The Obstacles Lou Whitaker, Bobby Grich, and Dwight Evans Face to be Selected by the Hall of Fame’s Historical Overview Committee to Appear on Future Modern Baseball Era Ballots

Source: http://ift.tt/1e4Pz8K --- Thursday, February 01, 2018
The passing over of Whitaker, Grich, and Evans by the Historical Overview Committee is almost certainly due to the lack of support picked up by these candidate in their brief time on the BBWAA ballot, as evidenced by the screening panel’s repeated selections of candidates who lasted the maximum number of years on the writer’s vote.  Indeed, for the recent Modern Baseball Era ballot, the Historical Overview Committee not only chose all four newly eligible candidates whose Hall of Fame cases went the distance on the BBWAA ballot (Mattingly, Morris, Murphy, and Trammell) but also selected Parker for a second straight ballot and Garvey, John, and Tiant for a third consecutive time despite none of those four holdover candidates coming anywhere close to election on their previous appearances. The absences of Grich and Evans from the Modern Baseball Era ballot each drew criticism of the Historical Overview Committee, but the exclusion of Whitaker was met with the most disapproval, as Sports Illustrated’s Jay Jaffe and Lynn Henning of The Detroit News were among those who took the screening panel to task for not including “Sweet Lou” on the ballot.  Jaffe said Whitaker’s omission from the ballot “seems like a cruel joke” while Henning remarked that the former Tigers second baseman’s exclusion “makes no sense.” ...

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