Posted By:
warshawlawThere were a number of problems with the new setup that manifested in the vote:
(1) Time. Whatever the biases of the old committee may have been, those who served on it wanted to be there and put in the time and effort to do their work. How else to explain Joss, McPhee, Davis and some of the others that got in in the last 10-15 years? I am not overly impressed with the "candlepower" of most of the current voters nor do I feel that many of them take it as seriously as the old committee members did. I mean, on the old committee we had people making efforts to vote from hospital beds and now we have some who don't even bother to return ballots???
(2) Appreciation for the history of the game. Dovetails with item #1. The issues of late 20th century bias have been addressed adequately in various news columns, but I don't think anyone really appreciated the fact that if as few as 10 HOFers were ignorant of the game's history, unwilling to do research, and/or were unconcerned with their roles, it would very likely result in no one getting in absent a nearly unanimous vote from the others.
(3) Confusing ballotting. When the names were announced, I knew Torre would get screwed. He was a good, solid ballplayer who had one world-killer season, but as a manager has racked up a record better than many already in the hall and thus is deserving of enshrinement. When they listed him as a ballplayer and then qualified it by telling the voters to take into consideration candidates' overall contributions to the game, however, I knew he'd not be elected.