The Infield Dirt with T.S. O'Connell

And what do we do with guys like Harold Baines? ...
Posted by T.S.

If all the other HOF dilemmas I've discussed aren't enough, how about adding a discussion of Harold Baines into the mix? He narrowly missed falling off the ballot entirely after last year’s 6 percent tally; Baines ended up with an eye-popping 1,628 RBIs.

   It’s tricky trying to determine why a player who accumulated such unassailable numbers should be so lightly regarded by the voters. He also ended up with 2,866 hits, and I always wanted him to get the needed 134 in order to test the reliability of that particular Cooperstown magic number.

   My suspicion was/is that it wouldn’t have made enough of a difference. I don’t think fans and writers outside of Chicago environs thought of Baines as a Hall of Famer, and I think that’s unfortunate. Guys like Baines and McGriff shouldn’t be penalized for simply acquiring their HOF-worthy statistics in such a professional and low-key manner that somehow nobody appreciates how good they were.

   But Baines faces one other challenge: he played roughly 60 percent of his games as a designated hitter, and serious fans are going to have to prepare themselves for a lengthy debate about how that major league rules anomaly is going to be treated by the BBWAA. If Baines' initial vote totals are any indication, it’s going to tax our abilities to successfully apply logic, fairness and reason to a debate often directed largely by emotion and intuition.

   The arrival of one Edgar Martinez on the ballot this year makes the question more compelling. Almost certainly the greatest designated hitter in the history of the game, he was a late bloomer who didn’t get rolling at the major league level until he was 27 years old, then sat out much of the next two seasons after a torn hamstring.

   He had one batting title under his belt when he became a full-time designated hitter in 1995 and won a second, adding a Silver Slugger Award and generally leading the league in everything except restaurants visited.

   So what are we to do with a DH with five Silver Slugger Awards, seven All-Star appearances and two batting titles and a .312 lifetime batting average? The answer ought to be obvious: install him in Cooperstown where he belongs, but I have concerns that it isn’t going to be that simple.

   The Hall of Fame voters are going to have to decide how to evaluate the top performers at that jury-rigged position that curiously is embraced by only half of the major leagues. That grotesque situation alone probably explains some of the confusion about it; just because it’s been 37 years doesn’t mean that MLB has any less of a responsibility to figure out a way so that all 30 teams could play by the same set of rules.

   In the meantime, there’s no effective argument to make that Edgar Martinez doesn’t belong in the Hall of Fame. Hell, Major League Baseball itself renamed their annual designated hitter award after him, a nod quite properly reserved for only the truly immortal.

   If there are writers out there who harbor gnawing misgivings about the appropriateness of the DH and thus decide to massage their apprehensions by passing on Edgar’s candidacy, the simple answer is you guys have got to get some counseling.

   And DH is not the only far-reaching examination that the voters face. All-time saves leader Lee Smith is edging up toward the 50 percent mark after eight years on the ballot, so voters clearly seem to have some ambivalence about that odd statistic that is barely older than the designated hitter rule in its modern configuration. Add in the anguished debate that is ahead (or already upon us) about how to handle the steroid-tainted crew and the BBWAA and maybe later on the Veterans Committee setup (whatever form that ultimately takes) are going to have their hands full.

   For the record, I might as well push forward my own choices, It seems only right that I would offer my views about how I would vote if I somehow were allowed to do so.

   So here goes: (in a kind of haphazard order of relative enthusiasm for the selection) Andre Dawson, Mark McGwire, Roberto Alomar, Edgar Martinez, Fred McGriff, Harold Baines, Dave Parker and Don Mattingly.

   As I noted in earlier blogs, my list bears no resemblance to what I fear is going to happen, that no one is going to make it. There a couple of others I would have loved to add in there, most notably Dale Murphy, but I had to limit it to the number that I did. It was only upon proofreading that I noticed there were no pitchers included in the mix.

   Gee, I may be as goofy, arbitrary, illogical and inconsistent as the knuckleheads who actually get to vote.

Thursday, December 31, 2009 9:03:54 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Dawson faces imposing HOF challenge ...
Posted by T.S.

   Here’s one of my elemental beefs with the lunkheads (some of the them are, anyway) who make up the annual BBWAA vote for the Hall of Fame: Andre Dawson came up 44 votes shy of election last year. If we are to hope that he gets elected this year – and I do indeed – 44 guys/gals have to decide that an eight-time All-Star who wasn’t worthy last year is somehow now looking more, uh, immortal this year.

