Reliving Hall of Fame weekend

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — There was so much that happened during the Hall of Fame induction weekend that it was impossible for a guy to write about all of it. What also makes it difficult for one guy is that my train of thought is to encapsulate each event instead of simply reporting what happens. For instance, when Bert Blyleven talked about his curve ball, well, that was a 1,000-word story and not something to summarize.

Hey, some people think about weird things like that.

Nevertheless, with the benefit of this little site and a lazy day at home, here's the best of what I saw at the Hall of Fame induction weekend...

The point of the trip was to cover Pat Gillick's induction into the Hall. Gillick, of course, was the Phillies' general manager from 2006 to 2008 where he put together the start of the greatest era of the franchise's existence. The Phillies were founded in 1883 and since then have lost more games than any professional sports franchise on earth. That's not hyperbole, that's the truth.

The Phillies' history is crowded with bad moves, bad thinking, bad players and bad losses. The Phillies were the last franchise in the National League to integrate its roster and needed 97 years to win its first championship. Don't think for a second that those two elements do not go together. Almost 10 years to the day after Jackie Robinson broke destroyed segregation in Major League Baseball, the Phillies got a guy named John Irvin Kennedy, who played in five big league games in 1957 and then that was it. Kennedy got to the plate twice, struck out once and scored a run as a pinch runner.

Kennedy stuck around with the Phillies until May 3 before toiling away for the next five years in the team's farm system, mostly in the south, which must have been a lonely existence for him. For the Phillies, though, it wasn't until a trade with Brooklyn brought aboard a shortstop named Chico Fernandez that they fielded a black ballplayer in the regular lineup. Fernandez, however, was from Cuba and it wasn't until Dick Allen came along in 1964 until the Phillies had a significant African-American player.

By 1964, Jackie Robinson had been retired for nearly a decade.

So yeah, the Phillies' history is littered with bad times. Yet since Gillick came around before the 2006 season, the team has been in the playoffs in every season since 2007, been two the World Series twice and have one of the most diverse rosters in the game. Sure, the club may have been headed that way with Ed Wade as the general manager, but it was with Gillick where everything came together.

Besides, it's been said that the Phillies needed Gillick more than he needed them, though it seems as if the Hall of Fame career reached its apex with the 2008 World Series title. Ask Gillick and he'll tell you that without the World Series victory in '08 and he probably doesn't get to Cooperstown.

"Baseball is about talent and skill and ability," Gillick said poignantly during his induction speech. "But at the deepest level it's about love, integrity and respect. Respect for the game, respect for your colleagues, respect for the shared bond that is bigger than any one of us."

Then again, it's not like people try to get to Cooperstown... do they? Don't answer because they do. Billy Wagner, the former closer for the Braves, Red Sox, Mets, Phillies and Astros outwardly aspired to achieve enough to get into the Hall of Fame. It was a numbers race for Wagner and with 422 career saves, he probably fell a bit short for election by the BBWAA. Injuries cost him the end of the 2008 season and most of the 2009 season, but at 38 Wagner came back and saved 37 games for the Braves last year. The fact that Wagner was a terrific quote and always able to fill up a reporter's notebook should not hurt him when the Veterans' Committee gets its shot.

Of course when Lee Smith retired, he had saved more games than any pitcher in history. Despite that, he is headed to his 10th year on the Hall of Fame ballot and just got 45 percent of the vote last time around. If Lee Smith can't break through, what chance does Wagner have? Add in the facts that neither Smith nor Wagner ever got to the World Series and the road to Cooperstown gets even rockier.

Regardless, there were always whispers that Bill Conlin quietly campaigned to win the J.G. Taylor Spink Award, which is the de facto "writers' wing" of the Hall of Fame. Moreover, the Spink Award is the highest honor given to a writer from the BBWAA and the common mistake is to label it an induction into the Hall. It's not, but that's just semantics.

Nevertheless, whatever campaigning tricks he employed worked and Conlin had his day in Cooperstown on Saturday where he delivered the first address at the inaugural Awards Presentation at Doubleday Field. And frankly, the speech was terrific. As Conlin's colleague Rich Hofmann wrote in the Daily News' web site:

Conlin thanked his family and friends, and then the technology cooperated, and then he was off. All of the tools familiar to his half-century of readers in the Daily News were in evidence during his 10-minute speech: needle, scalpel, bludgeon, pie-in-the-face, and Battle of Gettysburg.

He was him.

Rich nailed it. But it is always curious to me that Conlin has always been labeled as a baseball guy for the past couple decades despite the fact he doesn't regularly go to games. Excluding postseason and spring training, where he often is found at the ballpark, I can count on one hand the number of times Conlin was seen at the ballpark for a regular-season game. The way it seems is that it is a badge of honor for the old ball writer to show up at the park four hours before game time to make the scene, yet Conlin gave up on that long ago. I can’t say I blame him, because the waiting around is for the birds. However, Conlin stopped going to the ballpark regularly when he was at age younger than guys like Jayson Stark. If we're talking as pure baseball writers, who adhere to the old-school unwritten laws of the BBWAA, Stark should be the next Spink Award winner.

Besides, if a baseball writer doesn't actually go to the park, he's pretty much just like those bloggers he has been railing against for years and years.

The elite club

As far as speeches go, Conlin was fantastic. Better yet, he had something to tick-off everyone, including Hall of Fame president Jeff Idelson and chairman of the board of directors, Jane Forbes Clark, who dropped their heads as if to say, "Oh no he didn't!" after certain sentences.

