Hall of Merit: The Hall of Merit needs you!

We would like to invite all those interested to contribute their ideas regarding every aspect of the Hall of Merit.

Though Joe and I have established some general guidelines, there are issues that still need to be considered. One of these is the voting system. Joe has proposed a voting system which is quite similar to the one used in the annual MVP votes. Please refer to an article Joe wrote for Baseball Primer titled “Something Better” for a description of the HoM as it currently stands.

If you have any thoughts about how this new project should work, please post them here.

Hall of Merit: Hall of Merit - the early years

Hi there folks!

Joe and I have a lot of work to do to get the Hall of Merit off the ground.

I think the biggest challenge before the first election is getting people familiar with the eligible players.

In principle, any player whose career finished before 1911 is eligible. Because we are dealing with 40 years of baseball I decided to break down the player lists into more managable parts: 1) those who last played in the bigs before 1891; 2) those not in the first group who last played before 1901; 3) and those remaining who last played before 1911.

I’ve made a list of the players who played in parts of at least 10 years and left the bigs before 1891, here it is:

name   last year games main positions
Wright, George 1882 591 ss 530 SS / 2b
McGeary, Mike 1882 547 2b 196 2B,SS,3B / c
Fulmer, Chick 1884 583 ss 430 SS / 2b,3b
Peters, John 1884 615 ss 557 SS / 2b
Ferguson, Bob 1884 824 3b 397 3B,2B /
Force, Davy 1886 1029 ss 716 SS / 2b,3b
Quest, Joe 1886 596 2b 528 2B / ss
Start, Joe 1886 1071 1b 1070 1B /
Sutton, Ezra 1888 1263 3b 880 3B / ss,2b,1b.rf.lf
Hankinson,Frank 1888 849 3b 764 3B / p, lf
Phillips, Bill 1888 1038 1b 1032 1B /
Farrell, Jack 1889 884 2b 740 2B / ss
Rowe, Jack 1890 1044 ss 657 SS / c,lf,cf,rf
Nelson, Candy 1890 817 ss 560 SS / 2b,rf,cf,3b
Williamson, Ned 1890 1201 3b 716 3B,SS / c,p
White ,Deacon 1890 1560 3b 827 3B,C / rf,1b,2b
Battin, Joe 1890 480 3b 340 3B / 2b
Morrill, John 1890 1265 1b 916 1B / 3b,2b,ss,c

				

name	    last year	games	main	positions

Remsen, Jack	1884	578	cf 515	CF / lf 

Cuthbert, Ned	1884	452	lf 398	LF / cf

Eggler, Dave	1885	576	cf 561	CF /

York, Tom	1885	963	lf 651	LF / rf

Cassidy, John	1885	634	rf 411	RF / cf,p

Clinton, Jim	1886	426	cf 205	CF / lf,rf

Manning, Jack	1886	834	rf 672	RF / p,ss,1b

Pike, Lip	1887	425	cf 235	CF / rf,2b,ss

Jones, Charley	1888	894	lf 636	LF/ cf

Purcell,Blondie	1890	1097	lf 480	LF,RF / cf,p,3b

Sommer, Joe	1890	920	lf 567	LF / rf,3b,2b,ss

Hornung, Joe	1890	1123	lf 1051	LF / 1b

Dorgan, Mike	1890	715	rf 556	RF / lf

Shaffer, Orator	1890	871	rf 810	RF / cf,rf

Nicol, Hugh	1890	888	rf 802	RF / 2b,ss,cf

name	   last year	games	main	positions

Clapp, John	1883	588	c 472	C / lf,rf,cf

Allison, Doug	1883	318	c 279	C /

Bond, Tommy	1884	488	p 322	P / rf

White, Will	1886	403	p 403	P /

Mathews, Bobby	1887	623	p 578	P / rf

McCormick, Jim	1887	534	p 492	P / cf

Bradley, George	1888	567	p 347	P / 3b,ss

Gilligan,Barney	1888	523	c 459	C / ss,lf

Holbert, Bill	1888	623	c 538	C / rf

Flint, Silver	1889	760	c 727	C / rf

Whitney, Jim	1890	550	p 413	P / cf,rf,1b

Bushong, Doc	1890	672	c 667	C /

1) “games” is career games played, including in the National Association
2)“main” is the main position and the number of career games played at that position.
2) The “positions” syntax is as follows: the main position, plus any others that exceed 50% of the number played at the main position, are uppercase and followed by a slash(/). The positions following the slash are all others at which the player played at least 20 games, in descending order.

By no means does this include every quality player of the 1871-1890 era - for one thing, many of them played past 1890. I’ll feature them in upcoming lists.

Hall of Merit: Welcome to the Hall of Merit

This is the first blog entry for the Hall of Merit.  We hope you will find this an interesting new feature on our site.  Much more information will follow.