   That’s idiotic on the face of it. I don’t fault the Hall of Fame, which labors mightily to find a fair and effective procedure for deciding who gets a plaque, but I do think there needs to be more rigorous oversight from the BBWAA over their own little (and important) fiefdom.

   If there were some procedure for our mysterious scribes to explain some of their more unusual maneuvers, like the guys who somehow leave names like Henry Aaron or Willie Mays off the ballot, or more recently guys who turn in blank ballots. Really? Nobody at all is worthy enough by your ethereal standards?

   So I fear for Dawson’s chances, pessimistic as I am about his ability to pull in those 44 additional votes. I figure there are enough new HOF-worthy names appearing on the ballot for the first time to confuse these same writers anyway.

   Mark McGwire, who belongs in the Hall of Fame, seems unlikely to make it this year of maybe even any year until the voters figure out an equitable way to reconcile their epic disgust over alleged steroid use with the reality that virtually a whole generation of modern stars is going to arrive on the ballot under that cloud.

   McGwire, who is guilty of little more than implementing a regrettable strategy when he testified in front of several hundred Congressional hypocrites, will have to ultimately find a spot on the wall in Cooperstown. But at 22 percent last year – actually a decline from the year before – it’s difficult to imagine that happening anytime soon.

   Bert Blyleven fell a mere 67 votes short last year, but his situation is more ominous because he only has two BBWAA votes left after this one. The only thing I can figure is wrong with his candidacy is that he won 20 games only once, and thus confronts a curious BBWAA preoccupation with magic numbers that seems to suggest that winning 20 is wonderful but 18 or 19 is just plain yucky.

   He also suffers from being lumped in – fairly or not – with a number of other fine hurlers who fell short of that other magic number: 300. That list would include Jim Kaat, Tommy John and Luis Tiant. How you look at those four guys and decide who is the more urgent candidate is way beyond me.

   More on this year's HOF ballot in another blog.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009 3:49:26 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Why does boxing emulate wrestling? ...
Posted by T.S.

   Will somebody please splain to me why boxing seems to want to be more like wrestling than it does try to be a serious sport worthy of its once-exalted status in both its amateur and professional incarnations.

   I had more or less abandoned the sport for a couple of decades or so as it reveled in all of the inane self-inflicted confusion and idiocy that has been rampant over that span. And then I kind of accidentally watched Manny Pacquiao defeat Miguel Cotto for the Welterweight Championship last fall and I was hooked once again.

   I saw the fight on HBO a week or so after it took place, but it was the best boxing match I had seen since Muhammad Ali’s tangles with Joe Frazier. With my longstanding affection for all things Filipino, I promptly declared myself a Pacquiao fan and decided I would eagerly await the Super Fight with Floyd Mayweather.

   And then the B.S. started.

   I know, I know, with the hundreds of millions of dollars at stake the epic battle is probably still going to take place sooner or later, but now the two camps are wrangling over blood and urine. And my question is essentially: Why in the hell does boxing allow the parameters of how its matches are contested to be something that is part of the negotiations between the two fighters?

   Gee, I am so naive that I thought the sport’s governing body(ies) would determine important considerations like testing for drugs, etc. I suppose it’s also likely that this silly wrangling over whether Pacquiao can withstand the rigors of a blood test within two weeks of his match is nothing more than a publicity ploy, but I grouse about it because it makes the sport and its practitioners – boxers, officials, media, etc. – look stupid in the process.

   Golly, how much blood do they actually extract for these things? Perhaps we have spent too much time watching that other HBO extravaganza “True Blood.”

   Nearly 30 years ago when I worked for the Empire State Games in New York, our offices in Albany were about 30 feet away from the chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission, which at the time was former Heavyweight Champion Floyd Patterson.

   I would catch him napping with his feet up on his desk from time to time and with his office door opened a tiny crack, which was no big deal lest anyone think that’s some kind of criticism.

   But what I found most interesting about the NYS Athletic Commission was the fact that at the time it had professional wrestling under its domain as well as boxing. One seemed like a legitimate sport – including a considerable presence at the amateur level in our Empire State Games – and the other seemed more like, uh, entertainment.

   I understand that the borrowing back and forth between the two would be inevitable, but sadly it seems like over the last 30 years boxing has become more like wrestling than the other way around.

   Maybe that wouldn’t have been so bad, except that over the same span wrestling was becoming more like the Jerry Springer Show than it was moving toward boxing.