Still, induction weekend is about the Hall of Famers and its new members. Actually, to those in the know, Hall of Fame induction weekend is like the debutante party, prom and homecoming dance all rolled into one for Jane Forbes Clark.

Heir to the Singer Sewing Machine fortune and of the famous Dakota building on Central Park West in Manhattan, Clark's grandfather started the Hall of Fame in 1935 when he converted an old gym into a small museum. By 1936, Clark's grandfather had turned the little museum into the capitol of the game of baseball and invited Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Connie Mack and Walter Johnson to his little Shangri-La on the banks of Lake Otsego to be the first Hall of Fame class.

And as the decades have raced on, everyone associated with baseball knows all about the Hall of Fame and Cooperstown. Though named for author James Fennimore Cooper and his family and once the summertime home for Union general Abner Doubleday, the town could very easily be named Clarkstown instead. After all, not only does Clark run the Hall of Fame down to the tiniest detail where she even determines how the museum is decorated, her family owns nearly all of the land around the area with the aim to keep it from ruining the perfect idyllic quality of Cooperstown.

Besides, the Hall of Fame not only is baseball's apex, it's Clark's family showplace. In the meantime, her aim seems to make the Hall of Fame the most elite of the elite secret societies.

In an interview with the Palm Beach Post, Clark said the Hall of Fame more or less defines its members.

"I think it's important for fans to see all of the Hall of Fame members, and in talking to the Hall of Famers it's important to them because the Hall of Fame is a huge part of their life," she said.

"I don't think you've ever interviewed a Hall of Fame member who didn't say how special it was to be a part of that elite fraternity. And that's exactly what it is. I wanted the fraternity to start coming back together and spending time together."

Only 14 of the 65 living members of the fraternity did not return this past weekend. Gary Carter could not make it because he is fighting brain cancer. Poor health also made it difficult for Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Stan Musial to attend. But Henry Aaron, Nolan Ryan and Cal Ripken were noticeably absent. So too was Carl Yastrzemski. Meanwhile, Mike Schmidt did not attend and Steve Carlton has been absent the past couple of years.

But Ryne Sandberg took a few days off from managing the Phillies' top farm team to be there, as did the big brass in the Phillies' front office like Ruben Amaro Jr. David Montgomery, Bill Giles and Dallas Green.

The best since Morgan

Still, the weekend was Ms. Clark's celebration for baseball and her family's museum as well as the new members of the elite fraternity. Gillick, just the fourth general manager to receive the induction, is someone we've written about exclusively for the past week, but haven't had much of a chance to mention the other inductees, Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyleven, both of whom had to wait a bit to get the call. Alomar missed by a handful of votes in his first year of eligibility on the BBWAA ballot last year, while Blyleven got in after 14 years along with a few of those spent actively campaigning for the votes.

I only caught Joe Morgan toward the end of his career and not in his MVP heyday during the 1970s. It was during that stretch where patron saint of the statistical wing of baseball fandom, Bill James, wrote that Morgan was the greatest second baseman ever to play the game.

In the years that followed, however, Roberto Alomar took the mantle from Morgan and ran with it. I missed the brunt of Morgan's career, but I saw every bit of Alomar's and he's easily the best second baseman I have ever seen. The best example of his hitting prowess I remember was during the 1993 World Series where he can Paul Molitor destroyed the Phillies' pitchers. Alomar went 12 for 25 with a couple of doubles, a triple and six RBIs. He had a hit in every game of the series, including four in Game 3 and three in the clinching Game 6.

Sure, Alomar was a career .300 hitter and played the third-most games at second base in history, but what makes him a Hall of Famer in my book was how he ratcheted it up for the playoffs. Frankly speaking, if we're looking at ballplayer and their career as nothing more than a pile of numbers, then maybe the postseason stats should be the most important? That is where the winners are decided.

Anyway, Alomar was the MVP of the 1992 ALCS where his home run off Oakland's Dennis Eckersley in the ninth inning of Game 3 sent it to extra innings and kept the Blue Jays on the path to win their first World Series title.

It's interesting to point out that Alomar received 90 percent of the votes in his second trip through the voting process after falling five votes short in 2010. Think about that for second... Alomar was not a first-ballot Hall of Famer because of five votes. In falling five votes short, Alomar was denied in an election in which five voters sent back blank ballots, while admitted steroid user David Segui, pitchers Pat Hentgen and Kevin Appier, as well as first baseman-turned-broadcaster, Eric Karros, combined for five votes. That’s 10 wasted votes and does not include the nine votes spent on Ellis Burks and Robin Ventura.

All of those guys were nice players, but there isn’t a Hall of Famer in the bunch. If the people who voted for guys like Diego Segui or Kevin Appier don't know that, then maybe they should reevaluate the voting process.

So with those 19 votes that were spent on making a point, silly politics, vendettas, or drunken dares, very easily could have been spread out so that worthy candidates like Alomar. Better yet, maybe Blyleven gets in with Andre Dawson in 2010 instead of 2011. Maybe then Gillick has the stage to himself this year or maybe a player like Barry Larkin, Jack Morris, Lee Smith, Jeff Bagwell or Tim Raines breaks through?

Apparently, what cost Alomar those five votes was the unfortunate incident where he spit on umpire John Hirschbeck during an argument at the end of the 1997 regular season. The voting writers held this mistake against Alomar despite the fact that Hirschbeck and Alomar have buried the hatchet and become friends. This protest vote was made despite the fact that Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Cap Anson, and Juan Marichal are Hall of Famers. Among those names are men who attacked a crippled fan, punched an umpire, beat an opponent on the head with a bat, and helped foster nearly a half-century of institutional racism and segregation.

