Changes to Hall of Fame selection are good for the game

Dwight Evans ranks in the top one hundred in Major League Baseball history in home runs (39th), doubles (49th), RBI (53rd), walks (23rd), runs (61st), and hits (87th). He won eight gold gloves patrolling the tricky right field of Fenway Park, and is perhaps the best fielding, right fielder, the Red Sox have ever seen. He was superb in the post season, saving his best performances for the World Series, where in 1975 and 1986 combined he batted .300, with three home runs, 14 RBI, and seven runs scored. Through Sunday's induction ceremonies, Evans had no shot of ever seeing his face on a plaque at Cooperstown.

Sweeping changes for Hall of Fame eligibility were enacted Monday, however, that reinstated Evans' eligibility, alongside about seventeen hundred other former players. Evans, who never garnered one hundred votes from the writers and dropped off the voting list prior to the fifteen requisite years to take him to the Veterans Committee, will have new life breathed into his case in a couple of years. Evans was a complete player who deserves a second chance at admission, in spite of the writers' oversights.

For years, the writers have provided controversy during the voting process by not supporting players they felt gave poor interviews or were even media antagonists. This can only explain the yearly disappointment to which Jim Rice has been subjected. One writer went on record when Fred McGriff turned down the trade to the Cubs that, in spite of what could be a Hall of Fame career, there was no way he would vote for him. Voting should be based on the accomplishments of the player, not how nice a guy was to a reporter.

Whether simply ignored, or the subject of a vendetta, the overlooked players will now have their careers reviewed by every living member of all wings of the Baseball Hall of Fame. The mysterious and controversial Veterans Committee will be disbanded in order to open up the selection process. Not only is this a reasonable second chance; it also takes absolute power away from the baseball writers. Yet the idea that the old players will get to choose the inductees sits tenuously as a polar opposite to the writers' selection process. Will cronyism take over the Hall of Fame?

The Veterans Committee has long been honoring friends of the family without necessarily needing to justify it's choices. A select pack of fifteen would be more susceptible to putting in old buddies, than a group of living legends consisting of Jack Buck, Dave Winfield, and Stan Musial. The commonality of experience, age, and nostalgia will essentially be removed from the decision-making, providing a more diverse pool of opinion and support. Also, like the writers' vote, seventy-five percent of the votes must be cast in order for a candidate to make the Hall. If anything, the rules change should make the Hall a more difficult proposition for those who move into this process. A Terry Puhl speech will remain highly unlikely.

So who will benefit the most with the new process?

Players from the seventies and eighties who were stuck in logjams on the ballot and who might have disappeared from the action prematurely. Before there was Lee Smith racking up 478 saves, there was Jeff Reardon setting the all-time saves record. Guys like Dwight Evans, or slugging third basemen Graig Nettles and Darrell Evans, whose position punished their averages. Sixteen-time gold glove pitcher Jim Kaat (283 wins), who will be hitting his fifteenth year of eligibility on the writers' ballots and most likely will not be granted admittance to the Hall. All of their worthiness is debatable, but they will forever be allowed to have their arguments presented.

The biggest testament to the process needing a change is the induction of Bill Mazeroski, perhaps the greatest fielding second baseman ever. He waited twenty-five years for his name to be called. So what made him have to wait to get in to the Hall of Fame for so long? And what made him one now?

He stated that he believed that defense belongs in the Hall of Fame, and I agree wholeheartedly. Men who played their positions to perfection deserve serious consideration and honors. If Brooks Robinson was in so quickly, Maz should have been in there longer. If Ozzie Smith gets in next year, then Don Mattingly (the third best fielding percentage ever among first basemen with solid stats to boot), and Keith Hernandez, deserve to be studied seriously. Now, players and reporters who watched them play, or played against them, will have a chance to tidy up what the writers missed.

The reforms enacted by the Hall of Fame will most likely make it more difficult to be enshrined. The open-ended opportunity, though, will allow past mistakes to be rectified. And this can only be good for the national pastime.