   But assuming they get this silliness behind them, I am going to be watching that fight in some fashion or other. And I’ll be rooting for the Filipino.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009 4:09:51 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Monday, December 28, 2009

2010 HOF ballot has too many worthy candidates ...
Posted by T.S.

   OK, I’ll admit it, I’m nervous. With about a week left to go, I am starting to worry that there might not be anybody elected from the BBWAA ballot for next year’s HOF class.

   It’s bewildering that the number of worthy candidates should have an impact on the results of any particular individual’s chances, but it seems to be the case, and thus the addition of names like Roberto Alomar, Edgar Martinez, Barry Larkin, Fred McGriff and Andres Galarraga seems ominous for some of the holdovers.

   I refer, of course, to Andre Dawson and Bert Blyleven, the two candidates with seemingly the best shot at election after a significant number of years on the ballot. For the former, this is the 10th try; for Blyleven, the 2010 vote is No. 14, meaning he’ll have but one more crack at BBWAA election if this year’s tally comes up short.

   And I think it might. Depending upon the day you asked me, I would likely say there are between 7-10 guys on the list who would get my vote, and my fear is that with that many worthy nominees the votes get spread around so much that perhaps nobody gets the needed 75 percent.

   I am going to blog about the 2010 vote for much of the next few days leading up to the Jan. 6 announcement, citing some of the individual cases of most interest to me. In the meantime, it’s worth noting that many of our cherished notions about magic numbers and hallowed benchmarks need to be re-examined, to say nothing about the looming (actually already upon us) dilemma about what to do with the steroids questions.

   I hold no illusions that my prognostications are any more valid than anybody else’s, but if I am going to blog I might as well put something at risk: I don’t think the 2010 BBWAA vote will push anyone past the 75 percent threshold.

   Even as I type it, I hope to heaven I am wrong about my conclusion. No offense to Doug Harvey and Whitey Herzog, but I’d want to see more folks on the podium next summer.

   More on this on the morrow.

Monday, December 28, 2009 4:39:16 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Recounting the best hobby gift at Christmas ...
Posted by T.S.

Let’s face it: for the average schmo, chasing down suitable Christmas gifts can pose a real challenge. It helps a bit if the intended recipient has a hobby that might offer recurring themes, etc., but even then there are pitfalls that need to be avoided.

   For one, there’s always the concern that if someone is a serious collector, it might be difficult to find something that they haven’t already snagged. In the same vein, finding gifts for big-time collectors can also be harrowing because the more serious the collector, the greater chance that whatever is still on the want list might be pretty expensive.

   Mix in the difficulty – in our hobby, for example – of knowing where to turn to in buying something in terms of finding a reliable and reputable seller, and you can see that the execution might be fraught with hurdles.

   I’d be curious about what were the best hobby-related Christmas gifts that our readers had ever received. For me, it’s an easy call.

   After I got married in 1983, my wife was as good at Christmas shopping as she was at everything else. This is not a Henny Youngman aside: she got me great Christmas presents.

   And the hobby helped in that regard. Throughout the decade she got me a number of Gartlan statues that I always coveted but probably wouldn’t have bought for myself. But the very best Christmas present was in 1983 when she picked up the entire set of Perez-Steele Hall of Fame Art Postcards.

   It’s hardly a shameless plug to say she purchased it from an advertisement in SCD. The cost at the time was $100 to get all of the Perez-Steele Series up to that point, along with being registered for the subsequent issues down through the years.

   I could add, and have mentioned in a number of times, that her purchase of those cards represented perhaps the best investment of cards ever done in our family. Since I rarely ever buy anything with an eye towards reselling it down the road, I also rarely ever hit on any accidental winners. That ditty about the blind squirrel doesn’t really apply to me.

   But my now ex-wife did just fine playing Santa Claus 25 years ago.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009 3:15:46 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Monday, December 21, 2009

HOF and baseball cards a perfect marriage ...
Posted by T.S.

   I can remember going to Cooperstown in the 1980s when my friend Larry Fritsch was operating his baseball card museum there a couple of blocks away from the Hall of Fame, and it always seemed like vintage cards and the Hall were made for each other.

   Cards have always been included in the Hall’s archives, but the significant presentation in ongoing displays has been much more prominent over the last quarter century than it had been earlier.

   That understanding of the baseball card as an important element of the game’s history has probably never been better illustrated than in the most recent (Winter 2009) issue of the Hall’s classy Memories and Dreams official magazine.

   With – who else? – the T206 Honus on the cover, the issue is almost completely devoted to all things cardboard, save for the wrap-up from the 2009 Hall of Fame Induction Weekend.

