Results will be announced today in balloting for executives and pioneers under consideration for the Baseball Hall of Fame, with the late Angels owner Gene Autry among the 10 finalists. Voting was conducted Sunday by the the 12-member Veterans Committee for Executives and Pioneers in Indianapolis in connection with Baseball's winter meetings. Any candidate receiving votes on 75 percent of all ballots cast will be elected to the Hall of Fame. The committee members -- Hall of Fame members Robin Roberts and Tom Seaver, six executives, former Boston Red Sox Chief Executive Officer John Harrington and three Baseball reporters -- voted for up to four candidates.
Results also will be announced today in voting by the 16-member Veterans Committee for Managers and Umpires. The late Gene Mauch, who managed the Angels from 1981-1982 and 1985-87, is among eight former managers under consideration.
This is the first time Autry is a finalist for the Hall of Fame under the current Veterans Committee system, which began in 2003.
Autry was one of the nation's most popular entertainers in the 1930s and 1940s as a singing cowboy of the movies, radio and records, and the top Western star at the box office from 1937-43.
Autry's first tie to Baseball was as a part-owner of the Hollywood Stars of the Pacific Coast League.
Autry went to Major League Baseball's 1960 winter meetings in St. Louis, seeking to ensure that a radio station he owned, KMPC-AM (710), would have the rights to broadcast games of the Los Angeles expansion team that the American League would be deciding on at the meeting. Instead, he ended up owning the team.
The Angels played their inaugural 1961 season in the since-demolished Wrigley Field in South Los Angeles, then at Dodger Stadium from 1962-65.
Seeking to avoid being in the shadow of the Los Angeles Dodgers and chafing under some of the Dodger Stadium lease terms, Autry sought to have a stadium of his own in Los Angeles but was stymied.
He was offered a site in Long Beach, rejected it when city officials insisted he name the team the Long Beach Angels, then accepted an offer to play at Anaheim Stadium, which opened in 1966.
Autry's years as the Angels' owner was marked by disappointment. The team had an improbable third-place finish in 1962, its second season, but had only three winning records over the next 15 seasons.
"I don't live with disappointments," Autry once said. "I try not to place blame or carry it with me."
Autry sold controlling interest in the team to The Walt Disney Co. in 1996, two years before his death at the age of 91.
He was "the ultimate fans' owner," former Dodgers owner Peter O'Malley said following Autry's death. "The fans always came first for him."
