DIAMONDS & HORSEHIDE: Footnotes to History

In previous posts about the Hall of Fame, I've mentioned three elections:

1) the main vote by the Baseball Writers of America, which elected Bruce Sutter
2) a fan vote to select three finalists for the Frick Award for broadcasters, the winner of which will be named near the end of February
3) a third vote, about which I've been curiously cryptic

Let's knock off that third one now.

In 1971, the Hall of Fame created a special committee to select outstanding players from the Negro Leagues for induction. It was a long overdue recognition of the great players who were denied a chance to demonstrate their skill in the major leagues beecause of the ban against black players. The committee responded with nine inductees in seven years, including some of the greatest names in the history of the game, like Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson. Then they closed up shop, leaving the work of identifying the great Negro Leaguers to the Veterans Committee.

The Veterans Committee in those days had a hard enough time dealing with the players who did play in the majors, so it should come as no surprise that they only managed to induct two Negro League legends in 18 years. Meanwhile, the Hall was fast coming to the conclusion that 11 men might not adequately represent the width and breadth of African-American baseball talent prior to Jackie Robinson. So the set aside a special ballot specifically to consider new selections. Seven more Negro Leaguers got plaques. And then they created a whole new Veterans Committee, and the Negro League stars fell into limbo again, left to be footnotes to history.

Now, it's important to note that all of the selections made up to this point were based heavily on reputation. Black baseball was not blessed with especially diligent record-keeping. Partially because of the enforced inferiority of black facilities and infrastructure, partially because the financial success of the black teams depended on barnstorming and exhibitions, and partially because the real value of baseball statistics was still in its infancy. So the people who we came to regard as great were the ones who contemporaries remembered as being great.

And then somebody had a great idea. Weren't there black newspapers in many major cities? Wouldn't they have followed black baseball a little closer than the white papers did?

From this acorn grew a $250,000 grant from Major League Baseball to dig up every boxscore and record researchers could get their hands on, to try and get a more complete picture of what Negro League players did on the field. And it all culminates with a brand new Hall of Fame election this year. A committee has been appointed to vote on the merits of 39 candidates on two ballots.

It sounds great.

But.

Part of the fun of following the regular Hall elections is that you can have lengthy debates over the numbers. Stats mean different things to different people. For some people, Jack Morris' 10-inning World Series masterpiece is reason enough to induct the man. For others, a lifetime 3.90 ERA kind of kills the buzz. Not everyone agrees, but the point is that you can discuss it.

By contrast, you can't really discuss the Negro Leagues. My knowledge of the reputation of players like Cristobal Torriente and Biz Mackey tells me that they're Hall of Famers. But I can't back it up. Mine is an uninformed opinion.

The new research is supposed to change that. It will give us real numbers, and therefore a way to say why Dick Redding is better than Ray Brown, or vice versa. But they're not giving us the numbers. And they won't give us the numbers until well after this election. It's kind of a cheat. "Trust us, we're got the evidence." "Great, let's see it." "We're not done with it."

Writers tend to be wrong about this sort of thing, but several are saying that the only two men up for consideration who are still alive -- Minnie Minoso and Buck O'Neil -- are mortal locks. If Pete Rose tuaght us anything, it is that there are no mortal locks. But the questions that comes to mind is, should Minoso and O'Neil have a better shot than Frank Grant or Louis Santop just because they're alive? Would Minoso be elected largely on the basis of his major league career, when the idea is to honor those locked out of the game? Is O'Neil a favorite because of the key role he played as a member of Effa Manley's Kansas City Monarchs, or because he's such a delightful raconteur and advocate for his fellow Negro Leaguers? What are the rules?

There's an additional problem, and it's with the committee. Not the members themselves, but the size. A group of 12 people is going to vote on the immortality of these 38 men and 1 woman (Effa Manley was owner of the fabled Kansas City Monarchs, and will be the first woman ever to be voted on for the Hall of Fame in any capacity). Only 12 people. Bruce Sutter had to corral the support of 390 voters to getIf nine of them agree on any individual, that person gets a plaque. And if nine of them agree on 39 individuals, then the plaque people are going to have a very busy spring.

This is possibly my greatest concern about this whole process. The Hall has given no indication as to whether this is a one-time deal, or whether further elections are in store. So the temptation is to lean in favor of electing everyone with a good case. A lot of these 39 have very good cases. (The Hall is providing short biographies on each of them.) So how many names will join the roll this year? Three? Five? Ten? More? The Hall enshrined a whopping 11 men in 1946. They special committee has the potential to top that this year.

I'm walking a fine line here, because I wholeheartedly support the idea of giving these overlooked players their due. But I don't want them to be recognized just because they were shut out. I want them to be recognized because they were the best who were shut out. And I fear that suddenly adding 20 plaques to the Hall of Fame will not look like honoring. It will look like a quota.

In the 60s, Congress wanted a black astronaut. They hung their hopes on a bomber pilot named Ed Dwight. Unfortunately, Dwight didn't make the cut for Chuck Yeager's school for advanced test piloting. The Air Force put some pressure on Yeager. Yeager said that he always took the top 8, that Dwight was 14th, and it would look like tokenism to take him ahead of seven more qualified pilots. So the powers that be thought it over, and the came up with a solution. For one year, the Advanced Test Pilot School took a class of 14 students, including Ed Dwight.

I hope that the Hall voters will take their job very seriously. I hope that they will elect the very best players they can. And I hope that if they decide to elect 10 players, that they can back it up.

I wonder if Ed Dwight would agree with me. He has a lot to say on the subject. Both as the son of a member of the Kansas City Monarchs, and as the man who became a sculptor and created the statue of Hank Aaron outside Turner Field in Atlanta.

No one is ever really a footnote to history, you see.