Tough path for baseball execs to Hall

Eddie DeBartolo loyalists got their wish. Eddie D’s going to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, 24 years after Al Davis’ induction, giving the Bay Area a powerful 1- 2 punch.

Loyalists of anyone running local baseball teams — owners, presidents, general managers — shouldn’t hold their breath. Baseball’s Hall of Fame works a bit differently.

Neither Horace Stoneham, who helped bring baseball to the West Coast, nor Charlie Finley, a colorful innovator despite his deficiencies, is in the Hall. On the GM front, it’s a tough road for Brian Sabean, who won three World Series championships in five years and helped construct the latest Yankees dynasty, and Billy Beane, the dean of doing more with less, 2015 notwithstanding.

Most of the 33 executives inducted in Cooperstown worked in the first half of the 20th century, and only a handful had the equivalent of GM jobs. Of those, only Pat Gillick, who was inducted in 2011, worked beyond the ’ 70s.

Meantime, football made it easier for DeBartolo types to get inducted. DeBartolo falls under the category of contributor, which includes GMs, scouts, commissioners and owners, and this was the second year that contributors were voted on separately, an effort to prevent them from getting buried among player and coach candidates.

Two others ( both GMs) were inducted last summer, and it’s possible a flood of others will follow.

In baseball, executives are voted on by the eras committees — pre- integration ( before 1947), golden ( 1947- 1972) and expansion ( 1973 to present) — and the expansion- era election is every three years and, making it even tougher for executives, includes players and managers. In the last election, the only ones elected were managers: Tony La Russa, Joe Torre and Bobby Cox.

Of the 16 voters, half are Hall of Famers and the rest are historians, writers and executives. The next vote is in the fall.

Sabean and manager Bruce Bochy were united through the Giants’ championship run, but only Bochy is considered a Hall of Fame lock.

That seems odd.