Baseball Hall of Fame Ineligible List

[kurt_messick]

In my new interest, I keep running across this statement. However, I cannot find the actual list, or an explanation of the criteria for making the list.

Can anyone enlighten me? Links? Books?

[taurusmoon]

Players generally got put on the ineligible list for getting themselves involved in some sort of scandal.

Here is a link to the list.

Sara

[kurt_messick]

Thanks! It will make for interesting reading. I didn't know Mickey Mantle was on the list for a time. What's the point of a 'lifetime' ban?

edit: Phooey! It requires a password! Can't see the lists.

[Joubert[$]]

Mickey and Willie were tied up with casino operators as hosts or some such cushy promo position when baseball cracked down on gambling after the Pete Rose scandal.

Lifetime bans? So far, only the Black Sox seem to have suffered. My guess is that Rose is eventually enshrined.

[taurusmoon]

Originally posted by kurt_messick

Phooey! It requires a password! Can't see the lists.

Oops, sorry. I should have tested all the links before I posted. Mea culpa.

Forgive me Father?

Sara

[kurt_messick]

Of course I do -- I've sent an email to the author of the page asking if I can get copies.

[taurusmoon]

I knew I'd find it if I dug deeply enough.

From Total Baseball,the Official Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball, Fifth Edition (a fabulous flea market find :thumbs: all 2,458 pages of it):

Listed below... are players blacklisted or expelled from baseball for gambling, dishonest play (or knowledge of same), criminal activity, or, in one case -- that of Ray Fisher -- violation of a contract.

1877 Louisville players: Bill Craver, Jim Devlin, George Hall, Al Nichols.

1919 Chicago White Sox players: Eddie Cicotte, Oscar Felsch, Chick Gandil, Joe Jackson, Fred McMullin, Swede Risberg, Buck Weaver, Claude Williams.

Others: George Bechtel, Rube Benton (who was later reinstated and returned to the majors), Hal Chase, Cozy Dolan, Phil Douglas, Jean Dubuc (who returned as a coach with Detroit in 1931), Ray Fisher, Foe Gedeion, Claude Hendrix, Richard Hingham (umpire), Benny Kauff, Hubert Leonard, Lee Magee, Jimmy O'Connell, Eugene Paulette, Pete Rose, Heinie Zimmerman.

Former major leaguers banned for their activities in the minor leagues: Babe Borton, Gene Dale, Jess Levan, Harl Maggert, Tom Seaton and Joe Tipton.


Whew.

Sara

[kurt_messick]

Great!

Now that I have names, websearches will be more productive. My interests at the moment seem to swirl around the question 'why isn't X in the Hall of Fame?' Not a bad beginning approach, I suppose. From there I'll learn lots about the history of the game from an interesting perspective.

Thanks!

[CurtisEdmonds]

And yet, O.J. Simpson is still in the Football Hall of Fame. Imagine.

As long as you're putting together a reading list, the book you want is Bill James's The Politics of Glory.

What OJ did to his ex-wife and her lover has nothing to do with his achievements on the field. I don't think he ought to be tossed out of the Hall of Fame. The best way to defeat his legacy is merely to recognize that Walter Payton surpassed him in every meaningful fashion as a player and person.

[kurt_messick]

Thanks, all.

I went to Borders and saw Total Baseball and did some reading -- alas, at $60 for the book, it stayed on the shelf when I left the store.

The author of the website Sara found wrote to me with the password this evening, too, so I have the lists (which come with paragraphs encapsulating why the ban, as well as an interesting list on those banned but later reinstated, and those 'unofficially' banned; i.e., would have been banned, save being already retired and not likely Hall of Famers in any case. Ironically, an official ban (and even an unofficial ban) gives some of these people more 'fame' than they ever otherwise would have had.

[Joubert[$]]

Originally posted by CurtisEdmonds
And yet, O.J. Simpson is still in the Football Hall of Fame. Imagine.

As long as you're putting together a reading list, the book you want is Bill James's The Politics of Glory.

Curtis is right. Everything Bill James has written is worthy of attention from those who want to understand the game better. He uses numbers to look beyond them -- why steals are almost always an inappropriate risk, for example.