The Classic Baseball Era Committee Isn’t Working for the Negro Leagues

Editor’s note: The following is a commentary by Adam Darowski, a Negro Leagues researcher and baseball historian, about the results of the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s Classic Baseball Era Committee’s recent voting for induction into the Hall. Although more recent players Dick Allen and Dave Parker were elected by the committee, the two Negro Leaguers on the ballot – manager Vic Harris and pitcher John Donaldson – were not selected.

By Adam Darowski

Contributing Writer

It is great that Dick Allen and Dave Parker were elected, but I’m disappointed.

While Dave Parker isn’t my favorite candidate for the Hall of Fame, I’ve warmed up to his case and appreciate the Committee electing a living candidate. Fellow selection Dick Allen is a great example. Allen died in 2020, between consecutive cycles finishing one vote shy of election.

The fact that Tommy John finished third is a clear indication that the Committee focused on living candidates—which is admirable. But that is only a small part of the responsibility of this Committee. The Classic Baseball Era encompasses nearly 150 years of baseball — from the origins to 1980.

Furthermore, it is the only Era Committee that needs to consider players, managers, umpires, pioneers and executives all on one ballot (the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee is split into two ballots — one for players and one for non-players).

It’s too much baseball for one ballot.

As a Negro Leagues researcher, I was thrilled to see that the door was finally re-opened to Negro Leagues candidates in 2021 through the Early Baseball Era Committee. This committee covered candidates of all categories through 1950 (but unfortunately was only scheduled to meet once per decade).

Negro Leagues candidates were not eligible at all between 2006 and 2021 (15 years!) and then were only going to be reviewed every 10 years. The Classic Baseball Era Committee changed that cycle to every three years, but increased the scope of the Committee while shrinking the ballot to eight names.

There are two key issues I have with the state of Negro League candidates and the Hall of Fame. The first is that there is not a single Negro League candidate inducted as a manager. There are, of course, candidates from other categories (like Rube Foster, an Executive/Pioneer) who managed.

But nobody is in as a manager. That made Vic Harris such an obvious candidate this time around. He not only hit .300 over a 25-year career, he was also a seven-time pennant-winning manager for the Homestead Grays. Hall of Fame calls do not get easier than this. He came close in 2021, but lost all momentum this year.

John Donaldson, the legendary barnstormer, also lost all momentum from 2021 (where he had 50 percent). Bud Fowler and Buck O’Neil were elected in 2021 with Harris and Donaldson performing well and George Scales, Dick Redding, and Grant Johnson appearing but not getting much support.

This brings me to my second issue: there has not been a Negro League candidate inducted as a player since 2006. That is despite the incredible amount of statistical research happening that culminated with the Seamheads Negro Leagues database being included by Baseball Reference, MLB and others.

Fowler and O’Neil, both great choices, are in as Pioneers. Even the candidates that come close are not due to their major-league statistics. While Harris was a great player, his career as a manager is his first bullet point. While Donaldson has eye-popping numbers, they were outside of the “majors.”

Side note on Donaldson — he can be pretty polarizing due to the fact that his incredible stats happened against non-major teams. I happen to still think he is Hall-worthy based on his importance as a barnstorming pioneer and his wild success and fame there. He just isn’t my No. 1 priority as a candidate.

So what’s the solution? I’m not sure yet. Maybe the non-player ballot should be for all of history rather than 1980 to present. Maybe 1980 is too recent, and moving the dial back to 1970 would help. Maybe it is working as intended, with the focus being on recent and living candidates.

There are very few candidates from the white majors between 1900-1950. So I cluster the Classic Era into three types of candidates: 19th-century pioneers, Negro Leagues players and non-players, and post-integration stars that have been overlooked (your Ken Boyers and Luis Tiants).

Personally, my highest priority of the three is the Negro Leagues because they went so long without being eligible, have seen the most research that impacts cases, and are way behind their white contemporaries in terms of Hall population. I think you could induct 10 to 20 with no issue. Some say 40+.

Who do I like? I think the Hall has identified many. Vic Harris is the best manager candidate, but Candy Jim Taylor should also be inducted. Executive Gus Greenlee seems way too important to the Negro Leagues story to not be in Cooperstown.

Recent player candidates George Scales, Cannonball Dick Redding and Grant “Home Run” Johnson are slam dunks. John Beckwith, Dick Lundy and Rap Dixon should also be in that group. I think Heavy Johnson, Dobie Moore and Alejando Oms have more unique cases, but worthy ones.

Those, to me, are the easy ones. I would love to see all of them inducted so we could instead focus on debating candidates like Donaldson, Hurley McNair, Sam Bankhead, Newt Allen, William Bell, Bill Byrd, Chet Brewer, Quincy Trouppe and others. I’d be very happy if we were there.

But we are a long way from that. It’s not working.

Thanks for reading. If you’d like to talk to me about this topic for an article or a podcast, I would jump at the opportunity. This is very important to me (and to a lot of families).

To contact Adam, email