Tweet
Last fall a committee of 12 including 7 executives (some retired), 3 writers, and 2 HOF players elected Bowie Kuhn, Water O'Malley, and Barney Dreyfuss from a ballot of ten executives. They wil be inducted this summer.
What may we expect for executives in the future?
No candidate is clearly a good bet in the next election, scheduled for December 2009. Ewing Kauffman will be the leading incumbent but he scored only 5 votes. On the other hand, an overwhelming number of votes on the scale of this election will be freed from Dreyfuss, Kuhn, and O'Malley. The recent results also bode well for owners in general. The four owners and one commissioner on the ballot reaped 38 of 48 possible votes (at least two voters plunked for four of them) and they finished uniformly ahead of the four general managers and one labor leader, who scored only 6-10 votes total.
Each of the 12 committee members was permitted to vote for four of ten candidates on the ballot. At least eight of them voted for four; only four of 48 possible votes were either cast for the three also-rans or not cast at all. We know that because seven candidates scored 44 votes total; we don't know more because support for the also-rans was reported only as "less than three".
Quoting from wikipedia "Baseball Hall of Fame balloting, 2008":
Leading incumbent Kauffman missed seven votes. But that was at most four true rejections by people who voted for only three candidates, at least three "no votes" from people who voted for four others. By the same reasoning at least four "no votes" for Fetzer and at least five for Howsam and Miller were the ambiguous type cast by people who voted for four others. In fact it is unlikely that the committee clearly rejected anyone. Probably there were more than nine full ballots and the entire cycle may be interpreted as a committee decision whom to induct first. Compare the BBWAA elections until 1956.
The election of Dreyfuss, Kuhn, and O'Malley frees at least 17 votes, more than one third of the entire voting power, from the ballots of people who voted for four. Almost certainly that includes some latent support for Kauffman, Fetzer, Howsam or Miller and it may include enough latent support to elect them all without any change in committee membership or change of mind! They need at least 21 votes total and there were 29 votes for the big three.
This committee of twelve determined its own ballot. Whoever has that privilege next time should feel obliged to return even the also-rans to the next ballot, making seven incumbents, in order to gauge their support fairly.
It should be no big surprise that the owners dominated the general managers. Wikipedia notes that six committee members are executives who never played in the majors, including five club chairmen or CEOs and only one general manager, Andy MacPhail.
(Several of them served in more than one executive role but Wikipedia may be right about the most important role of each. The seventh baseball executive on the committee is former player and league president Bobby Brown.)
--
The contributors ballots for 2003 and 2007 were identical lists of 15 candidates. Doug Pappas classified them as four field managers (including Paul Richards, an important GM too), one umpire, four mainly owners, three mainly GMs, two baseball officials, and one labor official. Under the revised system, four or five of those presumable "leading contributors" are in the managers/umpires category and ten or eleven are in the executives category, with uncertainty about the place for Richards.
The election results for 2003 and 2007 were almost identical for 12 candidates. Only three gained or lost more than four votes from 80+ Hall of Fame members and honorees: Marvin Miller, up from 35 to 51 votes; Bowie Kuhn, down from 20 to 13; and Billy Martin, down from 22 to 12. Counting the roughly 25% showings by Kuhn and Martin in 2003 only, nine of the 15 made a good showing. Eight of those nine made it to one ballot or the other under the new system; only Bill White did not.
The new system works against Bill White and anyone else with a career more diverse than two or three different classes of baseball executive. White was a very good player for more than a decade and league president for a decade (and also a ballgame broadcaster). Presumably the first half of his resume was crucial in gaining 30% support from the Hall of Fame members and honorees but it carries little or no weight toward election as a baseball executive by a group half composed of career executives who never played. They serve as their own nominating committee too.
In its nominating role, the executives committee selected five incumbents from the 2007 ballot and four others from the pool of 35 contributors nominated for 2003 or 2007 who evidently belong in the executives category now. In selecting Dreyfuss from the distant past, and in electing him, they made one good choice. The other selections were predictable, including John McHale, the one not previously nominated.
The Historical Overview Committee previously nominated ten including Dreyfuss (of 35 contributor nominees evidently in the executives category) whose selection would be surprising because they were active almost entirely before the committee members who now do both the nominating and the voting. Two were two active mainly in the 19th century, before Dreyfuss, and seven became mlb owners and executives in the 1900s to 1920s when he owned the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Al Reach
Chris Von der Ahe
Barney Dreyfuss, elected for 2008 induction
Ben Shibe
Charles Somers
Garry Herrmann
John Heydler
Jacob Ruppert
Sam Breadon
John A.R. "Bob" Quinn
I would like to see them nominate Al Reach and one or two others from this list.
Will they even consider "historical" figures from before their own time? I don't know. What coincidences brought about the nomination and election of Dreyfuss? Was there important input from the Pittsburgh club, from the BBWAA, from the NBHOFM, from baseball (Jerome Holtzman?), from outside historians? I need some knowledge of how this happened in order to judge whether it may be repeated.
--
Other executives nominated as contributors for 2003 or 2007:
(17 with careers mainly or wholly after WWII who were not on the recent ballot)
Owners - Gene Autry, Charles Bronfman, August Busch, George Bush, Charley Finley, John Galbreath, Calvin Griffith, Joan Payson, Phil Wrigley
GMs - Harry Dalton, Bing Devine, Frank Lane, Paul Owens, Bill Rigney, Cedric Tallis
Officials - Chub Feeney, Bill White
Busch, Finley, Wrigley, Dalton, and White were on the 15-man contributors ballot in 2003 and 2007. Both times the first four scored about 10-15% and White almost 30%.