Some say without Cap Anson, baseball never would have been a sport that denied the inclusion of some because of the color of their skin.

But, you know, Alomar spit at a guy...

Alomar is in now, though, and from the looks of it, Hall of Famers are not differentiated by the amount of vote they get. Shoot, Joe DiMaggio didn't even get elected to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot. Yeah, try and figure that one out.

Nevertheless, the neat part about Alomar's induction is that he is just the third player from Puerto Rico to get in. There is Alomar, Orlando Cepeda and the great Roberto Clemente, and that's it. Alomar is also the first Blue Jays player to be elected so that brought out tons of fans from Canada and Puerto Rico for Alomar.

It also brought out his family, including Sandy Sr., a former player and coach with the Angels, Braves, Yankees, Rangers and Indians. Sandy Sr. was a teammate with Blyleven on the 1977 Texas Rangers and faced both Alomar brothers. Roberto went 1 for 2 with a triple against his Hall of Fame partner, while Sandy Jr. went 3 for 7 with two doubles. Blyleven did strike him out once, though.

Sandy Jr. introduced his brother and told a story about when as minor leaguers in the Padres' chain, the pair shared an apartment with just one bed. Sandy Jr. says the rule was the guy who had the better game got to sleep on the bed and the other guy slept on the couch.

"I slept on the couch all season," Sandy Jr. deadpanned. "And I hit .300!"

Blyleven finally made it

As for Blyleven, the long trip to the Hall of Fame seemed to be complete when he got to sit on a rocking chair next to his mother on the porch at the Otesaga Hotel that overlooked Lake Otsego. That was the pure, genuine moment that Blyleven could say to himself, "I made it."

“I did it yesterday. My mother Jennie, she's 85 years old, came in from California, so that's a long way for her to come. My sisters, my brother, my kids, we are all on that porch, we are chasing people away, but we got the rockers and we got my mother out front and we kind of reminisced a little bit about Pops, my dad, but mainly just enjoyed the company,” Blyleven said on Saturday. “And what I do, the broadcasting and also live in Florida, I don't see my family that much, so it was a nice reunion. And that's part of what this ceremony is all about for me, not only having the opportunity to have my mother here witness me go into the Hall of Fame, but also my family and friends.”

Blyleven was one of the more controversial inductees over the past few years. He fell two votes short in 2010 only to make it by 28 votes this time around. That’s a far cry from 17.5 percent Blyleven received in his first time on the ballot in 1998. In his second year his votes tally actually dropped more than three percent before his candidacy began to pick up steam about five years ago.

Truth is, I’ve gone back and forth on Blyleven’s Hall of Fame worthiness. In fact, I’ve been changing my mind about him all week, even while watching him give his induction speech. The drawback I had was if one has to mull over a players’ Hall of Fame-ness, then maybe he’s not a Hall of Famer. The answer should be, “yes” or “no,” immediately.

A Hall of Famer is a Hall of Famer, right?

Ah, but baseball is much more complicated than that. Sure, Blyleven had just a 287-250 record, won 20 games once and never finished higher than third in the Cy Young balloting. He also only went to the All-Star Game twice and gave up a major league-record 50 home runs in a season.

He was never a dominant pitcher.

Fair enough. But Blyleven was always there. He threw more than 270 innings eight times, with more than 290 innings three times. Once, Blyleven threw 325 innings during a season where he completed 25 of his 40 starts. Moreover, Blyleven was the staff ace on two different World Series champions—the 1979 Pirates and 1987 Twins. His biggest outing might have been in Game 5 of the ’79 series when down 1-0 in the sixth inning and down 3 games to 1, Blyleven came on in relief on three-days rest and pitched four innings of shutout ball.

From there, the Pirates won games 6 and 7 to stun the Orioles.

No, Blyleven’s stats aren’t sexy, but there is something to be said for a guy who was guaranteed for a minimum of seven innings for 22 years.

And of course he had that curveball, too. Yes, some say Blyleven’s curve, one he learned as a kid in Southern California from watching Sandy Koufax, was the best ever to be thrown. It was one of the 12-to-6 types that started out at the hitters’ neck and ended at his ankles. Hitters didn’t just bail out on it, they surrendered.

He called it a “drop,” though and made sure to listen in on the radio when Vin Scully called Koufax’s games.

“I grew up listening to Vince Scully describe Sandy Koufax’s drop,” Blyleven said. “Of course they had that 15-inch mound back in the '60s when I grew up in southern California. I remember the only Dodger game I ever went to was Sandy Koufax against Juan Marichal, one nothing. I sat up in the nose bleed section. I was just getting into baseball. I had to be 10 or 11-years old.  And I recall the foul pole was in my vision of the mound at Dodger Stadium and I had to lean on my left almost the whole ball game. And Sandy, we were sitting down the left-hand line, Sandy's back was to me, but Juan Marichal, we saw the high leg kick, which is unbelievable what he was able to do and then Koufax—I could almost picture it there the drop that, the mound, the tilt they had on that mound was incredible and I remember that and listening to Vin Scully describe his curveball or his drop, that's basically how I learned mine. I visualized what he did and then just on a block wall or playing with my friends, I picked up the curveball.” 

Maybe Blyleven is the Hall of Famer for those with specific talents. He ate up innings and had a rare pitch. His talent was not as all-encompassing like Alomar’s was, but it takes all kinds in baseball. That’s why Tommy John ought to be in the Hall of Fame and Jim Kaat, too, says Blyleven.

