Ezra Sutton, Arlie Latham, Fred Pfeffer and Joe Start. By primary fielding position the nominees were starting pitchers (66), relief pitchers (9), catchers (10), first basemen (24), second basemen (8), third basemen (13), shortstops (19), left fielders (18), center fielders (17) and right fielders (16). Phase two The Historical Overview nominations were forwarded to a 60-member BBWAA screening committee comprising two writers from each major league city. In summer 2004 they elected 25 players who would appear on the final ballot. (Everyone voted for 25 nominees.) Meanwhile, a committee of six Hall of Fame members independently selected five of the 200 nominees who would appear on the final ballot, which would thereby comprise 25 to 30 players. Evidently the writers named all of the Hall of Fame members' five selections, for there were 25 on the final ballot. Final ballot On December 6, 2004, the final ballot of 25 candidates was announced. Those selected played primarily from the 1950s onward, with only 5 of the 25 candidates having retired before 1960, and only three pitchers – Smoky Joe Wood, Carl Mays and Wes Ferrell – having retired before 1950. The BBWAA screening committee had failed to include any candidates from the era before 1910. This likely reflected a tendency among the voting writers to vote only for those players they had seen themselves, and to withhold votes from earlier players. All 60 living members of the Hall were eligible to cast ballots in the final election, along with the 8 living recipients of the J. G. Taylor Spink Award, the 14 living recipients of the Ford C. Frick Award, and the sole additional member of the pre-2001 Veterans Committee whose term had not yet expired (John McHale). Balloting was conducted by mail in January 2005, with voters permitted to vote for up to 10 candidates from the ballot of 25 individuals; all candidates who received at least 75% of the vote would be elected. Results of the voting by the Veterans Committee were announced on March 2. There were 83 eligible voters, 80 of whom cast ballots; 60 votes were required for election. In all, 458 individual votes were cast, for an average of 5.73 votes per ballot. For the second consecutive Veterans Committee election, no player was elected. Of the 21 candidates who were also on the 2003 ballot, only 7 gained more votes in 2005, with only Joe