   There are articles on the Wagner card – the Hall owns two of them, both from Barry Halper via different routes – and Jefferson Burdick, a sidebar detailing the museum’s handling of its 135,000-card stash, a great feature by our own Marty Appel on another SCD favorite son, Sy Berger, and even a lavishly illustrated piece on Hall of Famers’ recollections of their own cards.

   That would seem to be what my grandmother used to describe as “an elegant sufficiency,” but there are also stories about baseball card portraiture, the famed 1933 Goudey Nap Lajoie card, a feature about a unique baseball-card artist, and a wonderful glimpse of “A village flipped for cards,” taking you on a brief sortie downtown in the village where cards and memorabilia are just about everywhere.

   It’s hard for me to picture anyone even remotely interested in cards and/or memorabilia not wanting to take a look at this.

   Simple enough: go to www.baseballhalloffame.org, or call (888) 425-5633.

Monday, December 21, 2009 3:38:22 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Thursday, December 17, 2009

Phony cards nearly as much fun as the real ones ...
Posted by T.S.

   My pal Bob Lemke just came out with some more of his incredible 1955 Topps All America extension set, and if you’ve never seen them you owe yourself a visit to www.boblemke.blogspot.com.

   There you will find ersatz football cards of Lou Gehrig and Jackie Robinson, and in another later posting one of Billy Clyde Puckett, which I suppose is a variation of an earlier 1955 Topps All America card of Burt Reynolds that he created years ago.

   Seeing more of these wonderful creations got me to thinking what a cool collection somebody could create using a theme of vintage-card designs employed for current, former, real or imagined players.

   This was a tiny little niche in the hobby that existed even 30 years ago before the bust-up of the Topps monopoly, but got a major boost over the last 15 years with all the advances in computer technology and the arrival of same in nearly every home in the country.

   Now there are websites galore showing the labors of some genuinely gifted designers, and no doubt the number of cards that would fit the parameters described above would run into the thousands.

   I know of nobody making such cards who is doing it on a grand enough scale to catch the attention of the leagues or the card manufacturers who make the real ones, and indeed, putting together such a collection would not be all that easy just for that reason alone. One of the pioneers in this esoteric field is a veteran Midwest collector who has made a host of cool 1952 Topps “Cards That Never Were,” but he only makes a couple of each one and tracking them down would be a chore in itself.

   For an easier challenge, a collector could simply vow to put together cards of the above description that were created by the mainstream card companies themselves. That would be easier to do and would certainly number way into the thousands of cards as well.

   Gee, I may have just talked myself into something here.

Thursday, December 17, 2009 3:19:43 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Older guys are way more fun to interview ...
Posted by T.S.

   Ten years ago when I interviewed nearly a dozen Pro Football Hall of Famers during a signing session for the HOF Signature Series art cards, I was struck by the genuine camaraderie between these legendary figures who had labored in the NFL in the decades before it became the multi-billion dollar enterprise that it is today.

   I wrote this at the time: As each player walked into the room, he was greeted by the enthusiastic and occasionally raucous cheers and greetings of former teammates and opponents. This is clearly a unique fraternity, one with a bond cemented by an understanding of those who accomplished something special together. If any further connection were needed, the aching knees and countless nagging infirmities help remind the uninitiated that these men paid an enormous price for the luxury of these fraternal moments.

   The players talked about collectibles, the modern game, their teammates – including several of them in need because of crippling injuries and the attendant costs – and even about things they wished they had saved, but the most fascinating comments came from Otto Graham, the legendary Cleveland Browns QB.

   Although he started out talking about modern players (he conceded they are “bigger, stronger, faster and better”), he pretty quickly moved on to two topics better suited to People magazine than Sports Illustrated: two of the most famous murder cases in postwar America.

   Graham had been a neighbor of Dr. Sam Sheppard, who was charged with murdering his wife in their Cleveland home on July 4, 1954. The murder was the inspiration for the long-running television series “The Fugitive,” and the feature film of the same name 20 years later.

   With characteristic candor, Graham said, “As far as I’m concerned, Sheppard did it. There’s no doubt in my mind.”

There was a good deal more detail that helped explain and fortify his observation, and then he ventured into the more contemporary case. “O.J. did it. His teammates will tell you that O.J. was two different people. He was quite capable of it,” Graham concluded.