Why not? It takes all kinds.

Hall of Fame weekend: Greed is good

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — The fellows in the Cooperstown Rotary Club are pretty crafty. Knowing that the induction weekend is the largest collection of Hall of Famers in one spot anywhere under the sun, the Rotarians have commemorative miniature baseball bats made with each inductee’s superlatives.

At $5 to $7 a pop, it’s a pretty nice bit of cash to be made in a weekend.

But also understanding the mind of the collector, the guys in the Cooperstown Rotary know that there probably won’t be much of a market for certain keepsake bats. For instance, there were piles of Jim Bunning bats from when the former Phillies and Tigers pitcher was inducted in 1996. There were plenty of Eddie Murray bats too.

Could it be because Bunning has created a reputation for being a creep?

However, don’t go looking for a keepsake bat with umpire Doug Harvey’s name on it. There was a run on those last year when Harvey’s family and friends bought them all up.

“We made 50 of them for Doug Harvey and when they walked up and down Main Street and found out there wasn’t anything with his name on it, they snapped them all up,” a Rotarian said.

So thinking there would be a repeat of the run on Harvey mementoes, they made a limited number of Pat Gillick bats, who will be inducted to the Hall of Fame on Sunday afternoon along with Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyleven. After all, Gillick is kind of like an umpire in that he wasn’t known as a player. Plus, there are nine umpires enshrined in the gallery at the Hall of Fame and Gillick will be just the fourth general manager. Better yet, when Nolan Ryan was inducted in 1999, it took 12 years to sell all 300 bats.

In that case, there is no sense in flooding the market with items that might not sell.

Actually, just 50 bats for Gillick might not be enough. That’s especially so when noting that Alomar and Gillick are the first two members of the Toronto Blue Jays to be enshrined here in Cooperstown, and the media and fans contingent from Canada is pretty strong this weekend.

There are so many Canadians in Cooperstown for the induction ceremonies that Gillick had trouble going on a routine walk around town.

“I was out yesterday for a while in the street and it took me about an hour and a half to get back,” Gillick said during Saturday’s Hall of Fame press conference with Blyleven and Alomar.

Undoubtedly, Gillick was hit up for a few autograph requests. Truth is, Main Street in Cooperstown during Hall of Fame weekend looked like a wild bazaar where autograph and memorabilia collectors and dealers trolled the street looking to collect certain signatures on specific pieces. With 51 of the 65 living Hall of Famers in Cooperstown for the weekend, it was as if Main Street was a smuggler’s paradise.

Two men amidst the fray on Saturday afternoon carried a matted poster containing the signatures of 19 of the 20 living members of the 3,000 hit club. The only autograph missing?

Derek Jeter.

Strangely, this piece of memorabilia wasn’t in the museum on display. Instead, it was as if it were Main Street had become overrun with the money changers in the temple from the New Testament. Up and down the street high-priced baseball cards and elaborate, one-of-a-kind signatures were presented for sale and it made one baseball fan wonder…

What is the point of the induction weekend? Were folks in town to celebrate the national pastime or to make a buck off it.

Certainly that idyllic notion of fathers and sons talking about baseball and pouring over memories, memorabilia and exhibits in the Hall of Fame, had been replaced with the quest for collections. But not just any collectible, but instead, collections seen as pseudo-antiques in the form of pricey baseball memorabilia. Yes, it was there, but you had to really go looking for it.

Still, don’t think for a moment the Hall of Famers were being exploited. Oh no. During a two-block stroll down Main Street on Saturday afternoon, one could find most of the Hall of Famers sitting at long tables selling autographs in front of the local shops. On the north side of the street were Goose Gossage, Jim Bunning, Yogi Berra, Lou Brock, Frank Robinson and Gaylord Perry. Over on the other side of the street were Juan Marichal, Andre Dawson, Johnny Bench and the gate crasher, Pete Rose.

Pete Rose’s autograph in Cooperstown could be yours for $60 to $75. Or, one could fly to Las Vegas and go to gift shops in Caesar’s Palace and get it from Pete for free.

No, Hall of Fame weekend isn’t about the cozy images depicted in “Field of Dreams.” It’s more like “Wall Street,” only no one had to be reminded of the catch phrase, “Greed is good.” They already knew.

Born at the wrong time

Voting shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character and contribution to the team(s) on which the player played.

There is something quaint about the annual Baseball Hall of Fame announcement. It’s almost like a pureness or something basic about it that all fans (and media types) should love, and that’s the fact that at some point it comes back to the game.

As Harry Kalas once told me, “It’s such a beautiful game,” and he was never more correct about anything in his life. Not to get all NPR-ish/baseball-as-a-metaphor-for-the-intrinsic-universe on you, but the beauty of it is what keep us rapt for 12 months of the year, year after year. Of course part of that is the simple joy of talking about the game and that’s what happened when the Baseball Writers Association of America announced that it had elected Bert Blyleven and Roberto Alomar to the Hall of Fame.

For the briefest of moments it was all about baseball again. Blyleven, the long-suffering righty with an otherworldly curveball and World Series rings from the Pirates and Twins, finally got the votes needed after falling five short in 2010. It was the 14^th year Blyleven had been on the ballot with just one more chance remaining. Strangely enough, Blyleven got more than the mandatory 75 percent of the votes even though he got no better than 29 percent in his first six years on the ballot.

Just how does a guy go from drawing 17 percent of the vote in his first year of eligibility where he finished one spot behind Dave Parker (eliminated from the ballot after 15 years), to election to the Hall of Fame? Perhaps Blyleven is the perfect example of a player whose abilities got better and better the further he got from his playing days.

