There are over 300 members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Rampant use of performance-enhancing drugs throughout the 90’s have made a mess of the Hall of Fame. Star players are finding themselves snubbed from the Hall based on mere suspicion of steroid use. Enshrinement in the baseball Hall of Fame has become more of a popularity contest than a commemoration of legendary achievements on the playing field.
So a few years ago I set out to develop an objective system of deciding on the baseball Hall of Fame. Instead of the current subjective system of voting among baseball writers, my system would look at concrete evidence of popularity and ability. My system would not be influenced by events and judgments made after the fact.
I developed a system that I call All-Star Analysis of Players (ASAP). Each year, I select a number of players based on the number of players playing in the Major Leagues that year. The main criteria for ASAP are All-Star Games played and Wins Above Replacement. This way, the players are measured based on popularity (All-Star Games) as well as how good they were in relation to their peers.
I call my Hall of Fame the “Heroes of Baseball.”
Here are the current Heroes of Baseball, with New Hall of Fame players bolded (year of induction in parentheses):
- Dan Brouthers (1885)
- Charlie Bennett (1885)
- Jack Burdock (1885)
- Jack Rowe (1885)
- Hardy Richardson (1885)
- Orator Shafer (1885)
- Abner Dalrymple (1885)
- Roger Connor (1885)
- Jim McCormick (1885)
- George Gore (1885)
- Fred Dunlap (1885)
- Jack Glasscock (1885)
- Tom York (1885)
- King Kelly (1885)
- Ed Williamson (1885)
- Jim O’Rourke (1885)
- Paul Hines (1885)
- Charley Jones (1885)
- Joe Start (1885)
- Cap Anson (1885)
Heroes of Baseball have established themselves as star players. When they join the list, they are halfway through Hall of Fame careers. Putting in another six or seven productive seasons will secure their places in Cooperstown.