Tweet
I just looked at the parts of Bill James' subscription site that you can look at without joining, and saw this question (which I've bolded) to Bill followed by his answer:
Bill's right about a lot on this, and the only real omission is the fact the Hall made it clear that it wanted this to be the final word on Negro Leaguers, thus putting pressure on these experts to vote in a large number of candidates. The whole idea that issues as fluid as this should be subject to a "final" vote is a huge fallacy. There's much yet to be learned and digested yet on this topic. Of course, Bill's rant has larger application to the Hall in general, and he's pretty much dead on target IMO in that regard.
Dear Bill, This topic may be a little stale, but do you have any thoughts you'd be willing to share regarding 2006's induction in the Hall of Fame of 17 Negro League players and executives? In your book on the Hall of Fame, you wrote that the 1970s Negro League committee admirably served the institution by exercising restraint and not indulging in a 1946 / Frank Frisch-esque jailbreak. While some of the 2006 inductees certainly seem well-qualified, particularly as measured against some of their major-league contemporaries who have been admitted to the Hall, do you believe that the process and results-particularly, the induction of so many individuals at one time, whereas the earlier committee had been so much more parsimonious-were appropriate?
Asked by: Anonymous
1) The selection of 17 individuals at one time, regardless of how well qualified they might have been, was profligate and careless.
2) The Hall of Fame credentials of several of those elected are not readily apparent to those of us not on the committee.
3) Any group of experts contains biases. Experts are human.
4) I do not question or quarrel with the credentials of those on the committee, or their intentions. They were experts in their field who meant to do good work by rectifying past oversights.
5) This was a stark example of the systemic failure of the Hall of Fame's board to "own" their process. Let's call the Hall of Fame's governing board the "governors" of the Hall of Fame, not that that is what they are called in any official document. The governors of the Hall of Fame are not baseball experts, and they--correctly--do not vote directly on who should go into the Hall. They outsource those decisions to baseball experts. This is wise.
But having handed the keys to the Hall of Fame to the experts, they will stand there and scratch their heads while the experts do. . ..anything. Their repeated comment, in the weeks after this terribly unfortunate set of selections, was "We stand by our process." WHAT? WHAT? Your process didn't work, you nitwits. It's like an amusement park having a roller coaster accident and seventeen people are killed, and the amusement park's only comment is "we stand by our engineering."
When the special committee told the Hall of Fame that they were putting 17 people in the Hall of Fame, the Hall of Fame should have told them "No, you're not." But having handed off the keys to the car, the governors felt that they were committed to the car wreck.
What it is that the Hall of Fame's governors have never been able to grasp can be explained in three words. Process is important. Yes, it is important to have qualified people vote, but, even if you have qualified people voting, there are a million ways in which things can go wrong. Experts are biased. Smart people quarrel. Qualified people vote for the Gold Glove, but they still get fantastically bad results sometimes because the voting process is--like the Hall of Fame's process--thrown together with no plan, no safeguards and no direction. Assuming that if you have qualified people voting you will get a good result is like assuming that if a roller coaster is built out of good sturdy metal it will never collapse. It's like assuming that if you have a sober driver you can never have a car wreck. It's like assuming that if you have good grapes you will wind up with good wine.
And it's frustrating, and maddening, because I could--and many of you could--outline for them a voting process that would work much, much better than what they have done, if they would just listen. It's really just a matter of thinking through the process, taking the time and trouble to construct a process with safeguards and direction. But they won't listen, so we get results like this.
Asked by: Anonymous
1) The selection of 17 individuals at one time, regardless of how well qualified they might have been, was profligate and careless.
2) The Hall of Fame credentials of several of those elected are not readily apparent to those of us not on the committee.
3) Any group of experts contains biases. Experts are human.
4) I do not question or quarrel with the credentials of those on the committee, or their intentions. They were experts in their field who meant to do good work by rectifying past oversights.
5) This was a stark example of the systemic failure of the Hall of Fame's board to "own" their process. Let's call the Hall of Fame's governing board the "governors" of the Hall of Fame, not that that is what they are called in any official document. The governors of the Hall of Fame are not baseball experts, and they--correctly--do not vote directly on who should go into the Hall. They outsource those decisions to baseball experts. This is wise.
But having handed the keys to the Hall of Fame to the experts, they will stand there and scratch their heads while the experts do. . ..anything. Their repeated comment, in the weeks after this terribly unfortunate set of selections, was "We stand by our process." WHAT? WHAT? Your process didn't work, you nitwits. It's like an amusement park having a roller coaster accident and seventeen people are killed, and the amusement park's only comment is "we stand by our engineering."
When the special committee told the Hall of Fame that they were putting 17 people in the Hall of Fame, the Hall of Fame should have told them "No, you're not." But having handed off the keys to the car, the governors felt that they were committed to the car wreck.
What it is that the Hall of Fame's governors have never been able to grasp can be explained in three words. Process is important. Yes, it is important to have qualified people vote, but, even if you have qualified people voting, there are a million ways in which things can go wrong. Experts are biased. Smart people quarrel. Qualified people vote for the Gold Glove, but they still get fantastically bad results sometimes because the voting process is--like the Hall of Fame's process--thrown together with no plan, no safeguards and no direction. Assuming that if you have qualified people voting you will get a good result is like assuming that if a roller coaster is built out of good sturdy metal it will never collapse. It's like assuming that if you have a sober driver you can never have a car wreck. It's like assuming that if you have good grapes you will wind up with good wine.
And it's frustrating, and maddening, because I could--and many of you could--outline for them a voting process that would work much, much better than what they have done, if they would just listen. It's really just a matter of thinking through the process, taking the time and trouble to construct a process with safeguards and direction. But they won't listen, so we get results like this.
Comment