   And you wonder why I like interviewing the older players so much more than the younger millionaires. I am pretty sure I never asked about any of that stuff – I certainly didn’t poll the Hall of Famers on their views of the Simpson verdict, which at the time was only a couple of years in the past.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009 3:33:18 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Long history of great HOF art cards ...
Posted by T.S.

   News releases this week touted the release of a new card series that carries the imprimatur of the Football Hall of Fame – the Bronze Bust Collector Card set.

   Each of the 150 limited-edition Bronze Bust Collector Card sets includes 253 hand-numbered cards depicting the sculpted bronze portrait bust of each Hall of Fame member. Additionally, more than 130 collector cards in each set are autographed by Hall of Famers, including Joe Montana, John Elway, Barry Sanders, John Madden, Steve Young, Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Jack Lambert and Dan Marino.

   The limited-edition Bronze Bust Collector Card set is offered at $5,000. Orders can be placed by calling the Hall of Fame at (800) 869-8207 or order online at www.Profootballhof.com.

   The press release notes that the Bronze Bust Collector Card series “represents the most exclusive card collection ever offered by the Pro Football Hall of Fame,” which I don’t doubt, but it called to mind another cool Football Hall of Fame art card series from 10 years ago that I was lucky enough to cover a bit for SCD.

   During the HOF induction ceremonies that summer Hall of Famer Ron Mix invited SCD to come to Canton to cover some of the signings of the NFL Hall of Fame Signature Series cards, a spectacular set of 4-by-6-inch art cards that feature elegant artwork and autographs by most of the Hall’s roster at the time. (I always feel silly adding the qualifier “living,” since that would seem to be obvious.)

   Anyway, that noble effort to raise monies for some of the Hall of Famers who might have fallen on hard times marked yet another important moment as some of the greatest names in the game’s storied past huddled up to try to help their comrades.

   It also added to a long legacy in the sports collecting hobby of capitalizing on spectacular original artwork as an autograph vehicle. This latest venture by the Hall of Fame also has historical precedent, since the Baseball Hall of Fame has recognized for 70 years the utility of using their HOF plaques as a vehicle for autograph collectors.

   In a future blog, I’ll look back at that wonderful visit to Canton 10 years ago that allowed me the chance to interview the likes of Otto Graham, Doug Atkins, LeRoy Kelly, Ted Hendricks, Bob Griese and a number of others.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009 5:03:34 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Thursday, December 10, 2009

If Joe is in the cards, why not Pete? ...
Posted by T.S.

   I saw the other day where Upper Deck has added Shoeless Joe Jackson to the lineup for 2010 baseball issues, a development that immediately makes me wonder if Jackson’s kindred spirit, Pete Rose, might be waiting in the wings.

   Way, way back in that other millennium, I interviewed Rose at a card show – I think one of the Tuff Stuff shows in Richmond, Va. – and asked him if he thought that the increased interest in Jackson and boisterous demand for his cards and memorabilia might have a positive spillover concerning his own case.

   Remember, this was about 10 years ago, and Pete had suggested to me that he might consider suing Major League Baseball if they didn’t get off the dime and at least give his reinstatement request a good look.

   He pretty forcefully insisted at the time that he wasn’t comfortable with virtually any linkage to Shoeless Joe, the implication being that Jackson had been accused of throwing the 1919 World Series and he, Pete, had merely got ensnared because of his interest in betting on ponies and the like. Since the story line then was that he hadn’t bet on baseball, he wanted to keep his distance from Joe.

   To his credit, Pete has done a pretty good job of keeping himself out of the limelight over the last couple of years, a feat certainly more impressive by the fact that this year marked the 20th anniversary of Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti’s “Permanent Ineligibility” ban on Rose.

   Being on that list reportedly kept both players from appearing in baseball card issues that carried the Major League Baseball imprimatur. I don’t suppose that Pete would care for the linkage much better today than he did a decade ago, but if Shoeless Joe can get a “modern” card (his first appearance is slated for Upper Deck’s 2010 Goudey release in March), why not Pete?

Thursday, December 10, 2009 11:36:07 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Ned Beatty advice for Tiger Woods ...
Posted by T.S.

In watching the Tiger Woods saga over the past two weeks, I found myself more struck by the vast implications of all this than I was by perusing all the tawdry rumors that seemed to spring forth almost on cue.

   About 10 days into it, roughly last Friday or so (Dec. 4), I began to see something interesting. It seemed like the brakes had been put on the coverage, or at least as much as you could think possible under the circumstances.

