Karen Crouse talks to Mark McGwire, who coached four players this winter.

"I very rarely talked about my swing when I played," McGwire said. "Really, not that many people asked. It's really interesting to try to talk about it with hitters. It was so enlightening to work with the guys over the winter and see how their minds work. It was neat when you can see the light bulb go off."

McGwire spent the winter on call, volunteering his time and expertise to four players from his former teams, the Oakland Athletics and the St. Louis Cardinals. He was reconnecting with a game he clearly loves. On the fields at the University of California at Irvine, he condensed the players' swings, infused them with his knowledge and enthusiasm, and strengthened their minds, which he described as the batters' most powerful and least developed muscle.

One thing people forget when it comes to steroids is that you still need a good swing to hit the ball. McGwire had the swing and put the muscle behind it.

Earlier I hypothesised an answer to Joe Posnanski's question as to why many more people who played in 1930 made the Hall of Fame versus the people who played in 1980. I suggested it had something to do with a shrinking standard deviation. Here's the data to back up my claim. I looked at all players with 400 AB in a season over a ten year span. From 1926 to 1935, there were 966 player seasons that qualified. From 1976 to 1985, there were 1472 such seasons. The results:

Stat	1930	1980
Data Mean	.300	.274
Standard Deviation	.033	.027
BA, 1 SD Above Mean	.333	.301

Since .300 was and is our gold standard for batting average, it was a lot easier to look good in the era centered on 1930 than 1980. Basically, the voters didn't adjust for the higher offensive era very well.

Joe Posnanski wonders why there are more Hall of Famers who played in 1930 than played in 1980:

OK, that makes 33 everyday Hall of Famers from 1930 and only 16 from 1980. Half. Think about how amazing that is for a moment -- we're supposed to accept that there were twice as many Hall of Famers in 1930, even though there were significantly fewer teams, even though black players did not play, even though baseball players in 1980 had 50 years of evolution in order to get better. It's ludicrous. And more pitchers from 1930 than 1980 too? Really?

Joe goes on to note that if you throw out veteran committee choices, there are still more players from 1930 than 1980. Let me add one explanation. The standard deviation of talent early in baseball was higher. In other words, it was easier to stand out from the crowd. As baseball improved over the decades, the difference between the best players and the average players went down. In other words, you looked a lot better in 1930 if you were one standard deviation above the mean than if you played today.

Here's a hypothetical. Take an early year in which the mean batting average was .260 and a recent year when the mean batting average was .260. In that early year, the S.D. might be 20 points, so someone who hit .300 was two standard deviations above the mean. In the later year, the S.D. might be 10 points, putting someone with a .300 BA four standard deviations above the mean. Over the years, however, a .300 BA remains the standard for excellence; we treat a .300 BA the same way someone in the 1930s did, despite it being tougher to accomplish now. Someone who hits .280 in this scenario is just as good as the .300 hitter from an earlier time, but no one is going to put him in the Hall of Fame.

I'll try to put together actual numbers later.

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Three Days of Cryin' interviews Rick Burleson. Rick was the first round pick for my 1979 Strat-o-Matic team, the Pinto Hatchbacks.

Blog Talk Radio is hosting a Babe Ruth birthday bash Friday.

Henry Aaron turns 75 today. I'm old enough to remember when Hank was only old in terms of baseball players. :-)

He was very young once, and one of the first black men to play in the Sally League. He had to be as thick skinned as Jackie Robinson. From Brushing Back Jim Crow: The Integration of Minor-League Baseball in the American South:

We were not there to start anything. We were there just to play baseball. I don't think anyone had to remind us of what we were there for. There were a lot of things, when Horace Garner, Felix and myself played in the South Atlantic Leauge, that happened just because we won a ball game. You had people that were hanging around. Crowds that were hanging around. That just meant one thing. They were hanging around to stir up something. People said things to us, calling us names from the stands, but we ignored it, as long as they don't touch you or put their hands on you, then you have no recourse. Just let them say what they want to say.

Happy birthday, Hank, and many happy returns!

It's Jackie Robinson's 90th birthday anniversary.

Larry Stone starts beating the drum for Edgar Martinez's Hall of Fame election:

Martinez's credentials, qualitatively superb but lacking in the quantity department, are guaranteed to spur a spirited debate over his worthiness. Throw in the designated-hitter factor, and the Edgar Question shapes up as one of the bigger conundrums in recent years.

Martinez has my unequivocal support, but I'm afraid he faces a steep uphill battle to win over the necessary 75 percent of my BBWAA brethren.

The Martinez candidacy should engender a debate similar to the one about closers. Does a player with a limited role deserve to make the Hall of Fame. For closers, that answer is yes, but at a much higher level than starters or position players.

I'm in favor of Martinez entering the Hall. Martinez is by far the best designated hitter in the history of the game. Baseball created this position to make the game more popular. Ignoring the contributions of these players seems somehow unfair. A DH needs to be extra special to reach the Hall of Fame, and Edgar fits that bill.

If there were no DH, I believe Edgar would have thrived in the majors anyway. A bat like that is tough to ignore. He might of spent most of his career butchering balls at first base, but on the other hand, playing the position day in and day out might have improved his skills as well.

There's more than enough room in the Hall for one DH every 30 years. I hope Edgar is the first.

Mark Parzych writes:

I used excel and created a W/L ratio which lumps "luck" into 1 number and created a graph. I think it might give readers a better picture of where Blyleven stands. In the graph it's interesting to note that if you look at the 1.2 and .8 data points, it's easier to be lucky than unlucky making Blyleven even more impressive. Morris is added to show that he is lucky, but not to an extreme like Blyleven is unlucky.

Mark took the data in this post and divided the Win Ratio by the Loss Ratio. The lower the number, the unluckier the pitcher.

Here's the graph. Click for a larger version:

John Heyman made a comment during the MLB Network Hall of Fame show that cut both ways for me. Rich Lederer, long time advocate for Bert Blyleven's Hall of Fame induction transcribes Heyman's remarks:

"I never thought [Bert Blyleven] was a Hall of Famer when he was playing, and I saw him play his entire career."