“I thank the [BBWAA] for, I’m going to say, finally getting it right,” Blyleven quipped during a conference call on Wednesday afternoon.

Alomar, meanwhile, was the best second baseman of his generation. He could hit for power, average and was the Gold Glove winner every year from 1991 to 2001 save for 1997. He went to 12 All-Star Games where he started in nine of them and, most importantly, his teams won. Alomar’s teams went to the layoffs seven times and with the Blue Jays in 1992 and 1993 he won the World Series.

Phillies fans will remember Alomar getting 12 hits in the ’93 series with a .480 batting average and six RBIs. He also is linked to the Phillies through newly elected Hall of Famer Pat Gillick, whose shrewdest move might have been the trade with the Padres before the 1991 season in which the Blue Jays got Alomar and Joe Carter for Tony Fernandez and Fred McGriff. Better yet, that trade might be the last true blockbuster considering the four players combined for 25 All-Star Game selections, eight World Series appearances and six rings.

Somehow, Gillick’s maneuver resulted in back-to-back World Series titles for Toronto and induction into the Hall of Fame in 2011.

But just as it is in every year after the votes are counted, the BBWAA vote always proves to be the catalyst to some sort of controversy. Often the voting gives more questions than answers as well as the most perplexing question in finding a logical reason why the trustees of the museum in Cooperstown only allow certain folks to vote at all.[1]

Beyond the voting bloc, which is a facet of this that no bit of outrage or reason will ever sway, it’s the results that resonates the most. And as that pertains to the 2011 Hall of Fame class, the story wasn’t about Blyleven or Alomar and how they rate against the all-time greats. Far from it. Instead, Wednesday’s announcement was about Jeff Bagwell, Rafael Palmeiro and every single person that played Major League Baseball from the mid-1980s until the end of the past decade.

Based on the voting the message was, “We don’t believe you.”

Sure, it’s easy to understand why so many voters failed to vote for Palmeiro even though he is one of four players in history to get 3,000 hits and 500 homers, just as it’s easy to get why Kevin Brown will no longer be on the ballot despite seasons of dominant pitching. Palmeiro tested positive in 2006 and served a suspension for supposed performance-enhancing drug use and Brown was named in the Mitchell Report.

For the taint to be removed from their careers, nothing short of an all-out campaign will save Palmeiro and Brown as well as guys like Mark McGwire.

“Guys cheated. They cheated themselves and their teammates. The game of baseball is to be played clean,” the newly elected Blyleven said during the conference call.

The tough part to reconcile is guilt by association and how Jeff Bagwell (41 percent of the vote) and Larry Walker (20 percent) could rate so poorly amongst the voters despite careers that (statistically speaking) are more than worthy. Neither player was ever linked to illicit drug use, they never tested positive nor did their names appear in the Mitchell Report. Of course most drug users don’t test positive so that proves nothing, but it seems like the crime here is the players’ date of birth.

Obviously both players produced some incredible statistics, especially Bagwell. He is the only first baseman in history to hit 30 homers and steal 30 bases in a season (he did it twice) and he hit 39 or more homers in six straight seasons, which is more than Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle and is more than Mike Schmidt and Reggie Jackson, combined. Clearly the game is different in the modern day than it was when Mays, Mantle, Schmidt and Jackson played (smaller ballparks, watered down competition, etc.), but that’s not Bagwell’s fault and it’s not Walker’s fault, either.

Still, to me, the stats are only the extra sweetness to a delicious career. The biggest factor for me isn’t so much the stardom Bagwell and Walker had with baseball fans as it is the cachet they carried amongst their peers. Billy Wagner told me about Bagwell carries incredible sway in the clubhouse and his praises or chides with his teammates was substantial. According to Wagner, Bagwell was the best teammate he ever had. Moreover if respect from his peers counted for votes, then Bagwell and Walker would join Blyleven and Alomar as the newly elected Hall of Famers.

But we just don’t know about those guys, do we? Bagwell is left doing silly interviews where he has to justify his career… his life…  because he was once teammates with admitted steroid users Ken Caminiti and Jason Grimsley during the era where dabbling in such things was seemingly the norm.

Look, I talked to several folks who did not vote for Bagwell or Walker and they had solid, well-thought out and objective reasons for filling out their ballots a certain way. If someone believes Bagwell (or anyone else) is not a Hall of Famer and can back it up with solid analysis, it’s difficult to see an error in a personal opinion. The thing is I don’t think most folks looked at that way. My read is that Bagwell is guilty because everyone else is guilty.

In a story he did for ESPN with the great Jerry Crasnick, Bagwell laid it all out there with this winning, money quote:

“Here's my whole thing when people ask me about the Hall of Fame: Would I be honored to death to be in the Hall of Fame? Of course I would. But it doesn't consume me at all. I loved every single part of what I did as a baseball player. But I've got my kids, I've got my family, and getting in the Hall of Fame isn't going to affect my life one way or the other. And it won't make me feel any better about my career.

“I'm so sick and tired of all the steroids crap, it's messed up my whole thinking on the subject. I hate to even use this word, but it's become almost like a 'buzz kill' for me.

“So much has gone on in the last eight or nine years, it's kind of taken some of the valor off it for me. If I ever do get to the Hall of Fame and there are 40 guys sitting behind me thinking, ‘He took steroids,’ then it's not even worth it to me. I don't know if that sounds stupid. But it's how I feel in a nutshell.'”

