The Veteran’s Committee announced its results for election for the 2006 class today. Their vote makes the 2006 entering class the largest in history: 18. The names are not familiar to most people but the breakdown goes like this:
7 former Negro League Players;
5 Pre-Negro League Players;
4 Negro League Executives;
1 Pre-Negro League Executives; and
1 BBWA inductee (Bruce Sutter).

The two highlights of the Veteran’s Committee inductees are: Effa Manley, the first woman inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. She co-owned the Newark club and ran the business end of the operation. The other, Sol White, is the Pre-Negro League executive/player, who played on barnstorming teams and wrote the first definitive history of the Negro Leagues.

It is always difficult to evaluate the Veteran’s Committee selections. Although from what I know of the process, it has taken years of research to bring the above candidates to a vote by the Committee. I think there is a view out there (a mistaken one) that this Committee is a room of 20 former players and someone shouts out a name – and they quickly taken an up or down vote. Not so. There is exhaustive research that is done on these historical figures and evaluating them for election is subjective, yes, but also difficult in terms of judging their contributions in a context where many of these individuals were excluded from the mainstream professional league.

So, while I am in the dark (as are most outside observers) about these inductees, I am confident that enough research has been done on them which would justify their election. And, I look forward to reading about them on my next visit to Cooperstown.