Quote:
Originally Posted by whosnext
I think the Rast vs Arieh debate is misplaced. They both are worthy, especially in light of who has been voted in previously.
I certainly agree with the second sentence, but the "debate" came about because of the very first reply to this thread – that Arieh should have gone in
before Rast. So it naturally creates a who-goes-in-first discussion, even if everyone agrees they're both deserving.
One interesting thing I've found having served ex officio on a college athletics Hall of Fame committee for almost two decades: the notion of who goes in first is not always based on pure merit. We always had a rotating selection board, with voters coming on and off. Regardless of this turnover, there was always at least one person who took a first-come, first-served mentality – i.e. an older candidate should go in before a newer but better candidate, assuming the older candidate was still worthy. This is the kind of person who might have voted for Bob McAdoo over Larry Bird in 1998.
I've long believed this took place in baseball, which is why it wasn't until 2019 for Cooperstown to have a unanimous inductee (Mariano Rivera). Over the course of my lifetime, my fellow seamheads always chuckled over the voting results when a shoo-in got "only" 97 percent or something. And sure, I get it in years when the field on nominees is particularly stacked. But there have been years with relatively weak candidate pools, which is why I've spent more time than I should admit looking at the
1979 BBWAA voting, trying to figure out which 10 players on the list were ahead of Willie Mays on 23 of the 432 ballots.
And I figure it must be 23 of the people I described earlier. Philosophically, they just believe no man should enter in his first year of eligibility, casting their vote for (say) Red Schoendienst instead.