"[His popularity] is based on a lot of younger people on the Internet who never saw him play."

"It's not about stats...it's about impact."

- Jon Heyman on MLB Network, 1/12/09

Patrick Sullivan, another writer at Baseball Analysts, looks into poor award voting and its effects on Hall of Fame ballotting. Bert didn't do well in the Cy Young voting, and that's held against him as well.

The question for me is, why is there such a huge difference between the stats and the perception? This query is especially important to me, because to a certain extent I sympathize with Heyman on this one. Unlike Heyman, I can be convinced otherwise.

The Minnesota factor doesn't ring true to me. Yes, it was a small market, but growing up during the 1970s I was well aware of players like Tony Oliva and Rod Carew, both who more than got their due winning batting titles. With 12 teams in the AL at the time, the Twins would play the big markets in the east four times during the season, giving someone like Blyleven the possibility of three or four starts. Sports writers in the east saw him pitch more than enough. They just weren't impressed with what they saw.

The biggest reason stems from the disconnect between Blyleven's ERA and his winning percentage. Were his stats deceiving? Was there something about the distribution of his runs allowed that is fooling the "younger people on the Internet who never saw him play?"

I decided to look at games scores in a probabilistic fashion. Given a particular game score, or range of game scores, what is the probability of winning that start? The probability of losing that start? If Blyleven's expected wins and losses are in line with his actual wins and losses, then the people unimpressed when they saw him play have a point. If his game scores indicate Bert should have won a lot more, or lost a lot less, then his Hall candidacy looks much better. I took all games in the Day by Day Database, currently from 1957 through 2008, and built the following model, using Game Score divided by 10 to smooth things out.

GameScore/10	GS	W	L	WPct	LPct
11	7	3	0	0.429	0.000
10	33	16	3	0.485	0.091
9	894	794	16	0.888	0.018
8	8383	7637	192	0.911	0.023
7	21795	16957	1898	0.778	0.087
6	36189	20852	6748	0.576	0.186
5	43254	16691	12548	0.386	0.290
4	37996	8322	16215	0.219	0.427
3	31137	2399	18185	0.077	0.584
2	19781	380	14386	0.019	0.727
1	5943	25	5016	0.004	0.844
0	1045	0	952	0.000	0.911
-1	13	0	12	0.000	0.923
-2	1	0	1	0.000	1.000

The two percentages are per start, not per decision. Now this is not a perfect model. It should probably be adjusted for era, but with over 50 years of data, I suspect those things even out. With this data, we can take each individual start, add up the probabilities for each game score, and get expected wins and expected losses. I did this for every pitcher who collected 200 starts between 1957 and 2008. I also calculated the ratio 100.0*Wins/PredWins and 100.0*Losses/PredLosses. A value over 100 for wins indicates the pitcher won more game than expected. A value over 100 for losses indicates the pitcher lost more game than expected.

Note that at very high game scores, pitchers don't win that often. That seems counter intuitive until you realize that really high game scores often happen in extra-inning games. Once the scores get into the 80s, there's a nice downward progression of winning percentage, and a nice upward progression of losing percentage. A score of 50 is neutral, and you can see that above 50, pitchers win more often than they lose, and below 50 pitchers lose more often than they win.

Three hundred fifty five pitchers qualified, and here they are the top 20 ranked by Win Ratio. For the full list, click here.

Pitcher	GS	W	L	PredWin	PredLoss	WRatio	LRatio
Mark Mulder	203	103	60	75.9	75.1	135.75	79.85
Andy Pettitte	426	214	126	159.7	152.2	133.96	82.79
Darren Oliver	228	82	77	62.7	99.7	130.84	77.26
Bill Lee	225	97	79	74.6	86.5	130.05	91.31
Aaron Sele	352	144	109	111.7	141.3	128.90	77.11
Ramon Ortiz	210	81	78	63.4	87.3	127.75	89.38
Charles Nagy	297	128	102	101.0	114.9	126.73	88.73
Kenny Rogers	474	198	134	156.6	184.2	126.43	72.76
Russ Ortiz	253	109	82	86.8	96.5	125.56	85.01
Bartolo Colon	313	149	97	118.9	110.7	125.29	87.60
Kirk Rueter	336	129	92	103.5	136.1	124.60	67.60
Scott McGregor	309	136	104	109.2	116.3	124.54	89.41
Jon Garland	255	104	88	83.6	101.3	124.47	86.90
Paul Byrd	250	101	89	82.1	98.9	123.09	90.02
James Baldwin	202	79	69	64.2	82.7	123.09	83.48
David Wells	489	221	144	180.0	177.8	122.77	81.01
Scott Erickson	364	142	136	117.2	149.3	121.20	91.10
Warren Spahn	296	156	102	128.9	93.1	121.07	109.56
Lew Burdette	251	112	87	92.5	94.0	121.06	92.51
Pat Hentgen	306	126	110	105.0	115.7	120.00	95.06

Blyleven ranked 309th in Win Ratio, 92.46. He started 685 games, and compiled a record of 286-248 in those games. His expected won-loss record was 309-205. The loss number is somewhat more interesting. Not only did Blyleven fall short on wins, but his ability to go deep in games while his team didn't score saddled him with an extra 43 losses, a Loss Ratio of 121.03. If he puts up those 286 wins with 220 losses, my guess is that he would have been in the Hall a long time ago.

The person just ahead of Bert in Win Ratio is Don Sutton. Don compiled a 321--253 record in his starts, when he should have been 347-224. By reaching the magic 300 level, Don made the Hall, but there were quite a few people who felt the same way about Sutton that they did about Bert.

Of course, next to Nolan Ryan, Bert can't complain too much. Ryan ranked 348 out of 355, and his predicted record was 384-209! (He compiled a 318-291 record in his starts.) That's a Win Ratio of 82.91 and a Loss Ratio of 138.97. The only person in the study with a worse Loss Ratio than Ryan was Bob Gibson at 139.71. My guess is if we adjust for era and parks, Gibson's prediction might be more in line with his record.

