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Bill James - "The Politics of Glory"
He talks about why all the statistically best players not in the HOF come from the late 19th century. To paraphrase:
1) As others mentioned, it was the biggest hitting era of all time. Some of those stats aren't as impressive as they seem.
2) In the late 1940s the Veterans Committee blew it and inducted a huge number of guys who weren't nearly as good as such players as Bill Dahlen, George Davis and Van Haltren. After that, no one really wanted to induct more 1890s guys, so most of those excluded have remained so.
3) Baseball exploded in popularity right around the turn of the century, so guys like Sam Crawford and Christy Mathewson are remembered, and guys like George Van Haltren and Kid Nichols are forgotten.
4) There'd be no point in honoring these guys now - no one remembers them, and there aren't even any descendants around who knew them - it would just be giving a plaque to a line of statistics.
The book itself is well worth the read.
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