Despite “an amazing amount of pressure put on committee members” to vote Bud Selig onto this year’s Hall of Fame ballot, a committee member said, the commissioner fell short and will have to wait three more years for his next chance for election to the plateau he covets.

The ballot, which the Hall announced Monday (Nov. 4), is the one that includes the late Marvin Miller, whose daughter and son were disturbed that the Hall ignored his wishes.

“He did not want to be on the Hall of Fame ballot,” Susan Miller said. “They’re cowards doing it after he died.”

Miller died last November. Four and a half years earlier, he wrote a letter to Jack O’Connell, secretary-treasurer of the Baseball Writers Association, requesting that he no longer be nominated on the Hall ballot. His request was ignored in 2009 and 2010 and again this week.

“My father’s wishes,” Peter Miller said in an e-mail from Japan, “stated in writing, and reaffirmed to me in person many times, and for the last time within weeks of his death, were that he did not want to be on the ballot.”

In his six times on a Hall ballot in 10 years, Miller has been linked in some fashion to commissioners. In 2007, a 12-man committee elected Bowie Kuhn with 10 votes while leaving Miller a distant also-ran with three.

It was probably the biggest joke in Hall of Fame history. Kuhn spent 15 years as an uninspiring, reactionary commissioner. Miller, in 16 years as head of the players’ union, changed the game of baseball forever, his labor victories dragging baseball into an economic era that has produced $8 billion in annual revenue.

Now, even though he should have been elected decades ago, he is on the ballot and the current commissioner, Selig, is not.

“I don’t have any comment,” Selig said at first Wednesday when I asked him about the 11-person committee’s consideration of him.

But when I asked if it bothered him that he didn’t make the ballot, he said, “No. When I’m done being commissioner, that’s the time to think about that.”

Selig’s backers, though, presented a different attitude based on comments from committee members, who all spoke on condition of anonymity.

With pressure being applied by Selig’s supporters, one member said, “It got ugly. People were confronted. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they tried a write-in.”

“We had so many conference calls, including one during the World Series, and they were about Bud,” a member said.

Contradicting the commissioner’s comment to me, the member said, “He’s furious and his minions are furious.”

“The pro Bud people,” a committee member added, “thought they had succeeded, but to get him on the ballot someone else would have had to go.”

In the committee voting, the member said, Billy Martin received the fewest votes among the dozen men placed on the ballot. But Martin, with six votes, was two ahead of Selig. In at least one meeting, the BBWAA’s O’Connell, who chaired it, was said to have repeatedly asked if there were any more votes for Bud, and his question was met with silence.

Selig is eligible for election, even though he continues to work in baseball, because of a recent provision the Hall added governing eligibility. Previously, executives, like players, had to be retired for five years before they could be considered.

Brad Horn, the Hall’s senior director of communications and education, said an active executive who is 65 or older is now eligible for consideration.

Call this the Selig rule since he is 79 years old, and though he appears to be in good health, his backers want to make sure he gets into the Hall of Fame during his lifetime. Hall officials are known to change their rules to suit special circumstances.

However, the fact that Selig continues to be commissioner, apparently worked against him in the consideration of the historical oversight committee, although one member said the age provision was not discussed as a major factor.

“We picked the candidates we feel we should be considered in this round of voting,” said another committee member, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “We concentrated on people whose legacy, we believe, has been set in stone and they’re considered Hall of Famer worthy.”

Of Selig’s legacy, the member said, “We don’t believe his story is finished yet. It would be like voting on a general manager who’s still working.”

Offering an example of what could go wrong for Selig, the member said, what if the Alex Rodriguez grievance were to blow up in Selig’s face, adding, “Who knows what’s going to happen? His legacy isn’t finished being written yet.”

Miller’s legacy was written years ago, but Hall officials have refused to acknowledge it. In the early years of what should have been his eligibility, they claimed he didn’t fit into any of their voting categories, including executives.

They had done such a good job of selling that tale that even Leonard Koppett bought it. Koppett, a colleague at The New York Times and as impressed with Miller as I was, cited that explanation when I asked him why the veteran committee didn’t vote on Miller. I though the explanation was nonsense and bogus, but I was not in a position to challenge it.

When the Hall scrubbed the outmoded veterans committee, it had all of the Hall of Famers vote on veterans and included Miller among executives.

One would have thought it was a natural for the players to elect Miller, but they gave him only 44 percent in 2003 and 63 percent in 2007, leaving him 10 votes short the second time. Seventy-five percent is needed for election.

As unlikely as those outcomes seemed, it was possible that some players didn’t vote for Miller for a reason Reggie Jackson articulated. He said only players should be in the Hall of Fame.

“When Reggie Jackson voted against him,” Susan Miller related, “my mother gave him a hard time.”

After those two votes produced no new members for the Hall, officials revised the format yet again. The change, however, did nothing for Miller because Hall officials stacked the 12 and 16-member committees against Miller’s election, loading them with owners and other management people.

The closest Miller came in three of those elections was in 2010, when he missed by a single vote.

After Miller died a year ago, I wrote that he would be elected the next time he was eligible because the owners would have nothing to fear in an induction speech on what would certainly be a rainy day late in July.

If Miller is elected, not only won’t he be in Cooperstown to make a speech, but no one from his family will be there. His wife, Terry, died in 2009 after 70 years of marriage, and children Susan and Peter will not be there.

When I contacted them, Susan and Peter were not aware that their father was back on the ballot.

“I didn’t know my father’s name had been placed on the ballot, against his wishes,” Peter wrote.

“I’m not sure what to do with this news,” Susan said.

Both said they would not attend the induction, with Peter adding, “I would regard it as incompatible with my father’s wishes for anyone else to do so.”

I asked the Hall’s Horn about the Hall putting Miller on the ballot despite his stance.

“While we certainly respect the wishes of individuals,” he said, “former and eligible candidates are considered by the committee. The committee believes he is among the top 12 candidates who are not in the Hall.”

The sad reality is Miller is among the top few individuals who have made the greatest impact on baseball, and the Hall of Fame has shamefully refused to recognize him for his contribution.

Putting it very simply, if not for Miller, Selig wouldn’t be making $25 million a year to keep him going until he gets into the Hall of Fame.