by Francis Ferry, NLN baseball beat writer
October 26, 2030: Charleston, West Virginia – Now I get why PEBA Commissioner ‘Harry’ Castle brought me to Boone last week. Why he needed to be so darned secretive beats me, but now that I know what I was looking at, I can tell you, it’ll be a beautiful building and a wonderful tribute to PEBA’s history.
The Commish dropped the news moments ago on the PEBAcast PEC pregame show. A late addition to the broadcast that included PEBA GMs Ken Hannahs (Florida), RJ Ermola (Crystal Lake), and our own Will Topham, ‘Harry’ said he was ‘thrilled and excited’ to announce that this fall we would have our inaugural Hall of Fame balloting and the announcement of our first Hall of Fame class!
The remaining details he was vague on, but in a subsequent phone conversation, here’s the gist as I understand it. The Board of the PEBA has created a ‘search’ committee, which has been tasked with developing the ballot. I asked ‘Harry’ what he envisioned as a time line, and he said the ideal plan would be for GMs to receive the ballot by the conclusion of the PEC, with voting finishing up prior to the Winter Meetings, with the Hall of Fame Announcements becoming part of the Leagues Winter Meeting events.
During the broadcast, Castle was questioned about timing, ‘Why now?’ Hannahs asked, and the Commish stated that with the League’s 25th season on the immediate horizon, it was a perfect time to celebrate the history of the PEBA – and what better way then with the introduction of PEBA’s Hall of Fame.
I asked him about specifics, and he mostly replied, ‘it’s evolving, it’ll evolve’, but he did say that there would be no ballot size limitations, and that for a player to be inducted, they would need to receive 75% of the vote by the Leagues GMs. When asked how many votes a GM was to receive, he replied, “Ten. But no GM will be required to vote all ten - or vote at all – every League member will have his (or her – he was clear to be gender non-specific) own, personal criteria as to what determines a Hall of Famer.” When pushed on that last statement, his reply was, “If we wanted to have stiff guidelines, why vote? We would just set a statistical bar, ‘X amount of WAR’, for instance, and that would be that. I find that exceedingly boring, and statistics don’t necessarily measure the complete value of a player.” I would have to agree with that assessment.
Players will be eligible for induction one season after retirement, with the preseason of the following year as the cut-off. Players retiring after the cut-off will have to wait another season.
What we don’t know at this time, with the first pitch of the PEC coming up shortly, is when we will see this very first ballot. The Commissioner wouldn’t comment on how long that process has been going on – nor how long he expected it to take, other then to say, the Committee had begun it’s work. He did confess that it may not be at the end of the PEC, as future ballots should be, but that he had hope we would have a vote prior to the Winter Meetings.
With that, Commissioner Castle had to go and attend to the Opening Ceremonies, but he told me he’d text me a general process to share with the reading public, which I present to you:
4. Player Hall of Fame Selection
a. GMs will receive the Ballots shortly after the start of the PEBA Offseason.
b. Each GM will receive a total of 10 votes to be distributed through their ballot.
c. All votes shall be PM’d to the Office of the Commissioner through the official PEBA forum.
d. All votes are due three days prior to the Winter Meetings, by 12am ET.
e. To gain admission to the Hall of Fame a player must receive 75% of votes cast.
f. A player that fails to receive 75% of votes for 6 consecutive seasons shall be no longer eligible for the Hall of Fame
g. A player that receives 0 total votes on a ballot shall no longer be eligible for the Hall of Fame
h. The Announcement of the Hall of Fame Class will be made during the Live Winter Meetings.
i. Official Vote Totals will be posted in forum as soon as possible after the Hall of Fame Class announcement.
So there you have it – I’m sure more will be revealed, but for now, I’m filing this story so I can begin on tonight’s match-up. Will Aurora win their 5th title in 12 years, or will the Alleghanies etch their name on the Rodriguez Cup for the first time?