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3 Controversy
The most lasting controversy in Hall of Fame elections is the role and composition of the Veterans Committee. Few, if any, of the BBWAA selections have been particularly contoversial. Prior to its recent restructuring, the Veterans Committee had, at times, seemed to pass over the most worthy players in order to enshrine contemporaries and teammates of the committee members. This tendency was most pronounced during the tenure of Frankie Frisch and Bill Terry, from 1967 to 1976. During this time, 8 players were elected whose Hall of Fame credentials were (at best) tenuous, but who had played with Frisch or Terry with the New York Giants or St Louis Cardinals.
A further controversy erupted in 1982, when it emerged that some historic items bequeathed to the Hall had been sold on the collectibles market. It subsequently transpired that these had been lent to the Baseball Commissioner's Office, from where they had been taken and sold to offset personal financial problems by Joe Reichler , an assistant to Commissioner Bowie Kuhn. Under pressure from the New York Attorney General, the Commissioner's Office made reparations, but damage had been done to the Hall of Fame's reputation.
An ongoing controversy facing the Hall of Fame is that of the status of Joe Jackson and Pete Rose. Jackson and Rose were both permanently banned from baseball for actions related to gambling on their own teams - Jackson was determined to have conspired to lose the 1919 World Series on purpose, and Rose voluntarily accepted a permanent spot on the ineligible list in return for Major League Baseball's promise to make no official finding in relation to alleged betting on the Cincinnati Reds when he was their manager in the 1980s. (Baseball's Rule 21, prominently posted in every clubhouse lockerroom, mandates permanent banishment from the sport for having a gambling interest of any sort on a game in which a player or manager is directly involved.) While Jackson and Rose had outstanding playing careers that would usually merit Hall of Fame induction, the Hall of Fame disallows election of anyone on the permanent suspension list. (Many others have been permanently suspended, but none have Hall of Fame qualifications approaching those of Jackson or Rose.) Baseball fans are deeply split on the issue of whether these two should be exonerated, remain banned, or (in the case of Rose, who is still living) be inducted with the caveat that he cannot reenter the game in any other way.
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