Building the Ballot: The Baseball Hall of Fame’s Era Committees

The calendar has changed to September. The air is cooler. The leaves are changing colors. The kids are back at school. That means it's Hall of Fame season!

This winter, the Classic Baseball Era Committee will meet to discuss candidates who made their mark on the game prior to 1980. I've been anxiously awaiting this ballot because it seems like an impossible task to distill about 140 years of baseball (players, managers, executives, umpires, and pioneers from the AL/NL, other pre-integration major leagues, the Negro Leagues, and pre-1920 Black Baseball) to an eight-person ballot.

To help wade through the candidates, I shared a ballot of 250 candidates and 312 baseball fans voted. In this episode, I discuss the results of the voting project with Dave Metter.

Follow Dave at @CooperstownDave

View the Report

Today, Adrián Beltré, Todd Helton, and Joe Mauer were elected to the Hall of Fame via the BBWAA Ballot. Dave Metter (@CooperstownDave) joins me to discuss the election results and answer listener questions.

Today we go outside the box. Mark Shirk (@bballhist on Twitter) and Justin McKinney (@Just_Mckinney on Twitter) join me to discuss players who we believe were at or close to a Hall of Fame level, but are not on the Hall of Fame radar (for a variety of reasons. Players discussed:

Mark’s List:

Justin’s List:

Adam's List

Tonight, Jim Leyland was announced as the lone inductee to the Hall of Fame from the Contemporary Era Committee’s Non-Player Ballot. Adam and Dave discuss the results of the election and look forward to future elections.

The Hall of Fame released the Contemporary Baseball Era’s Non-Players ballot, so I got on the line with Graham Womack and Dave Metter to discuss the candidates.

Today we welcome David Metter, aka Cooperstown Dave, to the show. David is a Baseball Hall of Fame enthusiast and previously ran the Vlad4HOF Twitter account. He has since pivoted the account (due to Vlad’s successful induction) to a general Hall of Fame account. He has recently been tweeting about non-player candidates and “Rule B” candidates (“Those whose careers entailed involvement in multiple categories”). Non-players are not my expertise, and since the upcoming ballot is all about non-players it seemed like a great reason to get Dave on the show.

We discuss the current Hall of Fame landscape for managers, umpires, executives, and pioneers as well as the top candidates for this upcoming ballot.

Follow Dave on Twitter at @CooperstownDave.

Today I’m stepping outside of the Hall of Fame echo chamber to chat with an “old school” baseball guy (or maybe he just plays one on Twitter?). Even if we don’t always see eye-to-eye on things like WAR, I always appreciate remembering some underrated players with Not Gaetti (sorry, that’s the only name I’m at liberty to use). We discuss the Contemporary Baseball Era ballot, the BBWAA ballot, hitters (him) and pitchers (me), and a lot more.

Not Gaetti on Twitter: https://twitter.com/notgaetti

Today Fred McGriff was selected for Hall of Fame induction by the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee. Graham and I discuss the results, what they mean for future elections, and more.

Graham Womack on Twitter: https://twitter.com/grahamdude

Graham's Website: https://www.sactocontentwriter.com/

Baseball Past and Present: https://baseballpastandpresent.com/

Today the Hall of Fame announced the 2023 Contemporary Baseball Era Players Ballot. It is loaded with complicated candidates (Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Curt Schilling, Rafael Palmeiro) and “clean” ones (Dale Murphy, Fred McGriff, Don Mattingly). Oh, and Albert Belle. We don’t know how to classify him. To break it all down we are joined by Graham Womack.

Graham Womack on Twitter: https://twitter.com/grahamdude

Graham's Website: https://www.sactocontentwriter.com/

Baseball Past and Present: https://baseballpastandpresent.com/

The Hall of Fame threw us a curveball and announced some new changes to the Era Committee process, effective immediately. We’re joined again by Graham Womack to discuss the new Contemporary Baseball Era and Classic Baseball Era committees.

Graham Womack on Twitter: https://twitter.com/grahamdude

Graham's Website: https://www.sactocontentwriter.com/

Baseball Past and Present: https://baseballpastandpresent.com/