Hall of Famer Age trvia

[Honus Wagner Rules]

I saw this today on the Internet.

HOF-Ages-Full.png

[jjpm74]

That s pretty neat. Thanks for sharing!

[Tyrus4189Cobb]

I thought for sure Addie Joss was the youngest to die. After looking it up, he too stopped playing at 30, but died a little later.

Youngs died at 30 yrs, 2 months, and 13 days (11,030 days) while Joss passed away at 31 yrs and 3 days (11,324 days). Tragic. I hope that record is never broken.

[KCGHOST]

Pretty Cool Chart.

[Gee Walker]

Sandy Koufax was born on December 30, 1935, and he was elected to the Hall of Fame on January 19, 1972, aged 36 years and 20 days. I had always thought that Koufax was the youngest player ever elected to the Hall...

Otherwise I did like the chart a lot.

[Cougar]

Since this chart was posted, Bobby Doerr outlived Al Lopez, dying just a few months shy of 100.

[SteveJRogers]

The chart refers to the ages at induction. There is a 7-8 month gap between election and induction, is there not?

There were no formal inductions for 1942 (Rogers Hornsby and posthumously by that point Lou Gehrig) and 1945 (a bunch of Old-Timers Committee inductees) for WWII travel restriction reasons.

Thats why, and the fact that the Spink Award Winner was the only living newly minted inductee/award winner and the inductees had all passed prior to 1940 (Frick Award winner was the more recently deceased Tom Cheek), they had those “we’re finally formally inducting these guys (including Hornsby and Gehrig)” cermonies earlier this decade.

In any event, to answer the question, generally its accepted that once elected (like Gehrig in that special one), you are already inducted. The ceremony is a mere formality for pomp and circumstances.