Rules

1) All BBF users in good standing may participate. However, if there is more than one vote being cast from any one computer or IP, it must be cleared in advance. Should there be unannounced multiple votes from the same IP, I will investigate the circumstances, and all user names involved may be barred from this project as a result, and all but one of the multiple usernames permanently banned from the site. I only anticipate exceptions for family members living in the same home, but I will entertain requests on other bases. Please note that I and the other mods who participate in the project have the capability of determining the IP from which posts come, and I for one intend to monitor same. I have had to deal with a single user manipulating a project with multiple votes, and I don't intend to repeat the experience.

2) Elections will require a 10 voter quorum. If we do not get ten voters and there are candidate(s) who would be elected no matter what the voters needed to make a quorum did, those candidate(s) will be inducted. Otherwise, no one will be inducted. Further, if we fail to meet a quorum in two of any four consecutive elections, the project will end. If, for instance, we're doing fine on the player end but not the contributor end, I would drop the contributor end under this rule.

3) We will start in 1936, just as Cooperstown did. For the first election (1936), voters will rank their top 20, taking 10. After that we will go to having voters rank their top 12 players. Points awarded 12-11-10, etc. We will take the top five through 1940, then top three players per year elected until 2010, then two per year. If a voter does not number his selections, I will try to get him/her to do so. If they do not do so before the end of the election period, I may in my sole discretion invalidate the ballot. I have included this provision in order to ease the process of recording the votes. On another point, I know, the 1936 backlog is huge--but that was a historical issue they couldn't avoid, so neither will we.

4) We will also have a contributor ballot, which will elect one a year through 1985, then one every three (3) years. Contributors will be ranked 1 through 5, with points awarded 5-4-3-2-1. Voters may choose to participate in either one of the ballots or both.

5) It is permissible to vote for a candidate on both the contributor and player lists.

6) You are allowed to change your ballot at any time the ballot is open. However, if you change your ballot, you've got to notify me (jalbright) by PM or by a new post in the voting thread, or the changes likely will not be registered.

7) Players are eligible at the later of age 45 or the first year thereafter in which the player does not play. If the birthdate is not known, add five years to the first time the player misses a season and has less than 10 games the next season. There is an exception for early death, in which case the year of death plus two will be used if that yields an earlier date.

8) Contributors become eligible at age 65 or in the year of death plus two. whichever comes first.

9) Each election will run for approximately two weeks unless expressly altered by the project manager, contributors and players done simultaneously.

10) No one is excluded from being a candidate, regardless of the league they played in, except those elected in either the contributor or player ballots. At that point, they are removed from further consideration. If there are players who returned to the Negro Leagues or Japan after going to the majors, the departure from the majors will be their career end date for purposes of this project.

11) The standard for including a player on one's ballot is that the player must in the voter's opinion be among the very best eligible players (preferably the number voted on, but if a voter wishes to support someone they feel is 15th in a 12 person ballot instead of one of the top 12, it's too close for anyone to reasonably object. On the other hand, supporting the 25th best eligible candidate on a 12 person ballot is probably beyond the pale). I reserve the power to invalidate ballots which I do not feel are a reasonably knowledgeable, good faith effort to rank the players. One issue I am quite concerned about is that I do not want to see what clearly appear to be attempts to manipulate the ballot so as to elect a candidate. In isolation, I probably could live with this, but if it became a widely used tactic, the project would devolve into something I have no desire to be associated with. Moreover, I think that this position asks everyone else to cast legitimate votes so that you can manipulate the system to favor your pet candidates. I cannot accept that, as it strikes me as unfair to other voters. For example, you can't expect to favor even a legitimate HOF candidate like Bill Dahlen over Babe Ruth to get Dahlen elected without being asked to provide a reasonable justification for ranking Dahlen over Ruth. If you can provide a reasonable justification in that scenario, the ballot will stand. If not, you will be asked to make a change. I realize voters will sometimes have idiosyncratic choices, and I try to allow for that. However, a clear flouting of a consensus is apt to be met with a request that the ballot be justified pursuant to this rule. Certainly, a reasonable justification does not indicate in essence simply that you want Dahlen elected. Furthermore, if I invalidate multiple ballots by the same individual as failing to meet this rule, that individual will forever lose the right to have his/her ballots counted. Voters are encouraged to consider character, sportsmanship, and compliance with the rules and spirit of baseball in their rankings of players.

