You're avoiding the most obvious issue, IMO. The baseball hall of fame relies solely on the BBWA voters for election. There is no fan component and no outright vote from existing hall members.
Further compounding things is the fact that BBWA voters can choose to make their ballots public or private. Historic data indicates that private ballots skew greatly from public ones. This is a major issue, IMO, and directly implies collusion and axe grinding within the BBWA.
This is anything but completely merit based. It's a club and the voters wield their personal views and vendettas in deciding who they admit. That is moreso than any other sport hall of fame, IMO.
Hell, Terrell Owens got into Canton based on his PLAY. The same with Allen Iverson. Neither were likable, per se.
Not sure the Halls are any better.
Football: Enshrinees are selected by a 48-person committee, largely made up of media members, officially known as the Selection Committee. Each city that has a current NFL team sends one representative from the local media to the committee; a city with more than one franchise sends one representative for each franchise. There are also 15 at-large delegates, including one representative from the Pro Football Writers Association. Except for the PFWA representative, who is appointed to a two-year term, all other appointments are open-ended, and terminated only by death, incapacitation, retirement, or resignation
Basketball: Individuals who receive at least seven votes from the North American Screening Committee or five votes from one of the other screening committees in a given year are eligible to advance to an Honors Committee, composed of 12 members plus rotating groups of 12 specialists (one group for female candidates, one group for international candidates, and one group for American and veterans candidates) who vote on each candidate. Each screening committee has a limited number of candidates it may submit to the Honors Committee—10 from the North American Committee, and two from each of the other committees. Any individual receiving at least 18 affirmative votes (75% of all votes cast) from the Honors Committee is approved for induction into the Hall of Fame. As long as the number of candidates receiving sufficient votes from a screening committee is not greater than the number of finalists that the committee is permitted to submit, advancement to the Honors Committee is generally pro forma, although the Hall's Board of Trustees may remove from consideration any candidate who "has damaged the integrity of the game of basketball"
They are all subjective and depends on whether they like you or not or if they can put their feeling for you aside and vote on your impact on the court.
www.espn.com