Regardless, I’m past the black-and-white view of baseball history. There is no sugar-coating things from Hall of Famers like Cap Anson and Ty Cobb, which were far worse crimes than those who used performance-enhancing drugs or wagered on games. Just because something is the norm doesn’t mean it is correct and in the case of Anson and Cobb, institutional racism and violence is a blight from which baseball will never recover.

But if we’re just arguing about statistics then that’s just dumb. After all, who really knows what they mean any more and anyone who says they have a firm grasp of what the so-called steroid era means and its implications of it is way smarter than me. It could be that the era of baseball we witnessed for the past decade or two is something that needs to be set aside and labeled the way record keepers did with the numbers produced before the year 1900 and then the “modern era” from 1900 to approximately 1990.

Perhaps we just watched the “post-modern era” come to a close.

How do we measure the players from the souped-up/watered-down era? That’s a tough one. If you have an answer there are some folks in Cooperstown, N.Y. who would like a word.  

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[1] The thought here is that baseball should copy the model of football and create voting committees from all sorts of fields. Currently, the BBWAA vote is given to members with 10 consecutive years of service. Once a member has his 10 years, he has a vote forever. It doesn’t matter whether he works in the media or even bothers to watch baseball—10 years with a card is all it takes. Obviously this is a silly criteria and it would probably serve the folks in Cooperstown to devise a voting committee with much more diversity. At least that way agendas and out-of-the-loop retirees won’t have an impact on the voting.

What the Hall: It's never easy

It’s never easy to vote. Sure, the actual process is easy—just put a check mark next to your guy, hope they count it and that’s about it. Easy as that.

However, if your brain is turned on, choosing the right person to vote for is difficult. Forget about politics where a vote determines employment [1], look at something like the baseball Hall of Fame. Simply by voting a person’s life work or legacy is defined and categorized. Folks unfamiliar with the sport will immediately attach some value to a Hall-of-Famer even if they have no clue what the person did to earn the honor.

So yeah, voting is tough. In fact, for those members of the Baseball Writers Association of America who are qualified to vote for the Hall of Fame, this year’s ballot might be the most difficult in recent memory. But in a strange little twist, the difficulty will come not from voting players in, but deciding which players to keep out.

Oh yes, the so-called Steroid Era is not over yet. Call this part of it the aftershocks following an earthquake.

What happens now that Jeff Bagwell, Rafael Palmeiro, Juan Gonzalez and Larry Walker are finally eligible? After all, there are four MVP Awards, two Major League Player of the Year awards and a Rookie of the Year divvied up amongst that group. With credentials like that it would appear that a large Hall of Fame class will make the trip to Cooperstown this August. The thing is, there isn’t a slam dunk in the bunch.

Looking at the numbers on the stat sheet paints a different picture. Palmeiro, of course, is one of a handful of players to collect 3,000 hits and 500 homers. The other members of that club—Henry Aaron, Willie Mays and Eddie Murray—are enshrined. The difference, though, is that Aaron, Mays and Murray never tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs after getting that 3,000^th hit, nor did they test positive shortly after wagging their fingers at Congress to scold anyone from thinking he would ever take a performance-enhancer.

Ironically, Palmeiro was the spokesman for Viagra during the latter years of his career.

Gonzalez was the AL MVP in 1996 and 1998 where he slugged his 300^th career homer before his 28^th birthday and became the first player in 63 years to reach 100 RBIs before the All-Star Break. Gonzalez had all the makings of a once-in-a-lifetime career until he reached his 30s and his body seemed to fall apart. Back injuries led to an end that saw Gonzalez bounce from organization to organization before finishing with the Long Island Ducks of the independent Atlantic League.

Certainly being named in the Mitchell Report or in Jose Canseco’s tell-all steroid book hasn’t helped Gonzalez’s case much, either.

Bagwell, on the other hand, is the guy no one knows what to do with. More than the gaudy numbers he produced, Bagwell was one of the biggest stars of the 1990s, and though the stats certainly matter, it was something Billy Wagner told me about Bagwell carries much more weight. According to Wagner, Bagwell was the best teammate he ever had. Moreover if respect from his peers counted for votes, then Bagwell is a landslide winner.

We just don’t know about the guy. Sure, he never tested positive nor did he ever show up in the Mitchell Report. But Bagwell seems to be guilty by association for having played with admitted steroid users Ken Caminiti and Jason Grimsley during the era where dabbling in such things was seemingly the norm.

Besides, Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds never tested positive during their careers, either, and the consensus is that the record-breaking statistics those guys piled up are tainted. The fact that McGwire hit 583 homers yet never got more than 23 percent of the votes in the BBWAA balloting explains what the electorate thinks of his records.

So is Larry Walker a first ballot Hall of Famer and/or the only guy voted in this year? Is Walker good enough to be considered in such a lofty group and did anyone think he would have a plaque in Cooperstown when he’d come to the Vet to play against the Phillies with the Expos?

If those other guys are guilty of falling prey to the silently accepted norms of the game, does Walker get penalized for playing in Colorado and the performance-enhancing altitude?

Probably not. After all, someone has to get in. Given that only Andre Dawson was voted in last year while Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyleven fell less than five votes short, Walker could be the lone first-ballot inductee alongside a few others.

Then again, last year the MLB Network set up cameras at Alomar’s home because they were sure he was getting the call. Some suggested that Alomar fell short because of the unfortunate incident where he spit on umpire John Hirschbeck during a disputed call late in the 1997 season. The theory was that some writers held the mistake against Alomar despite the fact that he and Hirschbeck have buried the hatchet and become friends. This protest vote was made despite the fact that Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Cap Anson, and Juan Marichal are Hall of Famers. Among those names are men who attacked a crippled fan, punched an umpire, beat an opponent on the head with a bat, and helped foster nearly a half-century of institutional racism.

