[Comedian2004]

I was having a discussion with myself the other day (you will do this one day), and put some thought into the Hall of Fame program.

The hardest part of the design was I was trying to write a program that gave you points based on different factors, average, power, etc. Now, the problem with this is that it is not the same for different eras. Plus, it is not the same for every single person that is voting. The other part is to show the players stats in an easy to read format inside my program.

So, this year, I am taking another approach. 1st, I am going to use the built in HTML reports of the game. So, it will require you to use the almanac to create the player's HTML pages at the end of each year. Then, on a given date, somewhere between 1-1-XXXX and opening day, is when you would run the HOF program.

Now, there would be some main requirements to even get considered, and those would be set by the user of the program, but with the suggested defaults. And of course, they can always be overridden. Those would be:

1st, you have to be retired. There will be an option to wait 5 years or do it as soon as the guy retires.

2nd, plate appearances. 3000 would be a good starting spot. Anyone with less than 3000 at bats would not be considered.

3rd, batting average. I feel anyone below a .250 average does not deserve the Hall of Fame, unless he had xxx home runs. Or, he won XX gold gloves.

The idea here is to simply get rid of the players that do not have a chance to make the ballot.

So, let's say you ran a historical league starting in 1901. On 2-3-1906, you stop the sim. The players that retired in 1901 would be eligible for the HOF. Now, in the game, you set the standards so high, that no one will be automatically inducted.

The program would show you a list of the people that are eligible and you can click on their names and bring up the HTML page for the player. That information right there should be enough for you to decide. Or, for an online league, a report could be made that would show the candidates and the members of the league could cast their votes.

Now, there would be a flag set for each player that retired.

1. Never ask again. This is for the Mario Mendoza that is not worthy.
2. Ask again next year. This guy, you are not sure of yet. He is not a 1st year entry into the hall, but maybe next year.
3. Yes, put him in!

Now, you will still have to manually enter him into the HOF and then you could even modify his history for online leagues, showing that he got 18 of 20 votes, or even make some stuff up there.

A limit could be set, so that if 5 years go by, then he will be removed from the candidate list.

Later on, say 20 years from now, you could run the 'Old Timers Check', or it could be ran any time, pulling up people that had votes (carried over into the next year) so you could re-consider their induction.

How does this type of approach sound?

If I get enough people interested in this type of program, it would not take long to write, depending on my real life schedule. (This weekend is busy)

I would need some feedback on how to weed out the players. But then again, it depends on how many players retire each year.