   Being the avid conspiracy buff that I am, I immediately started to imagine the grand, over-the-top diatribe delivered by Ned Beatty’s character Arthur Jensen in the classic 1976 film “Network.”

   Now I understand that if you haven’t seen the film, virtually all what follows will be largely incomprehensible, but even then there will be value in the this blog, because ... if you haven’t seen “Network,” you must. Quickly.

   Anyway, I envision Beatty’s corporate titan representing – collectively – Nike, AT & T, Accenture, Gatorade, General Mills, American Express and Gillette – to be calling the parent-company owners of the giant media outlets and politely outlining the hundreds of millions of dollars that would be at risk as this story rolls along every day.

   Obviously, I don’t think our 2009 version of Board Chairman Jensen could rant at fellow business behemoths with anything close to the enraged condescension that was directed at a suitably awed television anchor Howard Beale in the movie, but I can’t shake the feeling that the call(s) were made.

   Though I confess to no parallels to Howard Beale, I am indeed in awe of what the true financial proportions are in this thing. I could add that as a Tiger Woods fan, this is all pretty devastating, but I am also old enough to understand that there are a whole flock of things that are more important than whether or not I get to watch Tiger Woods play golf.

   Even if it were somebody I didn’t like, I can’t take any joy in seeing an individual and his family go through something like this.

   And even if my theory about a cautionary phone call holds some truth, I have my doubts that anything at all could stem the tide that seems to be headed in Tiger’s direction.

Wednesday, December 09, 2009 3:32:20 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Maybe Marvin Miller would fare better in a wet T-shirt ...
Posted by T.S.

   What with all the revelations recently about fixed soccer games in Europe and a rogue former NBA referee admitting to various forms of skullduggery, a sordid episode from my own past has been eating at me, prompting a bit of confession of my own.

   Thirty-two years ago – in the middle of America’s celebration of our Bicentennial, for Pete’s sake – I took part in a wet T-shirt contest that I am convinced ultimately turned out to have been rigged. Wow, I am starting to feel better already.

   Oh, I couldn’t prove it, and I took no actual part in the malfeasance, but that doesn’t change the fact that a young lady who had earned a $200-$300 top prize (I can’t remember the exact amount) didn’t get the dough.

   During my college years I had been the manager of a restaurant/night club/disco called “The Swinging Turtle.” It overlooked Lake Champlain just south of Plattsburgh, N.Y. When the place was bought by new owners in the fall of 1976, I moved on to another restaurant.

   Later that fall, the new owners held a wet T-shirt contest and asked me to return as a celebrity judge, which gives you a fair peek into what constitutes genuine celebrity in Plattsburgh, N.Y.

   I do recall that the monetary prize was pretty significant for 1976, and so I shouldn’t have been surprised that the handsome young woman reportedly from Boston was selected by the other two judges (names withheld in part because I don’t remember them, either).

   The gal who deserved to win was from nearby Saranac, N.Y., and she had been informally sponsored by my best friend, a legendary local figure named Larry Marcotte. He was none too pleased with this gross miscarriage of justice, but he understood that my vote had at least been untainted by any nefarious considerations.

   Speaking of such mundane practices as being willing to reveal ballot deliberations, do you think any of the guys who voted against the HOF candidacy of Marvin Miller will ever be man enough to step forward and explain their reasoning?

   I am pretty sure that the motivations from the other two judges at “The Swinging Turtle” were decidedly more noble than those of the HOF voters.

Tuesday, December 08, 2009 4:10:05 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Monday, December 07, 2009

Nuts. Veterans Committee hoses Miller again ...
Posted by T.S.

   About 30 years ago when I was working as a bureau reporter for a daily newspaper in Plattsburgh, N.Y., I wrote up the wrap-up story of a local election ... the day before the election.

   That doesn’t make me particularly brilliant, for a suspect the same could be done by local reporters in various circumstances all over the country. And, of course, I didn’t file the story until after the results had come in. I may be a bit eccentric, but I don’t believe I am certifiably insane.

   I mention this because I could have written up the story of Marvin Miller’s continued exclusion from the Hall of Fame any number of days, weeks or months ago, awaiting only the official verification of yesterday’s vote by the Hall of Fame’s Veterans Committee, the results of which were announced this morning.

   Oh, I’m not so smart that I could have told you that Doug Harvey and Whitey Herzog would get the nod, even though it was fairly easy to conclude that the pair would be the top candidates from the Managers/Umpires ballot. In theory, anyway, it’s difficult to tell in advance how 16 people are going to vote on this kind of thing.

