Womack: Could Minnie Minoso spur a Hall of Fame rules change?
From SABR member Graham Womack at The Sporting News on September 29, 2015, with mention of SABR members Adrian Burgos Jr., Keith Olbermann, Chris Kamka, Christina Kahrl, and Bob Kendrick:
When Minnie Miñoso died March 1, 2015, at 89, three months after the Hall of Fame passed on him yet again, it summed up what Cooperstown sometimes does worst.
The Chicago White Sox outfielder appeared 15 times on the Baseball Writers Association of America’s ballot for Cooperstown, his candidacy repeatedly delayed by brief promotional stints playing with the team in 1976 and 1980. The BBWAA has a five-year waiting period for players that it’s waived a few times and could have reasonably bypassed with Miñoso. But save for appearing on the 1969 ballot, five years after he first retired, Miñoso wasn’t considered by the BBWAA until 1986.
Miñoso came before a Special Negro League Election Committee in 2006 that enshrined 17 people. Committee member and Sporting News contributor Adrian Burgos wrote March 1 about how the Hall of Fame forbade the committee from considering anything candidates did in the majors. For Miñoso, who spent three seasons with the New York Cuban Giants before embarking on his MLB career, this may have doomed his bid.
“The election process was stacked against Miñoso in a way that it was for no one else on that ballot,” Burgos wrote.
The latest blow to Miñoso’s candidacy has come with the Hall of Fame’s recent practice of splitting the Veterans Committee into three groups, letting one group vote each year. Whenever the Hall of Fame has restricted annual voting, it’s slowed inductions. Barring a rule change, it could be years before Miñoso gets in, another two years minimum before the Golden Era Committee even considers him again.
Read the full article here: http://www.sportingnews.com/mlb/story/2015-09-29/minnie-minoso-hall-of-fame-cooperstown-golden-era-committee-chicago-white-sox
Originally published: September 30, 2015. Last Updated: September 30, 2015.