Of the 300 game winners in the study, only one pitcher is shown as being undeserving, Tom Glavine. His record of 305-203 in starts should have been closer to 267-232. Glavine will go down as the anti-Blyleven, someone good but not great who makes the Hall because he played on very good teams during his career.

In conclusion, it's fairly obvious that Blyleven pitched well enough to win 300 games, and other factors not only kept his win total low, but greatly inflated his loss total. Seen in this light, there's no doubt Bert should get the Hall call.

Update: See an interesting graph based on the data here.

Jim Rice and Rickey Henderson present a funny top ten list on Letterman. Numbers 2 and 3 are the best.

Hat tip, BBTF.

It seems the other 27 people who didn't vote for Rickey Henderson are staying in the closet.

Rickey Henderson makes the In the News Blog of the New Yorker magazine. There's a link there to David Grann's 2005 profile of Rickey done while the future Hall of Famer was playing independent baseball.

Sully Baseball suggests a way to get unanimous Hall of Fame votes and bring totals for Jay Bell down to zero:

And the only way writers will end this stupid habit is to have a wonderfully insane scenario happen that isn't 100% farfetched.

- Enough voters leave off a sure fire Hall of Famer to make sure they aren't unanimous that it takes them off the Ballot completely. (Mike and Mike brought this up on their show pondering how someone like Greg Maddux would be left off the ballot forever due to this stupid mindset.)

- Enough voters throw a sympathy vote to a non deserving entity that they get elected into the Hall of Fame.

This is the way Jesse Ventura ended up governor of Minnesota. An old Tank McNamara comic strip did something like this with the All-Star game, where lots of random fans decided to write in Marv Throneberry.

I don't have a problem with Jay Bell getting a couple of votes. Two writers liked Jay Bell enough to give him a vote. Big deal. I just don't understand the ones who leave players like Henderson off the ballot.

Peter Abraham quotes Willie Randolph on Rickey Henderson:

"Rickey and I have been friends for a long time, and I am ecstatic for him. I've been fortunate and blessed to have played with a great number of phenomenal baseball players but pound-for-pound, Rickey Henderson is the best player I've ever played beside. No one was able to impact the course of a game in as many ways as Rickey. This is a great day for him, and I can't wait to hear his acceptance speech."

Willie was also a great leadoff hitter. He knew how to work the count and his .373 career OBA was just what you wanted from the position. He pales in comparison to Henderson however, as Willie had no power, and while he was a successful base stealer, never really ran that often.

Congratulations to Rickey Henderson on his election to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Rickey remains one of my favorite players of all time. One of the reason I liked Rickey so much is that people in the sports media didn't like him. That's clear from this vote, in which Henderson was left off 28 ballots. Rickey was a unique ballplayer. He was a leadoff man who could generate power. He stole bases often and successfully, losing little of his ability to swipe a bag as he aged. He balanced his hits and walks, so a bit in batting average had little effect on his OBA. He was a showman in the outfield with his one-handed snatches.

He did things reporters didn't like, however. He would always show up to camp on-time, but later than the club requested. He didn't appear to work hard, but one look at his body through the years and it's clear he held off aging by a tough workout regimen. He was loved by his teammates, ones who were considered class acts like Gwynn and Mattingly. There was absolutely no reason to leave Henderson off a ballot, and anyone who did should be ashamed of themselves.

By the way, I have Rickey's rookie card:

Jim Rice also finds his way into the Hall of Fame in his last year of eligibility. When I was a teenager living in southern Connecticut, I was a big Yankees fan and therefore a big Red Sox hater. I disliked Fred Lynn because he turned everything into a circus catch, Carlton Fisk becuse he received more publicity than Thurman Munson (in hindsight, it was deserved) and Yaz because even the Red Sox fans booed him. Rice, however, I always respected. Boston would come into Yankee Stadium and hit like it was Fenway Park, going to left field to hit an imaginary wall, just to see the ball fall into the glove of Mickey Rivers. The stadium still had a death valley back then. Rice, however, would go the other way, hitting home runs to right center, an easier reach. He struck me as a smart hitter at that time.

I also found Rice a frustrating hitter at times. When I lived in Boston, I'd sit in the centerfield bleachers on weekends. Rice would wow us with scorching line drives up the middle and monster home runs, but he would also drive me nuts in the following situation. The pitcher would be wild, walking Boggs and Barrett on eight straight pitches. Rice would come up, and he had to be thinking, "This pitcher has to throw me a strike." He'd swing at the first pitch and ground into a double play. I really wanted him to let the pitcher fall behind in the count first, but Jim liked swinging early in that situation.

Like Rickey, Jim was not liked by the press. If he were, I believe we would have seen his election a long time ago. I'm on the fence about Rice. I'm happy to see him in the Hall, but I would not have been upset to see him left out. Congratulations to Jim Rice on finally getting the call!

Correction: Changed extremely unique to unique.

Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice get voted into the Hall of Fame. More in a little while.

Update: Wow. Rickey was no where near unanimous:

In the BBWAA election, 539 ballots, including two blanks, were cast by members with 10 or more consecutive years of service. Players must be named on 75 percent of ballots submitted to be elected. This year, 405 votes were required. Twenty-seven votes were needed to stay on the ballot.

Henderson was listed on 511 ballots (94.8 percent) to win election in his first year on the ballot. He becomes the 44th player to be elected by the BBWAA in his first year of eligibility.

I guess there are a lot of Corky's in the world.

Rice just make it by the skin of his teeth, getting 412 votes, seven more than needed for election.

Unlikely Words rounds up some great stories about Rickey Henderson.

Bill James' response to Rickey setting the single season stolen base record in 1982 was exactly what you would expect. Curmudgeonly grumbling about how the stolen base isn't an extremely effective offensive weapon and then plenty of statistics to back it up. The early Bill James byline was an exciting find, though. Though, in 2001, James made his feelings for Rickey's game clear, "Somebody asked me did I think Rickey Henderson was a Hall of Famer. I told them, 'If you could split him in two, you'd have two Hall of Famers.'"

