Former Cy Young Award winners Dwight Gooden and Orel Hershiser and RBI leaders Albert Belle and Will Clark are among 14 first-year candidates on the 2006 Hall of Fame ballot that will be mailed later this week to more than 550 voting members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America.

Ozzie Guillen, who managed the Chicago White Sox to their first World Series title in 88 years, is one of three Rookie of the Year winners on the ballot for the first time, along with Gooden and Walt Weiss.

They join 15 holdovers from the 2005 balloting in which Wade Boggs and Ryne Sandberg were elected. Bruce Sutter, the 1979 National League Cy Young Award winner, was 43 votes shy of the total required for election last year.

Candidates must be named on 75 percent of the ballots cast to gain entry into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. Sutter was listed on 66.7 percent of the record 516 ballots submitted. The only other players named on at least half the ballots were former American League Most Valuable Player Jim Rice (59.5), two-time Fireman of the Year relief pitcher Rich "Goose" Gossage (55.2) and National League MVP Andre Dawson (52.3).

Gooden followed his Rookie of the Year season of 1984 with a Cy Young-winning performance in 1985 when he was 24-4 with a 1.53 ERA. Hershiser's Cy Young year of 1988 featured a record 59 straight scoreless innings and MVP honors in both the NL Championship Series and the World Series. Belle, whose career was cut short due to injuries, led the AL in RBI three times and finished with 1,239 while batting .295 with 381 home runs. Clark, a .303 career hitter with 284 home runs and 1,205 RBI, holds NLCS career marks for batting (.468) and slugging (.806). Guillen and Weiss, both shortstops, were AL Rookie of the Year winners in 1985 and '88, respectively.

The other first-year candidates are starting pitcher Alex Fernandez, relievers Rick Aguilera, Doug Jones and John Wetteland and infielders Gary DiSarcina, Gary Gaetti, Gregg Jefferies and Hal Morris.

Not included on the 29-player ballot is Pete Rose, who has been barred from consideration for the Hall of Fame because he has been on Major League Baseball's ineligible list since 1989. The Hall ruled in 1991 that no player on that list may be an eligible candidate for induction. Rose's first year on the ballot would have been 1992, five years after his retirement as an active player.

Rose, the career record holder with 4,256 hits, is no longer eligible for BBWAA elections even should he be reinstated because he has surpassed the 20-year time frame for candidates. Hall of Fame voting rule 3 (A) states that "a baseball player must have been active as a player in the Major Leagues at some time during a period beginning twenty [20] years before and ending five [5] years prior to election."

After this election, no player whose last major-league season was 1986 can be considered for Hall election by the BBWAA. Candidates may remain on the ballot for up to 15 years provided they receive at least five percent of the vote. This would have been Rose's 15th and final year on the ballot. In 1989, Rose signed an agreement with then commissioner Bart Giamatti to be placed on the ineligible list, following a probe into alleged gambling activities. Rose maintained his innocence until he admitted in a book published in 2004 that he bet on baseball games when he was the manager of the Cincinnati Reds.

Writers with 10 or more consecutive years' experience make up the electorate. Votes are counted jointly by the BBWAA's Jack O'Connell and Ernst & Young partner Michael DiLecce. Results will be announced Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2006, on the Websites of the Hall of Fame (www.baseballhalloffame.org) and the BBWAA(www.baseballwriters.org).