Hall of Fame

One of my favorite events of the off-season is the announcement of the new Hall of Fame inductees, which this year will be made on January 12. Today, the process started in earnest with the announcement of the official 2009 Hall of Fame ballot. These ballots are never exactly surprising -- thanks to the requirement that a player be retired for five years before being eligible, we know well in advance which players will be appearing on which year's ballot. Still, it's a blast seeing the names made official and knowing that the process has begun.

As has been my custom for the past couple of years, I'm not going to post my thoughts on the nominees just yet. With 42 days before the announcement, I want to draw things out a little bit. Here's the calendar for my anticipated Hall of Fame related posts:

December 19: Who I'd vote for.

January 9: Predictions of actual vote totals.

January 12: Reaction to the official announcement.

Until then, if you're interested in my thoughts on how to evaluate a player's Hall of Fame credentials, you can check out this post that I originally wrote in November 2006. My thoughts are essentially the same now as they were then.