I remember that James story. Bill was pointing out that Rickey was thrown out a lot that season in an effort to break the record, and Bill was objecting to wasted outs in pursuit of a record. If you look at Rickey's career, his stolen base percentage goes way up after that season. In his first four years, Henderson posted a 75.95 stolen base percentage (which is very good). For the rest of his career, his stolen base percentage was 82.29. Sandy Alderson was reading Bill James at the time. I wonder if he showed the article to Rickey?

You can watch the Hall of Fame announcement on your computer at 2 PM EST at the Hall of Fame web site.

Update: It will also be on the MLB Network. The lead in is Game 2 of the 1989 ALCS in which Rickey Henderson stole four bases.

New York Newsday is running a Hall of Fame poll. Feel free to go vote and work against the New York bias of the readers.

Jack Curry sums up Rickey Henderson is this New York Times article:

The voice-mail message on Rickey Henderson's cellphone is unusually wordy and quirky. He says hello and pauses, presumably to confuse callers into thinking he has actually answered, that it is not a recording. After some silence, Henderson repeats the gag by saying, "How are you doing?" and pausing again.

By then, callers should realize that Henderson is not on the line. But that does not mean he is finished speaking. He offers more pleasantries, explains that he is unavailable, wishes callers a "wonderful day" and ends with "bye-bye for now."

The message takes 30 seconds, but it is fraught with excess. It is a message that befits the flamboyant Henderson, who is the greatest leadoff hitter in baseball history. Even in retirement and even on voice mail, he is still trying to entertain. He is still trying to be Rickey.

Don Mattingly, Dennis Eckersley and Paul Molitor praise Rickey as well. I loved watching him play and can't wait to see him inducted. I used to sit in centerfield at Fenway Park, and Rickey was the only fielder I saw stretch between each pitch. He knew where he wanted to play, and just before the ball was delivered he went into a crouch, looking like he was ready to attack any ball hit to him. On television, viewers only saw the one-handed catch. Watching him live, you saw the intense preparation that went into each pitch. I hope the one vote we know he didn't get is the only one.

The eleven voting members working at ESPN all voted for Rickey Henderson. If this group is representative, Jim Rice will get in and the vote will be very close on Bert Blyleven. Andre Dawson is rates highly as well. I still don't understand how someone votes for Dawson but not for his teammate Tim Raines.

Mark McGwire splits this group, getting five votes. We'll see if that's a trend across the voting. If McGwire rises to close to 50%, he might actually get elected in a few years.

Corky Simpson admits he goofed leaving Rickey Henderson off the Hall of Fame ballot. In doing so, he gets in some digs against Rickey:

"If I had properly researched the situation, I would have voted for Rickey Henderson if for no other reason than he played for nine ball teams," he said. "Imagine that. He'll be the first Hall of Famer to have a bronze bust with nine caps stacked on his head.

He also told his editor he would vote for Rickey next year, as if Rickey weren't going to get in. This reminds me that Henderson wasn't very popular with the press. If his greatness wasn't so obvious, more would be leaving him off the ballot.

Rickey Henderson's Hall of Fame vote won't be unanimous. Corky Simpson left him off the ballot, yet voted for Tim Raines. If Tim is a Hall of Famer, Henderson certainly deserves a vote. Home Run Derby takes Simpson down pretty hard, especially for not providing an explanation for leaving Rickey off the ballot. I have a feeling Mr. Simpson is going to get a lot of requests for interviews out of this.

Chris Jaffe predicts Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice make the Hall of Fame.

If you are a member of Facebook, the group Seamheads is holding a vote on the Hall of Fame. Join the group, then click on this link to go to the voting thread.

Joe Posnanski takes an in-depth look at the players on the Hall of Fame ballot. He also posts an all-time team by lineup position. Ruth should bat third and Gehrig fourth, however.

As time passes, I find Hall of Fame arguments less interesting. Maybe the Hall should be dynamic. At any given moment, the Hall of Fame contains the 100 greatest players ever. So every year, voters (and you can expand the number of voters) rank their top 100 players. It would consist of the current Hall of Famers, the players appearing on 5% of the previous ballots, and the new players as done today. So Rickey Henderson comes into the picture, who obviously belongs in the top 100, and someone leaves the Hall. This allows for mistakes to be corrected. It might not be very nice, and I suppose you can recognize these temporary Hall of Famers in some way.

The Hall can then allow for growth. Players appearing in the top ten for ten consecutive years become permanently enshrined. They come off the ballot, and room is made for that many new players. In a way, this would create a tiered Hall of Fame, which others have recommended in the past. Any comments?

Wezen-Ball looks at news reports of the day to see just how much Jim Rice was feared:

However, as great as Rice was for his relatively short career, the argument his supporters make today - that he was the "most feared hitter" of his time - is hard to substantiate when you look at the press clippings from the day. There were plenty of accolades written about him during those years, and there was a short time-frame where people did call him the "most feared hitter," but it did not persist throughout his career. As questionable as the argument may be, there is some truth in it, but not nearly enough to make it such a cornerstone of Rice's candidacy.

The whole post is well worth your time.

Hat tip, The Book Blog.

Greg Maddux announced his retirement today:

"I'm just here, really, to say thank you - thank you to everybody in baseball," Maddux said, after an introduction from agent Scott Boras. "I appreciate everything the game has given me. It's going to be hard to walk away, obviously, but it's time. I still think I can play this game, but not as well as I would like to. So it's time to say goodbye."

Maddux's success did not spawn many imitators. The closest today may be Roy Halladay, a pitcher who can keep his pitch count low, still get strikeouts, and go deep into the game. Greg owned the strike zone, especially the outside corners. He had the great gift of putting the ball where batters had to swing, but not where they could make great contact.

Maddux was unbelievable with the bases loaded. For his career, opponents hit .226/.227/.317. Maddux issued five walks with the bases loaded his entire career and allowed just three home runs (he also hit three batters). I remember one game (although I can't find it at the moment) when the Braves were in San Francisco. Maddux loaded the bases with no one out to start the inning. You could see he was disgusted with himself, but came back to get the next three batters without allowing a run. Given the era in which he pitched, and the parks he spent most of his career, Maddux may very well be the greatest pitcher of all time.

