I'm old enough to remember when Addie Joss was elected to the Hall of Fame. My fuzzy recollection is that the Hall of Fame passed a rule to facilitate his election that allows players who died or became seriously injured before their 10th year of service to be elected. Joss died after 9 years and was quickly elected under this rule.
I've been trying to find this rule to confirm my suspicion that 19th Century star Dave Orr is eligible. Orr played 9 years then suffered a career ending stroke. I've searched the Hall of Fame's website and can't find the Addie Joss rule anywhere. Here are the basic rules for election:
https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-fam...es/bbwaa-rules. And here is the Hall of Fame's list of historical changes made to the election rules:
https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-fam...-rules-history. There's no mention of the Addie Joss rule on either page. I also found no mention of the Addie Joss rule in the Eras Committees rules for election:
https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-fam...era-committees.
Does anyone know where I can find this rule? If it doesn't exist, and isn't even found in the Hall of Fame's list of historical rules changes, how did Joss get elected? Thanks.