PHILADELPHIA -- The National Baseball Hall of Fame did something right in the summer of 2006.
For one moment, Cooperstown treated Black baseball history not as an addendum, but as essential. A special Committee on African-American Baseball convened and elected 17 figures — 12 players and five executives — from a final pool of 39 candidates. And in that class was Newark Eagles co-owner Effa Manley, who became the first woman ever elected to the Hall of Fame.
It was sweeping. It was historic. It was also, by design, episodic.
Because that’s the pattern the Hall has too often applied to Negro Leagues recognition: gather a special committee, correct something big, and then let the process fade back into the distance — while other eras get something Negro Leagues candidates have rarely been granted in a steady, institutional way.
Another chance.
The Hall’s election system is built on layers for a reason. The writers vote on modern players. Then the Era Committees — successors to the old Veterans Committee structure — revisit overlooked players, managers, umpires, and executives across different time windows. The premise is simple: baseball history is complicated, evidence changes, and great careers can be missed.
But the Negro Leagues have too often been treated like a one-ballot assignment, not an ongoing responsibility.
The Hall has tried to blend Negro Leagues candidates back into its regular machinery. In December 2021, the Early Baseball Era Committee elected Buck O’Neil and Bud Fowler, while the Golden Days Era Committee elected Minnie Miñoso, Gil Hodges, Jim Kaat, and Tony Oliva.
Those elections mattered — not just for the names on the plaques, but for the signal: Cooperstown can use its normal processes to address historic blind spots.
And yet the rhythm remains inconsistent.
The modern research era has made this even more pressing. In 2020, Major League Baseball formally recognized seven Negro Leagues (1920–1948) as major leagues. In May 2024, MLB officially incorporated Negro Leagues statistics into its historical record, after years of work by researchers and the Negro Leagues Statistical Review Committee.
That doesn’t mean the record is complete. It never will be. Schedules were uneven. Box scores vanished. Careers were shaped by forces that don’t show up in any database.
But it does mean the foundation for evaluation is stronger than it has ever been — and that baseball now has fewer excuses to treat these candidates as “special occasions” rather than regular historical stewardship.
And it isn’t as if the Hall lacks candidates whose cases continue to surface precisely because they don’t fit neatly into a single committee moment.
Consider John Donaldson — a celebrated left-hander whose career unfolded largely through barnstorming and Black professional circuits because organized baseball barred him. Or Vic Harris, a star outfielder and championship manager tied to the Homestead Grays’ greatness. Both men were on the Classic Baseball Era ballot for the Class of 2025 — and neither was elected when the committee met in December 2024.
But here’s the part that should matter most: the Hall says that committee won’t meet again until winter 2027.
So two of the most prominent remaining Negro Leagues-era candidates can be deemed “not elected” — and then effectively vanish from the process for years, not because their cases were disproven, but because the calendar moved on.
That’s not how the Hall treats other historical debates.
And there are more names that fit the profile of “deserve renewed study, not guaranteed election.” Dick “Cannonball” Redding — widely regarded as a dominant pre–Negro National League pitcher — was on the Hall’s 2021 Early Baseball Era ballot. Bill Byrd has a modern, research-backed argument that now forces uncomfortable comparisons: SABR notes his Seamheads-based career WAR through 1948 is higher than multiple Negro Leagues Hall of Fame pitchers, including Leon Day and Hilton Smith.
Newt Allen spent 23 years almost entirely with the Kansas City Monarchs — the kind of long-term cornerstone résumé that committees routinely re-evaluate in other eras. And Piper Davis, a player and manager, is documented as a mentor/guardian figure for a teenage Willie Mays with the Black Barons.
The point isn’t that every name equals a plaque.
The point is that baseball history deserves more than one hearing — and that the Hall’s own structure was built for exactly this kind of repeated reconsideration.
Cooperstown did something right in 2006. It did something meaningful again in 2021. The next step isn’t dramatic.
It’s procedural.
It’s consistent.
It’s letting history come back to the table — again.
The point isn’t that every name equals a plaque.
The point is that baseball history deserves more than one hearing — and that the Hall’s own structure was built for exactly this kind of repeated reconsideration.
Cooperstown did something right in 2006. It did something meaningful again in 2021. The next step isn’t dramatic.
It’s procedural.
It’s consistent.
It’s letting history come back to the table — again.
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