Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame

Blurb

Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?: Baseball, Cooperstown, and the Politics of Glory is a book by baseball sabermetrician and author Bill James. Originally published in 1994 as The Politics of Glory, the book covers the unique history of the Baseball Hall of Fame, the evolution of its standards, and arguments for individual players in a typically Jamesian, stat-driven manner. James drives home early on the heated and biased nature of Hall of Fame arguments between fans and writers alike. He states that his goal is not to serve individual players or candidates but to "reinforce the truth in what other people say" and to "serve the argument itself."
James primarily uses five of his own statistical methods for his justifications:
Similarity scores. Used to compare two particular players, which is useful in verifying if Player A, who is not in the Hall, is truly similar to Player B, who is.
The Hall of Fame Standards List. First introduced in this book, the Career Standards List is a series of 100 questions that measures objective accomplishment that might be expected of a Hall of Fame caliber player, with the average Hall of Famer answering yes to 50.