'Cooperstown Chances' is a new series that will examine the Baseball Hall of Fame case of one candidate each week. This spans the large number of players currently on the ballot for the Baseball Writers' A sociation of America, as well as active stars and long-retired players eligible for consideration through the Veterans Committee. This week: Gil Hodges.

Who he was:In his 2001 "Historical Abstract," Bill James wrote of Gil Hodges: "A genuinely beloved player. How many players in Julio Teheran Jersey each generation are genuinely beloved, all around the country? Three or four, I would say."

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More than 40 years after his death in 1972 of a heart attack at age 47, Hodges remains iconic. A first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers during the team's "Boys of Summer" years, Hodges hit370 home runs,11th best all-time when he retired in 1963, according to Baseball-Reference.com. Hodgesalso managed the Mets to their first World Series championship in 1969 andis discu sed among the best defensive first basemen in baseball history. As former player and broadcaster Joe Garagiola said of Hodges to Sporting News in 1983, "He was the best fielder I ever saw. It's like Pee Wee Reese said, Hodges only wore a glove because the other infielders wore gloves. He could have played barehanded."

By sabermetric standards, there are maybe 100-200 players who rate better thanHodgesandaren'tinCooperstown. Jay Jaffe of Sports Illustrated gives Hodges a JAWS rating of 39.6 with the average Hall of Fame first baseman at 54.2.Adam Darowski, who a se ses Hall candidates atHallofStats.com,hasHodges with a Hall Rating of 76, short of hisbenchmark of 100 for Brandon Phillips Jersey Hall of Famers. Veteran statisticianPete Palmer meanwhilerates Hodges just outside the top 500 players all-time, saying in an email last week that Hodgeswas"a good player, but not great."

Similar to Jack Morris in recent years, the strength of Hodges' Hall of Fame candidacycomes in his popularity with fans,media and former players. Longtime New York TimescolumnistDave Anderson, who covered Hodges while with theBrooklyn Daily Eaglein the 1950s, said ,I dont know how many columns Ive written supporting Hodges induction into the Hall of Fame. If you saw him every day you knew he was a great player Yunel Escobar Jersey and a Hall of Famer.

Hodges may rank as the most famous holdover candidate for Cooperstown, debuting on the Baseball Writers A sociation of America's ballot in 1969,peaking at 63.4 percent of the vote inhis final year on the BBWAAballot in 1983,and coming close as a Veterans Committee candidateseveral times since. Since 2010, the Veterans Committtee has beendivided into three rotatingsub-groups based on era. Hodges was a finalist on the Golden Era ballot in December, .

He can next be considered by Golden Era Committee in late 2017 for a 2018 induction.

It's curious what's kept Hodges in limbo so long. Keith Olbermann, who suggested Hodges as a subject here,said he has been so frustrated by how Hodges has been treated in his time as a candidate that he has wondered if there was a personal vendetta against him. "I have asked everyone who knew him if there was some secret vice or evil about him," Olbermann told Sporting News. "Not one hint. Except he smoked."

Cooperstown chances:70percent

Why:It's something of a fool's errand to forecast when and how the Veterans Committee and itssubcommitteeswill act. But if its past resultsdon't guarantee that Hodges will some day be enshrined, they at least bode reasonably wellfor the long-running candidate.

The thing to know about a Hall of Fame candidate like Hodges andthe Veterans Committee is that the committeehas no statute of limitations, at least not at the moment. A briefpolicy in the mid 1990s held that any player who appeared on a BBWAA ballot and received le s than five percent of the vote was permanently ineligible for Cooperstown, though public uproar led to that policy's quick demise.

Now, there's nothing to keep the Veterans Committee from enshrining a player ignored by the writers or, in Hodges' case,a player the committee itself has pa sed over at least 14 times.This isn't nece sarily a bad thing, as Cooperstown has a largebacklog of candidates, and perceptions of them can change over time. But it creates some intriguing scenarios.

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The Veterans Committee is famously loathe to disclose much information. Committee members meet in private andare granted full confidentiality to allow for"free and open debate," Hall of Fame library director Jim Gates saidin an email in April. Members are also instructed not to say anything publicly. Hodges actually dropped a bit from previous yearsin the most recent Golden Era Committee vote, though when emailed last week to see why this was, a committee member replied: "I'm afraid I am bound by the Hall of Fame not to discu s anything about the meeting of the Veteran's Committee other than to admit that yes, I was a member of the committee. Sorry, but to tell you anything, even anonymously, could jeopardize my chance to be on future committees."

That said, at least a little news has Justin Bour Jersey leaked with the majority ofVeterans Committee elections since the founding of the modern committeein1953.Earlier this year, working primarily with newspapers.com, archives for Sporting Newsavailable tomembers of theSociety for American Baseball Research, and archives for Google News, I foundbetween 1953 and 2001.

At the time of research, I found 15peopleconsidered in at least 10 separate Veterans Committee elections between 1953 and 2001. Thesemen are:

Roger Connor, enshrined in 1976;Jake Daubert, never elected;Leo Durocher, enshrined in 1994;Billy Evans, enshrined in 1973;Joe Gordon, enshrined in 2009. Gordon actuallygot the nece sary 75 percent of the vote Blake Wood Jersey in 1991 but wasn't inducted because the committee had reached its limit for the year of people it could enshrine;Charlie Grimm, never elected;Ned Hanlon, enshrined in 1996;Babe Herman, never elected;Tony Lazzeri, enshrined in 1991;Rube Marquard, enshrined in 1971;Carl Mays, never elected;Phil Rizzuto, enshrined in 1994;Amos Rusie, enshrined in 1977;Vic Willis, enshrined in 1995after being considered at least 23 times over five yes, five decades. Like Gordon in 1991 and Nellie Fox in 1996, Willis had a year in which he got 75 percent of the vote, 1986,but wasn't inducted because the committee had reached its limit for the year on people it could enshrine;Glenn Wright, never elected;

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Given that the majority of the 10 enshrinees listed above were, like Hodges,prominent members of storiedteams, Hodges may have a goodchance at a plaque. Of course,H