Joe Gordon makes the Hall of Fame, and the Baseball Zealot is not pleased:

The Hall of Fame Veterans Committee voted one new player into the Hall of Fame, Joe Gordon. Don't get me wrong, Gordon was a fine player, both defensively & offensively (hitting home runs when secondsackers didn't do such things), but the HOF? Joe was a ten time All Star, even was selected once as MVP, despite Ted Williams winning the Triple Crown that same year. Even though he was acknowledged the best keystone man of his day, his overall stats are somewhat less than impressive. I know anybody can lie, but if you wanna really lie, use statistics. But his lifetime batting average was .268. His stats compare almost identically with Bret (Prolly a Juicer) Boone.

Gordon did quite well in the MVP voting many years. He posted very good OBAs for a low BA player and did hit for power when there were few power hitters at second base. It's probably not the worst choice the veterans committee ever made.

Greg Maddux announces his retirement on Monday. Make your reservations for Cooperstown in 2014. There's a chance that with Tom Glavine and John Smoltz potentially through, the three enter the Hall of Fame together.

There's no doubt Maddux is a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Glavine gets in based on his 300 wins. Smoltz gets in for being Eckersley like, a dominant starter and closer. Smoltz also has his post-season record going for him. In isolation, however, I don't think the latter two make it on the first ballot. However, it might just be too tempting for the voters to put all three in at the same time.

The voters did something like this with Mantle and Ford. Whitey ended his career after the 1967 season, Mantle after the 1968 season. Ford received 67% of the vote his first time on the ballot. At the time, he was the winningest pitcher in post-season history. I wouldn't be surprised if some voters held back so he could go in with Mantle. Maybe Maddux's retirement moves Glavine and Smoltz up a year.

Given this year's Hall of Fame ballot, how can someone not vote for Rickey Henderson? Might he become the first unanimous choice?

King Kaufman looks at the pros and cons of Mike Mussina making the Hall of Fame.

Mussina got his 270 wins in 536 starts, meaning he got a W in 50.4 percent of them. Sutton got 321 wins -- he won three as a reliever -- in 756 starts, which was 42.4 percent. Tom Seaver, who pitched on a lot of bad teams and a few good ones, got 310 wins in 647 starts, 47.9 percent. Perry won 44.2 percent of his starts.

If Mussina had won at the same rate in Seaver's 647 starts, he'd have retired with 326 wins. That would have tied him with Eddie Plank for 13th all time, and not only would no one have suggested he didn't belong in the Hall, no one would have dismissed the gaudy win total because he played on a lot of winners. With Sutton's 756 starts -- including the one during the Battle of Bunker Hill -- Mussina would have won 381, more than anyone but Cy Young and Walter Johnson.

Mussina went fairly deep in games, averaging 6 2/3 innings per start. That didn't give the bullpen too much time to blow games. Combine that with a low ERA and playing for high scoring teams, and Mussina was a win machine. I have no doubt he could hang around long enough to win 300 games like Maddux and Glavine. He just wants to move on.

Mike Mussina officially retired today. Peter Abraham posts the glowing press release:

A master of control, Mussina walked only 785 batters in 3,562.2 career innings, averaging 1.98 walks/9.0IP. According to Elias, he is one of just three pitchers in AL history to toss at least 3,000.0 innings while holding opponents to fewer than 2.0 walks/9.0IP, joining Jack Quinn (1.96) and Cy Young (1.11).

The thing that fascinated me about Mussina was the way strikeouts came to him later in his career. Pitchers tend to strikeout more batters early in their careers, then fade. Through age 26, Mike struck out an average of 5.6 batters per nine innings, an unimpressive number. For the rest of his career, that would rise to 7.6 per nine. I especially remember game one of the 1997 ALDS in which he struck out nine Mariners in seven innings. He struck out 16 in the series. That wasn't the Mussina I knew, but when I looked at his record the changeover was clear.

My belief is that Mussina discovered with the increase in power during this era, he could take advantage of players swinging for the fences:

"I'm trying to get the guy to swing at a pitch he doesn't want to swing at," he explains. David Ortiz of the Boston Red Sox, a disciplined power hitter, has struggled against Mussina. Ortiz might see a first-pitch curveball and then, depending on his reaction, another one a bit lower. After he sees two curves, a fastball will seem quicker than it really is. So two fastballs might follow -- one low, one high, to change Ortiz's eye level -- and if Mussina has two strikes by then, he might offer a curveball down and hope Ortiz chases it for strike three.

He certainly had an interesting career, one that should land him in the Hall of Fame. I hope he enjoys his retirement. He'll be missed.

The Hall of Fame came up with a replacement for the Hall of Fame Game:

Baseball's legends and old-timers will play in a new Hall of Fame Classic game beginning in 2009.

The inaugural Hall of Fame Classic will be held on Father's Day, June 21. The game replaces the Hall of Fame Game, which was discontinued this year after 68 years.

This might even be more fun. Instead of a group of minor leaguers filling in, their will be players people know and care about. It's a nice compromise.

Scott Boras say Greg Maddux is likely to retire. If he does, make your Cooperstown reservations for 2013.

That could be a very interesting year. Depending on how the Clemens lawsuit goes and how much stock voters put in Brian McNamee, voters might not make Roger a first ballot Hall of Famer. That could mean Rocket and Maddux go in together in 2013? Since Maddux is considered clean, however, maybe Rocket goes in the year after so there's no potential conflict.

Louismsg makes the case for the Baseball Writers voting in Rickey Henderson unanimously.

Every year, members of the Baseball Writers Association submit their ballots to cast votes for new inductees into baseball's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. And so far, after decades of voting, no player has entered the hall with unanimous support.

It takes 75% approval to make it in, and so far, the record is Tom Seaver, who was named on 425 of 430 ballots, for a 98.84% vote. In 2007, Cal Ripken came close, with 98.5%, and Tony Gwynn nearly matched him, gathering 97.6% of the vote.

