Ron Santo
Overhaul the Hall's Veterans Committee
The Chicago Tribune
Published February 28, 2007
TUCSON, Ariz. -- Break up the Veterans Committee. Its every-other-year torture of Ron Santo has grown old.
For the third time in five years, the living Hall of Famers did nothing except validate the judgment of the 10-year members of the Baseball Writers Association of America, which since 1936 has controlled the front door into the Hall. That body long ago left men such as Santo, Gil Hodges and others on the outside looking in.
Sure, Santo gained ground, coming within five votes of election in the results released Tuesday. He had missed by 15 in 2003 when this group of players and honored writers and broadcasters had its first vote and by eight the last time around. Others, including Jim Kaat, also gained ground. But once again no one was elected in the biannual balloting.
"We are disappointed nobody has been elected," Hall Chairman Jane Forbes Clark said.
No kidding. Enough's enough.
It's time to pull the plug on the charade that is Joe Morgan, Bob Feller, Tom Seaver and other elitists strutting on the backs of guys like Santo, Minnie Minoso and Kaat, who never quite cracked their club.
Clark said the Hall's board of directors will review the process at its meeting on March 13. An overhaul is in order, as Morgan and the 83 others voting (including 22 writers and broadcasters) have done nothing other than show that we writers aren't so stupid, after all.
"Writers voted on these guys for 15 years," Morgan said. "Why are we being criticized for not electing anyone the last six years? … I think the writers have done a good job. I've talked to a lot of the [living Hall of Famers] and they said, 'The writers haven't made many mistakes."'
It's cruel to keep putting men like Santo through an emotional wringer every 730 days. But that's not the worst flaw of the Veterans Committee's design.
It's misguided to have this group be the sole means of electing managers and executives, none of whom have gotten close to election on the two quadrennial composite ballots.
Here are my suggested reforms:
Keep the living Hall of Famers in the process, minus the broadcasters and writers, but do away with every-other-year elections involving the usual suspects. Instead, establish a one-time review for the most compelling candidates, held the year after their Hall of Fame class was due to drop off the ballot (that is, the 21st year after they retired).
That would allow the Veterans Committee to act as a safeguard in case the writers develop a severe blind spot involving a deserving candidate. Say a Jim Rice, for instance.
A guy like Santo—in my opinion a deserving candidate—could hold out some hope that his peers would consider him worthier than did us ink-stained wretches, but this vote would be one and done. Either you're in or you're out, forever, and we all move on.
As for Whitey Herzog, Billy Martin, Dick Williams and executives like union founder Marvin Miller and longtime Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley, I suggest every-other-year votes by a new committee.
Give that vote to a group including the writers and broadcasters who have won the Spink and Frick awards, respectively (the group that currently joins players on the Veterans Committee), along with an equal number of baseball researchers and historians. That would get men like Bill James, Steve Hirdt, Roger Kahn, Seymour Siwoff and perhaps even the unequaled Marty Aronoff in the process, which is overdue.
In a rare moment of candor on a conference call, Morgan admitted that his hitting for power and turning double plays doesn't qualify him to pass judgment on executives.
"From just purely a Hall of Famer's point of view, it is a lot more difficult for us to look at an executive like Paul Richards, or somebody like that, and know what they contributed to the game," Morgan said. "It is easier for me to evaluate players. … I can't tell you if Jerry Reinsdorf belongs in the Hall of Fame. I can't tell you if he did more than Bud Selig as an owner, whether he did more than George Steinbrenner. I'm not qualified."
Tuesday's election marked the 18th time Santo has been on a Hall of Fame ballot. It came 33 years after he retired as a .277 hitter with 342 home runs and a reputation for playing a gifted third base.
This is a lot of fuss over a guy who received only 15 of 385 votes in 1980, initially falling off the BBWAA ballot because he did not receive 10 percent of the vote, then the standard.
Don't ask me why he wasn't more highly regarded when he retired. If nothing else, these semi-annual debates about his credentials have elevated the old Cub's profile.
Perhaps Santo will be elected if he gets one more chance on the ballot. But you wouldn't want to bet on it.
progers@tribune.com
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