Womack: Black MLB players get little Hall of Fame help from Veterans Committee
From SABR member Graham Womack at The Sporting News on January 3, 2017:
When Harold Baines and Albert Belle appeared on the Today’s Game Committee ballot in November for the Baseball Hall of Fame, they’d have been forgiven for not getting their hopes up.
Mark Carfagno, who’s dedicated to getting Dick Allen in the Hall of Fame, pointed out an interesting fact in a recent mass email: The Veterans Committee, as it’s casually known, has never enshrined an African-American who played his entire career in the major leagues.
The committee has enshrined Larry Doby, who played in the Negro Leagues before becoming the first black player in the American League. It also enshrined eight Negro League greats after the Hall’s original Negro League Committee disbanded in 1977. With Negro Leaguers made eligible again in July, the Veterans Committee could induct more greats such as Buck O’Neil, Double Duty Radcliffe and John Donaldson.
But the committee’s done little for a number of black players who made their mark in baseball in the 1950s and beyond, from Allen to Maury Wills to Curt Flood.
It raises the question: Does the Veterans Committee have a race problem?
Read the full article here: http://www.sportingnews.com/mlb/news/hall-of-fame-voting-veterans-committee-results-black-players-maury-wills-curt-flood-dick-allen/lt0tuh9ztf601qvdm6r55no11
Originally published: January 3, 2017. Last Updated: January 3, 2017.