But let me make myself clear. Whatever the reasons are for these so-called baseball experts to not vote in some of the legends of the game should be thrown away when it comes to Rickey Henderson, who deserves to go into the hall with 100% of the votes. Any writer who knowingly casts a ballot that does not include Rickey should be banned from ever voting again in the future, and they should be openly mocked, for they do not know this game.

I agree 100% with Louis. Henderson, however, won't come close to matching Seaver, Gwynn and Ripken. The private Rickey was a great teammate and a fierce competitior. The public Rickey came off as arrogant, a show boat, and someone who didn't work hard. Henderson's lack of education contributed to that. Rickey doesn't speak well, so he's a lousy interview, always referring to himself in the third person. He showed no humility after he broke Lou Brock's record. He would make snatch catches in the outfield that would make people cringe. It also seemed every spring training, Rickey would show up late.

He also suffered from a comparison to his teammate, Don Mattingly. Don was the first to the park, last to leave kind of ballplayer sports writers love so much. Rickey was more talented, but Don worked harder. Rickey should work as hard as Don. Yet, those two players got along just fine. I remember, just after Rickey was traded back to Oakland, the Yankees went to the west coast for a series with the Athletics. Before the game the cameras caught Mattingly putting balls on a tee for Rickey. It seems to me that if Rickey really was a goof off, the team leader Mattingly would not have gotten along well with the centerfielder.

I remember Tony Gwynn singing Henderson's praises in a pre-season interview on Baseball Tonight in the late 1990s. The question of Henderson returning to the Padres was asked in a way that would allow Gwynn to bash Rickey, but instead Tony lavished praise on Rickey as a great teammate and someone they needed at the top of the lineup. Even when Rickey played in the Atlantic League late in his career, his teammate loved him. He coached them, and used his wealth to make life a little easier for those players trying to make a living at the bottom of professional baseball.

He was better than Ripken or Gwynn on the field, but off the field he did a poor job of promoting himself. He deserves every vote Cal and Tony received, but won't get it. I'm guessing he comes in at 90%.

Cardboard Gods remembers Bobby Grich. I drafted Bobby for my 1979 Strat-o-Matic team, then traded him to the NL for Bob Watson and Bill Madlock. Grich and Watson went on to win the league MVPs.

He was Bobby Griiiiiiccchhh when we announced him coming to bat. We always thought that last name sounded like something that clogged the trap under the sink. Maybe, instead of looking for gritty players, teams should look for grichy players. :-)

Here's the Johnny Bench video I alluded to last night.

Heidi Watney just interviewed Johnny Bench, sitting in the stands at Fenway Park. If a play happened in the middle of a play, he'd stop answering and call the play. He even broke into a Harry Caray impersonation! I had no idea Bench was so funny.

The Boston Globe Extra Bases Blog reports the Red Sox will retire Johnny Pesky's number this weekend:

A team source confirmed to the Globe that the Red Sox will retire Johnny Pesky's No. 6 this weekend, during the final series of the year with the New York Yankees. The official announcement could come as early as today. The Boston Herald first reported on their website this afternoon that the Sox were expected to retire Pesky's number.

The Red Sox will break their traditional requirements for a player's number to be retired: that he is in the Hall of Fame, that he ended his career with the club, and that he played at least 10 seasons for the Red Sox. Pesky is not in the Hall of Fame.

Pesky, who will turn 89 Saturday and still maintains a locker in the Red Sox clubhouse, will join Bobby Doerr (1), Joe Cronin (4), Carl Yastrzemski (8), Ted Williams (9) and Carlton Fisk (27) as players whose numbers have been retired. (The Red Sox created a loophole for Fisk, who ended his career with the White Sox.)

The authors fail to note the biggest break in tradition; all the numbers retire until now are perfect squares or perfect cubes. Why couldn't Pesky have worn 16? Of the future numbers under consideration, only Tony Conigliaro's 25 meets this criteria.

Joe Posnanski explores the similarities and differences between the two great hitters. I agree with this part about Jeter:

I know some people think I do not like Derek Jeter -- probably because I invented the word Jeterate and tend to get a bit worked up about Jeter's defensive issues. But I do like him, I admire him, and I've always thought that while that play gets shown about 583 times every postseason, it is actually an excellent way to describe Jeter's play. He has, in my mind, played with a heightened sense of life. You know that expression: "Be alive out there." I think Jeter has been alive as much or more than any player of his generation.

I don't mean that he's some great clutch guy -- I don't believe in that stuff much, I think great clutch players tend to be great players the rest of the time too -- but I mean that he has shown an ability to play at a high level more often and more consistently than many others. He seems to have a good grasp of the moment, and he doesn't fade out too often.

One thing I found interesting was Posnanski tracing the history of this type of player from Rose back to Slaughter back to Dyer and so on back to Ty Cobb. Along with Jeter, Joe puts Johnny Damon and Dustin Pedroia into this category. That's an interesting split. While these three play hard like those of the past, they don't seem to possess the personality of the earlier versions. The newer versions don't seem to be first class jerks. That's a huge improvement.

I like Tom Seaver's attitude about the end of Shea Stadium.

Richard Sandomir is covering the day at the New York Times Bats blog.

Baseball Tonight is starting a new series on all-time franchise players. They're looking for your help. Visit the link, vote and email!

Marc from Daytona thought that someone from the area should track down people who saw Jackie Robinson train there his first season with AAA Montreal. Marc works at a nail salon, brought this up to his customers, and they directed him to Jerry Murphy. Here's the interview:

Murphy promises to introduce Marc to more people who knew Robinson then, so you might wish to subscribe to the YouTube page.

Joe Posnanski posts a great poll on who should be in the first class of the Hall of Fame if we were starting over again today.

Mike Piazza officially retired:

Mike Piazza is retiring from baseball following a 19-season career in which he became one of the top-hitting catchers in history.

"After discussing my options with my wife, family and agent, I felt it is time to start a new chapter in my life," he said in a statement released by his agent, Dan Lozano. "It has been an amazing journey."

