browser will help . . .

    Player       Pts Bal     1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 12 13 14 15
1.  D.White      657  29    13 10  2  2     1  1
2.  P.Hines      654  29    11 13  2     2  1
3.  G.Gore       553  29     1  1 10  6  3  3  3  1  1
4.  R.Barnes     476  28     3     2  6  6  1  2  5  1     1     1

5.  C.Radbourn   427  28     1  1  3  3  3  3  3     1  8  1           1
6.  G.Wright     420  25        2  2  5  4  4  3  3        2
7.  E.Sutton     380  27           1  2  4  6  4  2  1  3  1  1  2
8.  H.Richardson 366  28           1  2  2  4  2  3  5  2  2  2  2  1
9.  A.Spalding   339  25        1  2  1  2  2  3  2  1  5  3  1  1  1
10. E.Williamson 328  28           1     1  2  1  4  8  2  3  3     1  2
11. J.Start      297  24           2     1     4  6  1  2  3  2  1  1  1
12. P.Galvin     209  21           1  1        1     2  1  3  3     6  3
13. C.McVey      198  19        1        1     1  1     2  3  2  7     1
14. T.O'Neill    132  13              1     1  1     2     1     2  2  3
15. L.Pike       123  14.5                  1              2  3  3  4  1.5
16. C.Jones       96  11                             2     1  3  1  3  1
17. M.Welch       95  11.17                       1  1     1  1  3  2  1.17
18. F.Dunlap      87  10                                   2  5  1  2
19. J.McCormick   70   7.17                          2  2     1  1     1.17
20. D.Orr         49   6                                      2  3  1
21. A.Dalrymple   31   4                                1           2  1
22. J.Whitney     24   2                          1     1
23. T.York        22   3                                         1  2
24. T.Bond        21   3.5                                             3.5
25. H.Wright      16   1.67                          1                  .67
26. J.Creighton   12   2                                               2
27. L.Meyerle      7   1.17                                            1.17
28. B.Mathews      7   1                                            1
29. J.Clapp        6   1                                               1
30. H.Nichol       6   1                                               1
31. D.Pearce       6   1                                               1
32. B.Sunday       4    .67                                             .67
33. C.Cummings     1    .17                                             .17

Hall of Merit: 1898 Ballot

Let’s do it.

Post your ballots here, with a full explanation please. For a good example of what it might look like (other formats are good too, this is just one that I liked), look here, Andrew Siegel’s post of 11:08 a.m. on April 1, 2003.

sample ballot

Please do not tabulate the other votes before posting your ballot, and if you calc them after your ballot, please don’t post them here.

If as the week moves on, you realize you want to change your ballot, i.e., you’ve been convinced the John Doe really was better than Jim Smith, note that on this thread, along with the time and date of your original ballot.

Please post any comments on ballots on the discussion thread, try to keep this thread clean for just ballots.

Hall of Merit: 1898 Ballot Discussion

The general tone of the discussion seems to be that we’ll be moving the first election back to 1898. There haven’t been any major objections or anything, so I figured I’d get this thread up quick to give as much time as possible for discussion.

I’m posting this thread to allow for new discussions of provisional ballots, because . . . the players discussed will be quite different and that other thread was getting very long.

Please don’t add the totals and score them this time . . . if you want to add them up and post a top 10 or something that’s fine (alphabetically, without the total points) that’s fine, but I’d rather not open that can of worms, if people want to do it individually that’s fine, but I don’t think it should be posted. A top 10 accomplishes the goal of seeing the consensus without the other concerns.

The discussion of the merits of moving the ballot back to 1898 is on the First Ballot Schedule thread.

Our new start date will start the with the old opening day most of us grew up with, about a week into April, not the last day or two of March, if that’s any solace to the people who were pumped about starting on opening day :-)

Hall of Merit: Provisional Ballots

As requested . . . feel free to start discussing your ballots . . . I will probably not be able to check back in until Monday, I may pop in at some point before then, but it’s unlikely.

Rob Wood has as good of an understanding of this as anyone, he should be able to answer most questions.