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

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

By Adam DarowskiSportsBaseball
Download on the App Store

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

  • Episode 28: Classic Baseball Era Hall of Fame Ballot: Voting Project Results with Dave Metter

    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

    1 hr 27 min
  • Episode 26: Outside the Box Hall of Fame Candidates with Mark Shirk and Justin McKinney

    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:

    • Charlie Keller
    • Charlie Smith
    • Mike Scioscia
    • Ross Barnes
    • Bobby Avila
    • Buster Clarkson
    • Marvin Williams
    • Buzz Arlett

      • Justin’s List:

      • Jim Creighton
      • Cal McVey
      • Dave Orr
      • Fred Dunlap
      • Fleet Walker
      • Benny Kauff
      • Sadaharu Oh
      • Omar Linares

        • Adam's List

        • Heavy Johnson
        • Dobie Moore
        • Larry Jackson
        • Silvio García
        • Perucho Cepeda
        • Joe Start
        • Wes Ferrell
        • Julio Franco
          • 1 hr 48 min
        • Episode 23: Contemporary Era Non-Players and Rule B Candidates with Cooperstown Dave

          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.

          1 hr 22 min
        • Episode 22: This Episode Was Underrated™ with Not Gaetti

          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

          1 hr 14 min
        • Episode 20: Reacting to the 2023 Contemporary Baseball Era Players Ballot with Graham Womack

          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/

          1 hr 6 min
        • Episode 19: Contemporary Classics — the Revamped Era Committees with Graham Womack

          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/

          1 hr 6 min

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

        From the publisher's feed

        Hosted by Adam Darowski of Baseball Reference, Building the Ballot covers takes a deep dive into candidates for the Baseball Hall of Fame’s Era Committees. The Era Committee process replaced the old…