When Piazza came up in 1992, catching was moving out of the offensive doldrums of the 1980s as hitters like Benito Santiago and Ivan Rodriguez were showing that the position could be more than defense again. Mike took this to the next level. Starting in 1993, he posted nine straight seasons of a .300 BA or better, ten straight seasons slugging .500 or more. He also topped 30 home runs nine times, reaching 40 twice.

There were complaints about his defense, but his offense more than made up for those deficiencies.

I remember going to spring training with ESPN in 1999. We were on the field in Disney World watching the Mets take batting practice. Piazza was hitting with Olerud. John swung effortlessly with perfect mechanics. There did not appear to be a tight muscle in his body. Piazza was just the opposite. Every fiber of his being was tensed, ready to release every ounce of power on the ball. He looked incredibly strong, and was able to control a violent swing enough to square up a baseball launch it into the seats. I came away extremely impressed with his swing.

Here's looking forward to seeing Mike in Cooperstown in 2013.

It looks like Craig Biggio is about to become a high school baseball coach. Those are lucky youngsters:

I've said nasty things about Biggio in the past. But I say bravo with this move. It seems most ex-jocks like Biggio take the easy cash to be a team consultant, or try to get managing or coaching jobs in the majors. Tony Gwynn is the only other big name I can immediately think of who has done something like this, but he's only coaching his old college team, San Diego State.

Greg Maddux earned his 350th victory last night, allowing just one unearned run over six innings. The run came on Maddux's own throwing error, a bunt the gold glove winner threw into left field. The Padres bullpen allowed one other run, but that was enough to make a three run homer by Adrian Gonzalez stand up. Ubaldo Jimenez pitched a spectacular 6 2/3 innings, striking out eleven Padres, but his one mistake to Gonzalez cost him the game.

After the game, Maddux kept the celebration low key. Hoffman gave him the ball, even though Trevor usually keeps his them as a memento of his saves:

Maddux called it a "cool" gesture, then explained that the best part for him is handing the ball to a loved one. "I'll give it to my kid, let him go play with it," Maddux said.

He had praise his catcher, making his major league debut:

He seemed especially happy for catcher Luke Carlin, who was making his major league debut and caught a future Hall of Famer in Maddux and a probable Hall of Famer in Hoffman.

"He gave a real good target," Maddux said. "He looked like he actually had fun."
Carlin was still grinning well after the game.

"It was kind of like all of my dreams came true at once," said the 27-year-old, who was drafted by the Tigers in 2002 and played six-plus seasons in the minors.

"It was a privilege, an honor. I'm pretty much speechless. How could anybody envision this?"

Maddux did not walk a batter last night. In his career, he's walked less than one batter per nine innings against the Rockies, his lowest number against a team he's faced for at least 50 innings.

Congratulations to a great pitcher reaching a lofty milestone!

Jon Weisman posts a wonderful portrait of Jackie Robinson at Dodger Thoughts.

Alex Rodriguez homered in the first inning in Tampa Bay tonight, tying Ted Williams and Willie McCovey for 15th on the all-time home run list.

What's impressive is that Rodriguez is in his seasonal age 32 season. At the end of their age 32 seasons, Williams had 323 and McCovey stood at 352. Alex is likely to be 200 home runs ahead of both of them at the same age by the end of the year.

Dugout Central looks at the bad timing of Fred McGriff's career. He was always one of my favorites. I think the big reason Fred didn't stick in the minds of baseball fans was that he didn't ride the wave of big offense from 1993 on. Paul O'Neill, for example, ramped up his game at that time period, but McGriff, after a great 1994, saw his slugging drop. Bad timing, indeed.

Baseball Digest Daily uncovers Branch Rickey's scouting report on Don Drysdale. Rickey was as impressed with Don's intelligence as his fastball. Branch wanted Pittsburgh to sign Drysdale, but his dad worked for the Dodgers and they won the signing.

Joe Posanski wonders which player was better, Clemente or Kaline? I've felt for a while that Roberto was a bit overrated as a hitter, as he had a low OBA for a player with a high batting average. As hitters, I find the argument similar to a Boggs/Gwynn comparison.

The Hall of Fame changed leadership today, but it's not clear why. It sounds like Dale Petroskey was a bad businessman. Save the Fame Game responds with praise for both the incoming and outgoing presidents.

I wonder if accepting the asterisk ball has anything to do with it?

Deadspin reports that someone is auctioning a nude picture of Willie Mays from 1962. I want to know what's in the needle? B-12?

The writers talk with Yogi Berra.

The Baseball Musings pledge drive continues through March. Please consider making a donation.

Steve Caimano wonders why Stan Musial isn't included in discussions of the greatest living ballplayer:

Stan Musial may be the most underrated Hall of Famer and deserves to be considered "The Greatest Living Ballplayer". This statement may seem odd to you because the conversation around the unofficial title of TGLB, ever since the passing of Ted Williams, has centered on two men: Willie Mays and Hank Aaron. While there can be no question that the "Say Hey Kid" and "Hammerin' Hank" are two of the greatest to play the game, "The Man" is at least their equal. Somehow this fact seems to have escaped the notice of the public at large. Let's try and change that, shall we.

In my mind, there are some things working against Stan. He was more a double hitter than a home run hitter, and fans (with rare exceptions like me) don't care that much about doubles. He also played three seasons in a major leagues depleted of talent by WWII. Stan only missed 1945 due to the war, and none of his peak playing time. Frankly, the stats he posted in 1943 and 1944 are suspect due to the lack of competition. Across town, the Browns were playing a one-armed centerfielder, while the Cardinals went with one of the great hitters of all time? Something wasn't kosher there.

On top of that, Stan didn't set any all-time records. If he had passed Speaker for the doubles record, or Ruth for the runs or RBI records, he'd be at the top of the discussion. No doubt Musial was one of the greatest hitters who ever lived, but he fell just behind the Ruth/Williams/Mays/Aaron lead. Besides, at this point, Bonds is the greatest hitter who ever lived, with or without steroids.

