Howie Menckel

From Wiki Gonzalez

By day (and under his real name), Howie is a journalist. By night (or whenever he wants to), he's a charter member and contributor for the Hall of Merit (http://digamma.net/btfwiki/index.php/Hall_of_Merit) project. He compiles many factoids for the group, such as lists of Hall of Merit teammates, number of 'HOMers' who were active in each year, number of HOM players chosen at each position, etc. He used to be consistently near the top of the consensus voting, in part because he 'gets bored' with hopeless causes. But he has 'slipped' in that regard in the 1950s elections becaus he didn't like the 'shiny new toys' as much as others. Fairly friendly toward Negro League candidates and long-career types such as Beckley or Rixey. Was mostly a lurker in the primordial days, but HOM posts date back at least as far as Dec. 2002.

He's the answer to a Hall of Merit trivia(l) question: Who cast the first ballot in the first election, in '1898'?