Some say without Cap Anson, baseball never would have been a sport that denied the inclusion of some because of the color of their skin.

But, you know, Alomar spit at a guy...

Nice Hall of Fame you have there, baseball. Apparently spitters, steroid users and gamblers need not apply. But for the violent types and the racists, sure, come on in.

Nevertheless, here’s one man’s ballot for the 2011 class of the Hall of Fame:

• Larry Walker
• Roberto Alomar
• Bert Blyleven
• Tim Raines
• Jack Morris
• Fred McGriff
• Barry Larkin
• Edgar Martinez
• Lee Smith

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[1] More than ever it seems as if the only folks who get into the politics business do so because they can’t keep a job doing anything else. Check it out sometime… would you hire most politicians to do a job at your home? Why is it then we give those dregs the keys to everything?

Spitting mad

There’s an old-timey saying that I’m sure you heard your grandmother or great grandmother say in a fit of frustration.

“I’m so angry I could spit!”

When you give it some thought it makes a lot of sense. Most of the time anger provokes violence, but some believe violence is the last refuge of a weak mind. So if a person cannot control themselves, yet don’t want to resort to violence, the only recourse is the most disgusting thing a person can think of.

Here comes the loogie!

I’ve been in this position before. The setting was a fifth-grade kickball game in the schoolyard at James Buchanan Elementary, where our class was in a tight game against the other fifth-grade class. But as the action got heated and recess began to wind down, the sixth graders poured out of a side door and onto the macadam. Inevitably, since they were the oldest and therefore “kings” of Buchanan Elementary, they really didn’t care that we had an intense kickball game going and strutted right through the infield en masse.

“Get off the field!”

That’s where it started and it went quickly downhill from there. One thing led to another and I was shouting down the third base line at Megan O’Brien, who was wearing a lovely cable-knit sweater (at least that’s the way I put it out there for the sake of the story). So with the intensity of the game superseded by the intensity and frustration of the argument with the sixth graders, cooler heads did not prevail.

Having grown up with a sister not too much younger than me, I learned very early on that a man never, ever hits a girl. Ever. We learn hard lessons when we’re 4-years-old and hitting girls is the one that lasts the longest…

That and lifting the seat.

Remembering an incident when I was 4 where an argument over the crayons led to a punch in the nose for my sister, I knew better. However, I wanted to get Megan and her sixth-grade classmates off the diamond so we could finish the game before the recess bell rang and we had to go inside. Instead of taking a poke at her, I gathered up the saliva in my mouth and let it fly.

Not smart.

The intention, believe it or not, was to fire off a warning shot—you know, brush ‘em back a bit so we could finish the game. The problem was my aim was a little too true and the next thing I knew Megan was running and screaming toward the recess monitor with the evidence on the forearm of her nice, cable-knit sweater.

That was the end of the school day for me.

It’s interesting how people react to spitting and specifically, spitting on people, places or things. In fact, I’ll wager that spitting on a person is worse than a punch in the nose based on reactions. Truth is, it’s a valid argument that because Roberto Alomar spit on umpire John Hirschbeck during an argument in the 1997 baseball season, he was not elected to the Hall of Fame on Wednesday.

It doesn’t matter that Alomar and Hirschbeck have buried the hatchet, but it does matter that two legacies are somewhat defined by a single incident. Alomar very well may have been the best second baseman of his generation, but he spit on an umpire during an argument and that swayed a handful of voters from validating his career.

Oh yes, it was the loogie heard ‘round the world.

Remember when Charles Barkley spit at a heckler in New Jersey, but hit a little girl instead? Of course you do. Every time Sir Chuck gets arrested or does anything controversial and they recount past slip-ups, the spitting incident always gets mentioned and is usually placed high on the list of the worst things he ever did.

Charles Barkley has been arrested for throwing a man through a plate-glass window in Florida, punching a man in Milwaukee, and for a DUI charge in Arizona. HE ALSO SPIT ON A LITTLE GIRL!

For that incident in New Jersey during the 1991 season, Barkley was suspended and fined $10,000. He also bought season tickets for the girl and her family and went on to forge a friendship with them. However, when his career was over it was that one little gob of saliva that was the blemish on his record he most regretted.

“I was fairly controversial, I guess, but I regret only one thing—the spitting incident,” Barkley said. “But you know what? It taught me a valuable lesson. It taught me that I was getting way too intense during the game. It let me know I wanted to win way too bad. I had to calm down. I wanted to win at all costs. Instead of playing the game the right way and respecting the game, I only thought about winning.”

Oh yes, the loogie can force one to look inward.

Apparently that’s what happened when Dave Spadaro, the editor of the Eagles’ web site, decided it would be a neat and compelling bit of commentary to walk onto the middle of Cowboys Stadium and drop not one, but two wet ones on the iconic logo star. Based on the video it seemed to a moment where the spitter was striking some sort of defiant stand…

You know, like that guy who stood in front of the tanks in Tiananmen Square.

Maybe if Spadaro had stood in front of a star-logoed tank or handcuffed himself to the goal posts while being beaten by men dressed in Cowboys’ garb, perhaps there would be more sympathy toward his allegiances. Instead, he issued a press release/apology on the team’s official site.