12) I will post lists of eligible players and contributors before each election. If you have a question about the eligibility of a candidate, please ask. I will provide a list of future eligibility dates as well.

13) My eligibility lists come from all persons in the BBF HOF, BBTF Hall of Merit, and Cooperstown, plus all persons getting a vote in a BBF HOF election in the past year and a half or in a BBWAA election. This is a relatively comprehensive list, and thus I must request that if you want another candidate included, you provide some justification for why said candidate is worthy of getting a vote in this project. The main area I think this might come into play is if a voter supports a person who was eligible for the final selections from the recent pre WWII or Negro League committees but not on my master list. That fact alone would serve as ample justification for putting said candidate on the list. We may learn more about Cuban ball or what have you and thus include others after a case is made for them, however. The contributor list is undoubtedly not as comprehensive, and this fact will be taken into consideration.

14) Other than the sportsmanship and character issues, players are to be evaluated solely upon their play. I would prefer that if a player is qualified by his play standing alone that he be elected on that basis. However, a candidate may only be elected either as a contributor or a player, but not both. Contributors are the area where the entire body of work during his career in the sport, including his play, managing, scouting, executive, writing, broadcasting or other work in the sport is relevant. Contributors are to be ranked based on who the voter thinks is most worthy of induction into the Contributor group in this project.

15) Any ballot with two (2) or more spots unfilled with eligible candidates is invalid. In the event of the listing of ineligible names, I will try to notify the voter so that he/she can correct the ballot before the end of the voting period. If the change is made timely, it will count. If not, and there are two or more invalid names, the ballot will not be considered valid. If there is only one, the ineligible name will be stricken and all names after it on the affected ballot will be moved up one spot.

16) Any players listed beyond the 12th place for any ballot but the first (in which case it is 20th place) will be ignored. If more than one person is listed as tied for the last available place and the ballot is oversize, all names will be dropped, which may lead to the invalidation of the ballot.

17) Ties are not permitted in ballot listings. I reserve the right to invalidate ballots for use of ties in the rankings, be it within a single ballot or over the course of several ballots. If the voter does not correct such a listing voluntarily, except in the case of an oversize ballot tie for the last eligible place, if do not invalidate the ballot, I will choose the placement of the two "tied" candidates, generally preferring the candidate preferred by the other voters.

18) For any ties between candidates straddling the in/out line of selections, the first thing considered is the ranking of the candidates by the ballots cast. If there are more than two candidates tied, use a 2-1-0 or whatever is appropriate for the number of players tied system. If a voter does not list a candidate, he receives zero points in the tiebreaker procedure. Once one person separates from the tied group, restart with the remaining candidates until there are only as many candidates as the rules call for being elected. If they remain tied after this process, the candidate with the most votes received wins. If it is still tied after that, those with the most #1 votes as the next step, then the most #2 votes and so on to see if that breaks the tie. If not, we will induct all candidates who remain tied at that point.

19) One thing we're going to have to be aware of is the timeline in the case of at least a few contributors. Two which jump out at me are Buck O'Neill, 1976, and Branch Rickey, 1946. I intend to eventually vote for both men, but in 1946, Jackie Robinson was still in Montreal. Really, Branch should wait until at least 1947 after Jackie's success in the majors to get credit for that move. If you think Rickey belongs in the top 5 in 1946 without his role in breaking the color line, that's fine--but he shouldn't get credit for that important success until it actually happened. Buck O'Neill did some important things up until 1976, but after that he was in Ken Burns' Baseball and he was instrumental in the establishment of the Negro Leagues Hall of Fame (both occurred in or around 1994). If you think he belongs based on accomplishments before those two things, that's perfectly acceptable, but please don't credit him with them before they actually happened.

