Baseball Hall Of Fame

The National Baseball Hall of Fame was organized in 1936 to preserve the baseball's history and the players to who made legendary accomplishments playing the game. The inaugural class of the baseball hall of fame is widely regarded as the best class ever. The five players in the first class were Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson, and Walter Johnson.

There are 278 people enshrined in the baseball hall of fame. There are 225 players, 17 managers, 8 umpires, and 28 builders, executives, and organizers. Also, 30 people have been awarded the Ford C. Frick Award for excellence in broadcasting, while 57 have received the J.G. Taylor Spink Award for excellence in baseball writing. Players are inducted into the baseball hall of fame by the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA), or the Veterans Committee. Players must be 5 years retired and to have played at least 10 years of professional baseball to be considered by the BBWAA. Every player that meets the BBWAA standards must pass through a screening test which disqualifies players of lesser qualification and after the screening test, the remaining players (usually about 50) are put onto a ballot. The writers of BBWAA then select 10 players from the ballot and players named on at least 75% of the ballot are inducted into the baseball hall of fame.

The Veterans Committee is composed of living members of the baseball hall of fame and recipients of the Frick and Spink awards. The Veterans Committee has the power to elect people into the baseball hall of fame that the BBWAA did not originally elect. The committee is controversial for two main reasons. First, it is rumored that members of the committee look over players deemed worthy in favor of their former teammates that are less qualified. Between 1967-1976, the Veterans Committee was led by Frankie Frisch and Bill Terry, in their tenure, the committee elected 8 players into the baseball hall of fame that had been teammates with either Frisch or Terry. The second topic of controversy in the Veterans Committee is that the current board has been almost too stingy and it is rumored that they do not want to elect anyone into the baseball hall of fame to make their elections look that much more impressive.

In the history of baseball, many players and coaches have been banned from baseball for life. Players can get banned for any number of actions and the baseball hall of fame cannot elect a player on the permanent banishment list. There are two that stick out to most in the baseball world. Joe Jackson and Pete Rose. Shoeless Joe Jackson was the star outfielder on the infamous 1919 Chicago White Sox team. Jackson was one of the eight men who were found guilty in betting against his team in the World Series and banished from baseball for life. He was a high caliber player that would likely be in the baseball hall of fame if not for his actions during the 1919 World Series. Pete Rose is the Major League Baseball record holder for most career hits with 4,256 total hits. Rose was banned from baseball in 1989, three years after he retired for betting on baseball. In recent years, Rose has come out and admitted that he did bet on baseball but never against his own team. Rose hopes that admitting his actions will encourage baseball reinstate him and elect him into the baseball hall of fame where he deservedly belongs.

The baseball hall of fame is located in Cooperstown, NY. It is located in Cooperstown because it long believed to be the birthplace of baseball. Although it has been proven incorrect, Cooperstown has been a fantastic home for the enshrinements and the museum that accompanies it. The museum holds thousands of historical artifacts from baseball's storied traditions.