   Normally it’s only a skosh easier to figure out how a dozen people might vote, unless what they are voting on is the suitability of granting HOF immortality status to Marvin Miller. Then it gets a bit easier.

   Miller himself reportedly called the makeup of the committee “rigged,” and had asked that his name be removed from the ballot in light of what he regarded as a predetermined outcome.

   As noted in an earlier blog, I was still glad he was on the ballot, but now even I am reconsidering that. The 92-year-old Miller can be forgiven his frustration as he now would be required to wait two years for another vote, especially since there would be little reason for optimism if the configuration of the committee were to remain the same, which is possible but not likely.

   If you’re looking for villains here, they would seem to be individuals rather than the institution itself. The Hall of Fame has labored mightily over the past two decades to tinker with virtually every aspect of the voting process in general and the Veterans Committee voting in particular.

   Scolded at one time for a procedure that was deemed by many to have been a tad too liberal in admitting former players to its ranks, the pendulum then perhaps swung the other way and now there was criticism that worthy candidates might find it impossible to get voted in.

   Miller’s candidacy has languished and failed under a number of different systems. His latest snub, coming up two votes short from a 12-person panel that included seven members who would be categorized as from the management side of the equation, is particularly egregious.

   At such an advanced age, the latest rejection seems almost incomprehensibly cruel for the legendary labor figure, but he’s hardly the only casualty here, just the most significant and poignant one.

   The credibility of the most important Hall of Fame in the world takes another blow, but this latest slap is also unfortunate for the two MLB figures who did get elected. You can bet that most of the mainstream media coverage is going to be largely negative, focusing on who didn’t get elected rather than who did.

   If the bozos who didn’t think Miller a worthy candidate for enshrinement might be cajoled by some other reasons than simply the integrity of the process and their obligations and responsibilities to it – to say nothing of fairness to an aging icon who deserves far better treatment – then maybe Doug Harvey or Whitey Herzog deserved better as well.

   Even on the most joyous and important day of their professional lives.

Monday, December 07, 2009 4:22:33 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Thursday, December 03, 2009

Art old and new at the Chicago Sun-Times ...
Posted by T.S.

   Here are a few odds and ends from the recent Chicago Sun-Times Show that I blogged about briefly the other day.

   I saw a wonderful piece (shown here) from famed artist and photographer Robert Riger. It was at Kip Ingle’s table, a stunning drawing of Red Grange, signed by the Galloping Ghost himself. The autograph is great, but I would have been nearly as taken with the piece even had it been sans signature.

   I remember being enthralled by Riger’s elegant drawings in Sports Illustrated magazine when I was just a kid; his pencil artistry and Willard Mullin’s pen-and-ink work probably had as much to do with leading me into a real appreciation of black-and-white art as anything else. That and a love for newspapers, and at time when daily newspapers couldn’t afford to routinely run four-color pages.

   But the dynamic impact of color can hardly be overstated, and if you don’t believe me, I would point to an artist who was at the Sun-Times displaying dozens of spectacular originals, prints and giclees at his table, all with the sanction of Major League Baseball.

   John Prince is a self-taught artist from London, England, and he paints with acrylics, portraying major league stars in an attractive style that presents the player in the foreground with his jersey and team logo as a backdrop.

   I’ve pictured a couple of his paintings with my column in this week’s issue (Dec. 25) of Sports Collectors Digest, but unfortunately the pages are black-and-white, and his work needs to be seen in full color.

   Easy enough: go to www.sportsartworldwide.com. The prints and giclees are huge, usually about 32-by-24 inches, and his originals are even larger, often 48-by-36 inches, and the impact is extraordinary, which I assume is why MLB signed on to the project.

   I asked him how his first foray into the hobby show business had gone, and I already knew just from checking his table several timers during the weekend that there had been a good deal of interest in his work. “Some folks said they wanted to wait a couple of weeks until they got their wage packets,” he said in a cherry British accent. I am pretty sure I couldn’t have said it better myself.

   At the other end of the show floor, the group of Negro League Legends that typically appears at the Chicago show was once again there signing autographs and chatting with fans, but this time they had added something new for sale.

   Triumph Books, the publishers of Few and Chosen: Defining Negro League Greatness, dontated three dozen of the books to the group as a fundraiser. That would have been cool enough, but Triumph also got the books signed by authors Monte Irvin and Phil Pepe, with the Negro League Legends adding their own signatures as requested (www.negroleaguelegends.org).

