2024 Hall of Fame Season, Part 1

The Ford C. Frick and BBWAA Career Excellence Awards

As we embark upon this year’s review of the various Hall of Fame ballots and awards, I already have to make one change to the schedule. Originally I’d planned to review all of the returning candidates in one edition, but it seems pretty clear in retrospect that I’m going to have to split it into two. The reason is sort of dumb, but it will give you a glimpse into how the sausage is made over here at LILF HQ.

See, a lot of people only read each newsletter in the email that arrives in their inbox. You may be one of these people, reading this very edition in your email even now. In that case Hi! I’m writing about you! Those good folks don’t go to the Substack app on their phone, or the full site on the web, they just read it straight from the email. But, unfortunately, Substack limits the length of the email, and if I get too close to that limit while I’m writing it starts giving me big, bright warnings that look like this:

If I keep plugging along for long enough after that warning pops up, it will tell me the post is too long for email, which means it will cut off for all of those folks who prefer to read it just in the email. I don’t want to cut readers off, it’s bad for business and makes me feel like I’ve failed, and I already know I can’t try to squeeze 14 returning candidates into one edition without compromising the amount I write about each. Hence, the split.

That means we’ll have a revised schedule for the series that will look like this:

• Today, Monday, December 2nd, we’ll look at the BBWAA’s Career Excellence Award, as well as the Ford C. Frick Award finalists among the broadcasters.

• On Tuesday the 3rd I’ll review the Classic Baseball Era ballot and let you know the three candidates I’d vote for.

• On Wednesday the 4th I’ll review the new players from the BBWAA ballot who have no shot of being elected.

• On Thursday the 5th I’ll review the new candidates who have a good shot.

• Friday the 6th will be a normal Friday Stuff.

• The following Monday, the 9th, I’ll review the first seven returning candidates.

• On Tuesday the 10th I’ll look at the remaining seven returning candidates.

• The last installment on Wednesday the 11th will be the big reveal of who I’d vote for if I had BBWAA voting rights, which I do not.

This ends the housekeeping segment about the schedule of events and the inner workings of writing a newsletter. On to the main event.