Hall of Fame-worthy team executives

If the MLB Hall of Fame membership is light at any position, it’s probably the one that is most critical to team success: front office management.

Of the more than 330 people who have been elected to the Hall since its inception in 1936, only 40 were voted in as ‘executives.’ But that number is greatly inflated since the umbrella term encompasses league founders, commissioners, league presidents and team owners as well as front office executives.

On fact, only a relative handful of people whose primary qualification was management of the front office of an MLB team have been elected to Hall membership. It is a distinguished if short list indeed: Branch Rickey, John Schuerholz, Ed Barrow, George Weiss, Larry MacPhail, and Pat Gillick.

You could arguably add two or three more names who worked in a front office to the list – Lee MacPhail and Bill Veeck come to mind – but MacPhail was probably better known as a league president and Veeck as a team owner.

There are highly deserving front office candidates. But on the rare occasions when one or more Hall committees even consider their names they have to date always come up short.

This is a look at seven distinguished veterans of major league front office management who deserve enshrinement. Three are still active, and –given the heightened focus of the importance of a front office exec to team success — they stand a chance of being elected at a future date. The other four are at this stage longshots who need some measure of divine intervention. They deserve it.

In chronological order of their activity, here are backgrounders on the four front office leaders who have been badly overlooked followed by the three most likely current candidates.