20) I will maintain a thread of the project's history and rules which will provide a listing of all elected candidates.

21) Feel free to ask questions by either sending jalbright a PM, or by posting a question in voting thread

The players who become eligible in 1965 are:

There are two contributors joining the list in 1965:

The 1964 player candidates who were not elected had these results in the that election:
The 1964 contributor candidates who were not elected had these results in the that election:

I strongly suggest that you pay attention to this list, as the leaders of the holdovers are likely to join any strong newcomer candidates as the leaders for winning induction.

Members of the Best of Baseball Hall. Last election's inductees are in red.

Players

Contributors

The complete list of eligible players:

The complete list of eligible contributors:

My ballot

Players
1. Stan Musial
2. Harry Stovey
3. John Beckwith
4. Early Wynn
5. Joe McGinnity
6. Victor Starffin
7. Bobby Doerr
8. Pud Galvin
9. Joe Gordon
10. Pete Hill
11. Burleigh Grimes
12. George Gore

Contributors
1. C. I. Taylor
2. Tom Connolly
3. Frank Chance
4. George Weiss
5. Dickey Pearce

Dickey Pearce joins my contributor ballot. On the player side, two newly eligible names join: Stan Musial and Early Wynn. George Gore completes my ballot.

1) Musial
2) Bennett
3) Beckwith
4) Gore
5) Carey
6) Galvin
7) Sutton
8) Gordon
9) Maranville
10) Stovey
11) Lemon
12) Wynn

--Backlog leaders; Frank Grant, Pete Hill, Jack Glasscock, Joe Sewell, Bob Caruthers, Dizzy Dean and Wes Ferrell. These are not in any particular order, but one of them will join my ballot next time we lack enough newcomers to fill it. Interested in any info their supporters may have to get one of them to the top of the class.

Contributors
1) Pearce
2) Chance
3) Bolden
4) Weiss
5) Evans

Monte Irvin was voted into this HOF, and seems a very qualified inductee.
I also included him on my ballot.

Monte had 8 MLB seasons, and one time led the league in a hitting stat, RBI.
None of his career marks are outstanding, due partly to a short time, and due partly to no prime years.
Obviously the voters herein had to adjust his actual MLB stats, and extrapolate, expand, or estimate how he would have performed, and that seems a reasonable approach.

For whatever frame of references one has, or whatever estimation process one uses, it would seem proper the same estimation would be acceptable for a player with much better single season peaks and some truly great career marks, who had also a short MLB career, cut short by a death at the prime age of 31.

Some can see Monte Irvin, based on slightly above average MLB stats, being projected a HOFer because of unusual circumstances,
However, some can not project the all time WHIP leader, the second best career ERA, and several league leading performances, into this HOF.

Perhaps I place too much significance on having the very best ever, and several other very high positions in some pitching career official MLB stats, and am unfair to feel it might be hypocritical, to overlook those, and to project and estimate unrecorded, spotty, anecdotal, non MLB performance into the HOF.

There's some very big differences: Irvin was playing those other years, and prevented from doing so in the majors due solely to his skin color. Personally, I find it offensive to bar somebody on that basis, and giving him his due is what makes an attempt to evaluate what he did in those years he was excluded necessary IMHO.

Joss suffered a terrible fate, but many people fall ill or are injured, especially pitchers. My approach is to not give any extra credit for what could have happened but for injury, because there's way too many guys for whom that argument could be made. Chino Smith or Dobie Moore get no credit in my book for their lives after their careers effectively ended. They either rise or fall on what they did during their playing careers. Dickie Thon could have been a great one had he not been beaned. He might not have been. Ray Chapman either makes it on what he did before his fatal beaning or not at all. So, too, does Joss. As I indicated before, I view Joss as no better than Jack Chesbro among his peers when one considers some other statistical approaches than you do, jaxxr. I'm not voting in Chesbro, and I won't be voting for Joss. If others join you and elect him, I'll disagree, but I'll continue.