Obviously he misread the way people feel about the act of spitting and what it represents. Sure, a lot of people understood the sentiment of spitting on that blue star—especially after the Eagles were dominated by the Cowboys and had to return for a rematch in the playoffs this Saturday. But spitting? Really? Is he in the fifth grade?

Take a look:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZDUYDfFGMI&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Clearly Spadaro was attempting to rally the home team against the hated Cowboys. Why else would a person drop gooey spit on an inanimate symbol of… well, the 50-yard line? But even in this case the clownish act was greeted with head-scratching from the Eagles.

“Who spit on what?” running back Leonard Weaver said with a shrug following Thursday afternoon’s practice. “

So now, the dude representing a certain segment of the fans by standing on the star and coughing one up with a video cam in hand, did not exactly sound the bugle to charge for the ballplayers.

“I didn't even know he did it,” Weaver said. “That has nothing to do with us as a team.”

Let’s just hope he didn’t spit onto the field with a head cold.

Rocking the vote, part II

For a random hump day during the first week of January, there was quite a bit of interesting stories out there today. The Gilbert Arenas suspension is the big nation news since it very well could turn out to be the richest loss from a suspension and/or voided contract in sports history.

Actually, I don’t know if that’s a fact, but I seriously doubt any player has ever had a contract as large as the one Arenas has, canceled. Including the remainder of this season, Arenas is owed approximately $88.25 million until the end of 2014.

For Arenas sake let’s hope that he has some money in the bank because it sounds like he’s going to need it.

We’ll dive back into the Arenas mess later. For now the fact that just one player was elected into the baseball Hall of Fame casts even more bad pub on a broken system in which the BBWAA presides. Those guys could mess up a one-car parade.

There, I said it.

Regardless, it seems as if the biggest issues regarding Hall of Fame election are handing out the label of “first-ballot” Hall of Famer, which underscores certain biases members of the BBWAA possess. As I wrote earlier, there has never been a unanimous election to the Hall. In fact, the highest percentage of the vote ever received is 98.8 percent for Nolan Ryan in 1999 and Tom Seaver in 1992. That’s as close as anyone (including Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Connie Mack, etc.) has ever come to getting 100 percent.

The truth is some guys don’t get votes because of negligence. For instance, last year a guy named Corky Simpson in Arizona left Rickey Henderson off his ballot because… well, who knows why. However, Corky had no trouble voting for Matt Williams. Corky wrote about how he did not include Mark McGwire because of questions regarding steroids, but still voted for Williams despite his inclusion on the Mitchell Report and the investigation into steroid use in baseball.

Chances are Corky got a few good quotes from Williams when he made the trip to the ballpark, which, sadly, matters.

There is some sort of cachet to being a first-ballot Hall of Famer not amongst those enshrined, but by the writers that vote. Frankly, that’s just stupid. How can a guy not be Hall-of-Fame worthy one year, but good enough the next?

A Hall of Famer is a Hall of Famer is a Hall of Famer. You mean to say Joe DiMaggio, the proclaimed “greatest living ballplayer,” (when he was living, of course) was less of a Hall of Famer because he did not get in on the first ballot?

Either way, Andre Dawson deserved to have some company when he is inducted to the Hall of Fame next summer. In his ninth time on the ballot, Dawson cleared the needed 75 percent of the vote by just a handful. Meanwhile, Roberto Alomar, the best second baseman I’ve ever seen and the best in the Majors since Joe Morgan, came five votes away from getting in on the first ballot. In fact, so sure that Alomar would be elected, the MLB Network set up a camera and sent a production crew to the Alomar homestead to record his reaction when the inevitable good news came.

It never came.

In falling five votes short, Alomar was denied in an election in which five voters sent back blank ballots while admitted steroid user David Segui, pitchers Pat Hentgen and Kevin Appier, as well as first baseman-turned-broadcaster, Eric Karros, combined for five votes. That’s 10 wasted votes and does not include the nine votes spent on Ellis Burks and Robin Ventura.

All of those guys were nice players, but there isn’t a Hall of Famer in the bunch and if the people who voted for them don’t know that, they should not vote.

So with those 19 votes that were spent on making a point, silly politics, vendettas, or drunken dares, very easily could have been spread out so that worthy candidates like Alomar and Bert Blyleven could join Dawson.

Apparently there were several instances where the unfortunate incident where Alomar spit on umpire John Hirschbeck. Writers are holding this mistake against Alomar despite the fact that Hirschbeck and Alomar have buried the hatchet and become friends. This protest vote was made despite the fact that Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Cap Anson, and Juan Marichal are Hall of Famers. Among those names are men who attacked a crippled fan, punched an umpire, beat an opponent on the head with a bat, and helped foster nearly a half-century of institutional racism.

Some say without Cap Anson, baseball never would have been a sport that denied the inclusion of some because of the color of their skin.

But, you know, Alomar spit at a guy...

Nice Hall of Fame you have there, baseball.

Oh, but we’ll go through all this again next year. It will be the same ridiculous song and dance only with a few new names on the list like Jeff Bagwell and Larry Walker, both of whom are worthy.

So here’s my 2010 list:

• Jeff Bagwell
• Larry Walker
• Roberto Alomar
• Bert Blyleven
• Tim Raines
• Jack Morris
• Fred McGriff
• Barry Larkin
• Edgar Martinez
• Lee Smith

Certainly the numbers matter, but for me something Billy Wagner told me about Bagwell carries much more weight—Bagwell was the best teammate Wagner ever had, he said. Just like with Dawson, the respect Bagwell’s peers had for him matter much more than the results celebrated from an anachronistic organization.