Leyland Makes Baseball Hall of Fame as Piniella Misses by 1 Vote
Jim Leyland is the newest member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. The beloved manager was elected Sunday almost unanimously by the 16-member Contemporary Era Non-Players Committee.
He’ll be inducted on July 21 in Cooperstown, N.Y., along with any players elected off the ballot currently being pondered by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.
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The shame is that Leyland didn’t have to be the only one. Lou Piniella missed by one vote.
“That was our concern,” said Tony La Russa, the already Hall of Fame manager who was a member of the committee. “But we were convinced that if Jim got in, it would be along with Lou.”
It didn’t happen, and here’s why: There aren’t enough votes on the committee to go around.
There were eight names on the ballot, including four managers—Leyland, Piniella, Cito Gaston and Davey Johnson. And each of the 16 committee members could vote for up to only three of those eight candidates. That’s 48 votes. Do the math.
Leyland had 15 votes, Piniella 11, and former National League president Bill White had 10. That’s 36 of the 48 votes. The other 12 were split among the five remaining candidates, who all received fewer than five votes each.
The Hall isn’t transparent about the vote totals for that latter group. But it’s evident there weren’t enough to get Piniella that single vote he needed to elect him to the Hall, which also doesn’t reveal the specific vote and swears each committee member to secrecy.
“We felt the pressure to get Lou in. The next time this committee votes in three years, he’ll have to contend with Dusty and Tito,” La Russa said, talking about the just retired Dusty Baker and Terry Francona.
There’s a simple solution. Increase the number of candidates a committee member can vote for from three to four. That would seem like an easy and necessary tweak.
“We’re always re-evaluating the process,” Hall president Josh Rawitch told Sportico prior to a media conference introducing Leyland Monday at the Winter Meetings in Nashville, adding the Hall board likes the way it is.
The Hall, though, is constantly altering these veteran committees. In its last iteration, the Era committees had 10 people on the ballot and the 16 members could vote for up to four. Players, managers, executives and umpires were all co-mingled on ballots representing the era during which they worked or played.
In the latest iteration adopted in 2022, there are three committees: One for players whose careers began in 1980 or after; another sequestered for managers, executives and umpires who worked from 1980 forward, and a third commingling the groups for those who worked and played prior to 1980.
The committee voting process can take five to six hours on the Sunday prior to the start of the meetings.
“We decided to have a larger discussion about less people instead of more people because it’s a long conversation about each candidate,” Rawitch said.
It was a good idea in theory, but not in practice.
Last year, Fred McGriff was elected unanimously by the Contemporary Era Players Committee, and no one else even came close to getting in. McGriff ate up 16 of the 48 votes.
That’s been the unintended consequence of downsizing the ballot from 10 to eight and shrinking the voter choices from four to three.
The changes in how the committees operate and in ballot size are clearly designed to make the Hall more exclusive rather than inclusive.
Leyland was only the 24th manager elected and first since 2014 when La Russa, Bobby Cox and Joe Torre were elected under completely different conditions.
“Ultimately it should be more difficult to get in,” Rawitch said. “The goal isn’t to make it easier to get in.”
But of course, that’s analytics over the human element. Piniella has now missed by a single vote the last two times he’s been on the ballot, either expanded or not.
In the interim between votes, Piniella, now 80, has suffered through myriad health problems. There’s no guarantee he’ll be alive the next time his number is called. La Russa said Piniella was devastated.
Dick Allen, who missed by a single vote twice under the old expanded format , passed away at 78 between committee elections, infuriating his supporters, mostly in the Philadelphia area where he enjoyed his most prolific seasons. He should be back on the shrunken ballot next year.
Leyland, 78 himself, was on the ballot for the first time and said Monday the process was excruciating. He was waiting at home for the call from chairperson Jane Forbes Clark. When the magic hour began to pass, he nearly gave up.
“You respect the process, but you never know how it’s going to work out,” Leyland said. “This is not an easy place to get in. It’s not an easy place for a superstar player or a broadcaster to enter. To end up here at the end of a career is very special, but it’s very tough to get here.”
Just ask Piniella.
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