What may we expect for executives in the future?
No candidate is clearly a good bet in the next election, scheduled for December 2009. Ewing Kauffman will be the leading incumbent but he scored only 5 votes. On the other hand, an overwhelming number of votes on the scale of this election will be freed from Dreyfuss, Kuhn, and O'Malley. The recent results also bode well for owners in general. The four owners and one commissioner on the ballot reaped 38 of 48 possible votes (at least two voters plunked for four of them) and they finished uniformly ahead of the four general managers and one labor leader, who scored only 6-10 votes total.
Each of the 12 committee members was permitted to vote for four of ten candidates on the ballot. At least eight of them voted for four; only four of 48 possible votes were either cast for the three also-rans or not cast at all. We know that because seven candidates scored 44 votes total; we don't know more because support for the also-rans was reported only as "less than three".
Quoting from wikipedia "Baseball Hall of Fame balloting, 2008":
Code:
* [B]Barney Dreyfuss, team owner[/B] - 10
* [B]Bowie Kuhn, commissioner[/B] - 10
* [B]Walter O'Malley, team owner[/B] - 9
* Ewing Kauffman, team owner - 5
* John Fetzer, team owner - 4
* Bob Howsam, general manager - 3
* Marvin Miller, labor official - 3
* Buzzie Bavasi, general manager - <3
* John McHale, general manager - <3
* Gabe Paul, general manager - <3
The election of Dreyfuss, Kuhn, and O'Malley frees at least 17 votes, more than one third of the entire voting power, from the ballots of people who voted for four. Almost certainly that includes some latent support for Kauffman, Fetzer, Howsam or Miller and it may include enough latent support to elect them all without any change in committee membership or change of mind! They need at least 21 votes total and there were 29 votes for the big three.
This committee of twelve determined its own ballot. Whoever has that privilege next time should feel obliged to return even the also-rans to the next ballot, making seven incumbents, in order to gauge their support fairly.
It should be no big surprise that the owners dominated the general managers. Wikipedia notes that six committee members are executives who never played in the majors, including five club chairmen or CEOs and only one general manager, Andy MacPhail.
(Several of them served in more than one executive role but Wikipedia may be right about the most important role of each. The seventh baseball executive on the committee is former player and league president Bobby Brown.)
--
The contributors ballots for 2003 and 2007 were identical lists of 15 candidates. Doug Pappas classified them as four field managers (including Paul Richards, an important GM too), one umpire, four mainly owners, three mainly GMs, two baseball officials, and one labor official. Under the revised system, four or five of those presumable "leading contributors" are in the managers/umpires category and ten or eleven are in the executives category, with uncertainty about the place for Richards.
The election results for 2003 and 2007 were almost identical for 12 candidates. Only three gained or lost more than four votes from 80+ Hall of Fame members and honorees: Marvin Miller, up from 35 to 51 votes; Bowie Kuhn, down from 20 to 13; and Billy Martin, down from 22 to 12. Counting the roughly 25% showings by Kuhn and Martin in 2003 only, nine of the 15 made a good showing. Eight of those nine made it to one ballot or the other under the new system; only Bill White did not.
The new system works against Bill White and anyone else with a career more diverse than two or three different classes of baseball executive. White was a very good player for more than a decade and league president for a decade (and also a ballgame broadcaster). Presumably the first half of his resume was crucial in gaining 30% support from the Hall of Fame members and honorees but it carries little or no weight toward election as a baseball executive by a group half composed of career executives who never played. They serve as their own nominating committee too.
In its nominating role, the executives committee selected five incumbents from the 2007 ballot and four others from the pool of 35 contributors nominated for 2003 or 2007 who evidently belong in the executives category now. In selecting Dreyfuss from the distant past, and in electing him, they made one good choice. The other selections were predictable, including John McHale, the one not previously nominated.
The Historical Overview Committee previously nominated ten including Dreyfuss (of 35 contributor nominees evidently in the executives category) whose selection would be surprising because they were active almost entirely before the committee members who now do both the nominating and the voting. Two were two active mainly in the 19th century, before Dreyfuss, and seven became mlb owners and executives in the 1900s to 1920s when he owned the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Al Reach
Chris Von der Ahe
Barney Dreyfuss, elected for 2008 induction
Ben Shibe
Charles Somers
Garry Herrmann
John Heydler
Jacob Ruppert
Sam Breadon
John A.R. "Bob" Quinn
I would like to see them nominate Al Reach and one or two others from this list.
Will they even consider "historical" figures from before their own time? I don't know. What coincidences brought about the nomination and election of Dreyfuss? Was there important input from the Pittsburgh club, from the BBWAA, from the NBHOFM, from baseball (Jerome Holtzman?), from outside historians? I need some knowledge of how this happened in order to judge whether it may be repeated.
--
Other executives nominated as contributors for 2003 or 2007:
(17 with careers mainly or wholly after WWII who were not on the recent ballot)
Owners - Gene Autry, Charles Bronfman, August Busch, George Bush, Charley Finley, John Galbreath, Calvin Griffith, Joan Payson, Phil Wrigley
GMs - Harry Dalton, Bing Devine, Frank Lane, Paul Owens, Bill Rigney, Cedric Tallis
Officials - Chub Feeney, Bill White
Busch, Finley, Wrigley, Dalton, and White were on the 15-man contributors ballot in 2003 and 2007. Both times the first four scored about 10-15% and White almost 30%.
Comment