Jim, you are certainly entitled to your opinions,
I do respect you views, but have difficulty understanding "what if" estimates appropriateness in only certain cases.

" Personally, I find it offensive to bar somebody on that basis, and giving him his due is what makes an attempt to evaluate what he did in those years he was excluded necessary IMHO."

I do not disagree with those concepts, and do not find it offensive, but perhaps unfortunate, that we can exclude THE all time WHIP leader, the second best ERA ever, who had several actual MLB league leading seasons as well,
and to somehow equate his dying at the age of 31, as very similar to a long injury and /or segregation shortcomings...

I suppose, if we all valued or interpreted events exactly the same, this would be quite a boring exercise.

There's no right or wrong answers in how to deal with injuries/deaths.

The problem I have with injury "what ifs" are: 1) there's way too many of them, and 2) very often, like the beanings, they have to do with the way the player plays (crowding the plate, etc.). It's too much to sort out. When it comes to the color line, I'm trying to make sense of what did happen. The numbers aren't translatable one to one--but Irvin did play, and was a dominant force in the leagues in which he played. This may not satisfy you or some others, but it's how I choose to draw the line. Similarly, I will give my best estimates of what the meaning of what Japanese players did in Japan in MLB terms simply to put those players in context.

Like you say, if we all had the same perspective, there wouldn't be much point to having projects like this. Joss has things to point to, and you and others have every right to point to them and try to persuade others that those things outweigh the issues I have with his candidacy. Truth is, even with the issues I do have about him, Joss is someone who I regard as well worthy of discussion.

01. Stan Musial
02. Harry Stovey
03. Joe Gordon
04. Wally Berger
05. Wes Ferrell
06. John Beckwith
07. Pete Hill
08. Charlie Bennett
09. Bobby Doerr
10. Phil Rizzuto
11. Victor Starffin
12. Joe McGinnity

01. C.I. Taylor
02. Tom Connolly
03. Dickey Pearce
04. Frank Chance
05. George Weiss

Congratulations to Clark Griffith, a good candidate player inevitably recognized first for his entire baseball career.


This year I take the path of least resistance and nod to those who election is imminent. C.I. Taylor, John Beckwith, and Harry Stovey fill the openings at the ends of my ballots.

1 George Weiss
2 Tom Connolly
3 Jake Ruppert
4 Charles Conlon
5 C.I.Taylor


Briefly I was Joe Gordon's best friend and I am Hardy Richardson's best friend of course. Probably they are now fixtures on my ballot. Richardson, Gordon, Bobby Doerr, and Frank Grant are numbers 16-17-18-19 in the Hall of Merit ranking of secondbasemen (with Roberto Alomar unranked). It's remarkable that all four are eligible here together.

1 Stan Musial
2 George Gore
3 Joe Start
4 Jack Glasscock
5 Ezra Sutton
6 Charlie Bennett
7 Max Carey
8 Pete Hill
9 Joe Gordon
10 Hardy Richardson
11 John Beckwith
12 Harry Stovey


A strong balanced team from the 1880s is still on the board and the imminent election of Harry Stovey will not undo it. Take a look.
Frank Grant is occasionally available by loan from the 1890s, too.

Jones, Sutton, and Start are also members of the 1870s team which no longer takes the field.

--Joe Start was at best the 4th best 1B of the 1880s. Being the 4th best at a position from that early era is not a strong case for me. Of course, Start was - by baseball standards - an old man in the 1880s. His real claim is that he was (probably, records are not exactly clear here) the best 1B of the 1860s:gt. It is his extreme longevity that makes him a viable, if less than compelling, candidate IMO.