   This is Baseball Hall of Famer Monte Irvin's assessment of the greatest players from the old Negro leagues, and that's an extraordinarily worthwhile undertaking, given that modern fans have such a minimal understanding of the great players who were denied the opportunity to play at the major league level. Since statistical evidence remains so sketchy in trying to get a clear picture of these largely overlooked giants, the contribution from one of the few remaining Negro leaguers (Irvin) seems welcome indeed.

   Note I don't refer to him with the common yet redundant "former" qualifier, since there are no current Negro leaguers.

Thursday, December 03, 2009 4:57:10 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Snubbing Miller once again would be indecent ...
Posted by T.S.

   In less than a week, the Veterans Committee vote for the Hall of Fame is going to be announced, and I am here to tell you that Marvin Miller better be one of those duly honored.

   There are a total of 20 managers, umpires and executives on the two separate ballots, and I can easily imagine even a half dozen names eventually winding up with a plaque in Cooperstown, but if credibility of the voting process itself is the primary issue, then Miller needs to be the first one so enshrined. It’s not even a close call.

   I know I’ve griped about this for many years, but it’s worthy of protest until it is resolved. There may not be anybody at all who holds a HOF plaque via the executive route who has had as great an impact on the game as Miller. Maybe Branch Rickey, or even Judge Landis, but his total record is something of a mixed bag, what with his reactionary stances on important matters like labor equity and breaking the color barrier.

   And I know there are millions of fans who might feel that Miller’s role in restructuring how the game’s vast revenues are apportioned is a negative one, but that myopic view doesn’t change the reality of his impact.

   The committee charged with the vote on Miller consists of seven either current or former team executives, three longtime sportswriters and BBWAA members and two former ballplayers (Robin Roberts and Tom Seaver).

   After a preposterous vote total in 2003 left Miller behind Walter O’Malley (48 percent to 44 percent) and then a subsequent vote in 2007 again left Miller out in the cold (10 votes short), the voting procedure was altered yet again, leaving the decision to the 12-man committee.

   It’s that structure that has reportedly led Miller to protest that the process was “rigged,” and also to ask the Hall to remove his name from the ballot. I think I understand that frustration, but I’m still glad he’s on the ballot.

   I suspect that there’s going to be a lot of public and behind-the-scenes efforts to right this long-running travesty, and with Miller, now 92 and facing the kind of health issues one supposes you would confront if you lived that long, I’m hoping that decency will prevail.

   Initially, when his name first came on the ballot, it was a question of fairness, but it’s long since evolved to something even more elemental than that.

   It would be indecent to snub his candidacy once again.

Wednesday, December 02, 2009 3:23:09 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Tuesday, December 01, 2009

The bat is not real, but the DiMaggio autograph is ...
Posted by T.S.

   In November of 2004, I can remember walking around the Hunt Auction displays at the Louisville Slugger Museum in Louisville, Ky., and marveling at all the amazing pieces that were slated for that first-ever auction linking the auction house and the famed Kentucky bat makers.

   Bats, bats, everywhere, and the one that caught my eye wasn’t even real, although it certainly looked as though it was. Amid literally dozens and dozens of pricey game-used bats from everybody from Jim Thorpe to Babe Ruth, there stood a remarkable painting showing the barrel of a Joe DiMaggio model that looked so real you were tempted to reach out to feel the grain of the wood.

   Charles De Simone’s 20th-Century Art Collection marks the continuation of a two-decade odyssey by the acclaimed New York artist that has produced more than 100 one-of-a-kind pieces that celebrate the game of baseball and many of its most famous practitioners. I say “many,” rather than all, because of one of many unique aspects to his series: all of the paintings are signed by the players portrayed, always on a single-signed baseball on the canvas that, like everything else, looks so real that you want to reach out and pick it up.

   That would be enough to make any such venture intriguing, but having DiMaggio as the subject is even significant, since for so many years in the 1980s and 1990s he would refuse to sign original artwork.

   I mention all this because there is another such De Simone/DiMaggio treasure in our Collect.com Auction, which closes Thursday night. The DiMaggio piece (Lot No. 403) is one of three De Simone offerings in the sale: Cal Ripken and Mike Schmidt are the other two.

   I know I can be charged with a blatant bit of electioneering here (the metaphorical vote is done in dollars), but the fine-art lineup in the auction is once again extremely strong, with entries from a wide range of talented artists.

   And that DiMaggio piece from 2004 at the Louisville Slugger Auction? It sold for $1,840.

Tuesday, December 01, 2009 3:55:51 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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