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Matt Bouffard weighs in on whether Roy White was really a better leftfielder than Jim Rice. Growing up in Bridgeport, CT during Roy White's prime, I got to watch him a lot. Roy was never hyped as a player. Bobby Murcer, the centerfield from Oklahoma got that, or Thurman Munson. Even the awful Horace Clarke and Gene Michael got more press, it seemed. Roy was more like Dwight Evans, an excellent ballplayer whose skill of getting on base wasn't something that excited writers.

Congratulations to Dave Niehaus:

Niehaus has been chosen as the 2008 winner of the Ford C. Frick Award for broadcast excellence. He will be honored during the Hall of Fame induction ceremony July 27 at Cooperstown, N.Y. The announcement Tuesday comes on Niehaus' 73rd birthday.

One of the great things about the MLB Extra Innings package is that the whole country gets to hear top announcers like Niehaus on a daily basis.

Defensive Indifference responds to Catfish Stew over how much emotion and stats should figure into a Hall of Fame argument.

I just want to throw in my two cents on the Jim Rice strikes fear argument. That may have been true in the late 1970s, but most of the years I attended games at Fenway the correct strategy with one out and Rice coming up third was to throw eight straight balls, then let Rice hit the first pitch into a double play. Jim never thought, "This guy is wild, I'll wait for him to throw one down the plate." He thought, "This guy threw eight straight balls, he has to throw his next pitch over the plate, I'm going to swing!" He posted great stats in that time period, but spent a lot of the Red Sox outs.

If you want to help save the Hall of Fame game, this site wants you to e-mail the powers that be.

Lou Gehrig is the top ten Yankees first baseman. (Hat tip, My Baseball Bias)

This reminds me of the only good joke I've ever invented. After the 1986 World Series, the standard joke was, "Bill Buckner tried to commit suicide by running in front of a truck, but it went between his legs." Here's my take on that series:

After the 1986 World Series, Bill Buckner drove John McNamara and Davey Johnson on a ski trip. While driving up the mountain, Buckner's foot seized, slamming on the gas pedal and sending the car and passengers over a cliff to their doom.

When they get to heaven, God feels bad for Davey and John since they won't get to manage the All-Star game. God says, "We have lots of great players here, why don't you choose sides and play a game? Davey, since you won the World Series, pick first. Whom would you like at first base?"

Johnson replies, "Lou Gehrig, of course."

"And you, John?" God asks.

"I'll take Bill Buckner," McNamara responds.

God is surprised by the choice. "With all the great players we have here, why Buckner?"

"Because he's the one who got us here!"

My latest Sporting News column discusses why closers are now allowed in the Hall of Fame. You can see a larger version of the graph here.

Congratulations to Goose Gossage on his election to the Hall of Fame:

Goose Gossage became only the fifth relief pitcher elected to the Hall of Fame, earning baseball's highest honor Tuesday on his ninth try on the ballot.

Known for his overpowering fastball, fiery temperament and bushy mustache, the Goose received 466 of 543 votes (85.8 percent) from 10-year members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America.

Gossage is a favorite of mine, so I'm very happy to see him elected.

Baseball Crank provides us with a trend chart for the candidates. Rice, Dawson and Blyleven made major steps forward, with Jim just missing induction by 2.8% of the vote. At that level, he probably goes in next year. Blyleven has three more years for Rich Lederer to work his magic so he might get in as well.

I'm very disappointed in Tim Raines 24.3 percent. I just saw Steve Phillips and Joe Sheehan on the Hot List. Phillips says Raines doesn't look like a Hall of Famer to him, while Joe points out that Tim was a much better player than Rice. I was waiting for Joe to say, "that's why you were a lousy GM, Steve," but to his credit Joe refrained.

McGwire neither gained nor lost support. Voters are going to wait until they know what went on with Mark and steroids.

The official voting results are here.

Goose gets 86% of the vote, the only player elected to the Hall of Fame this year. More in a bit.

Chris Jaffe pens a set of Hall of Fame guidelines for predicting elections. He sees Gossage getting in this year, and Rice just missing by a hair.

Dan Fox looks at how Tim Raines's base running ability might get him in the Hall of Fame. The voting will be announced Tuesday at 2 PM EST.

It's somewhat interesting, with all the talk of steroids going on now, no one brings up Tim's cocaine problem. One writer, who appears to be voting for anyone who played before the 1990s, excuses it:

The 10th man on my ballot (and electors may vote for only 10) is Tim Raines. Raines had drug issues, but they were recreational drug issues. Cocaine, to be exact. "Coke" was illegal, but no one has suggested it made for better careers. It messed up Raines' head but it didn't attack the integrity of the on-field product.

Oh really? Someone high on drugs is doing the best he can do on the field?

From what I remember, Raines had a problem early in his career that I don't remember repeating. A youthful indiscretion. It would not keep me from voting for him, but it should not be so easily dismissed, either.

Chone Smith comes up with a retrosheet era Hall of the Exceptionally Good. I'd rank Grich over Whitaker, simply because he played his career in tougher ballparks for a hitter.

John Delcos publishes his Hall of Fame ballot, voting for Gossage. I also appreciate his honesty in not voting for McGwire:

Did not vote for Mark McGwire because of the steroid issue.

(I fixed a typo in the above quote.) If Mark were clean, there would be no debate about his qualifications for the hall. Voters need to realize that the steroid issue is a prefectly good reason for not voting for McGwire. With many years on the ballot, there's plenty of time to debate this issue and see what we learn.

Jeff at Brew Crew Ball explains why he hates the Hall of Fame:

If the system were salvageable, I might feel differently. But as it is, we have a Hall of Fame that is ill-defined, one with low standards due to previous mistakes, and one with a very mixed bag (that's putting it mildly) of voters.

This year, statheads (at least the ones who are willing to put Bert Blyleven on the backburner) are going crazy trying to get Tim Raines elected. In response, they're getting stupid arguments about Raines's drug use, comparisons with Vince Coleman, and my all-time favorite: "I won't vote for him his first time on the ballot because he's not that good." [Not a direct quote, but too close for comfort.]

I don't hate the Hall, but I try not to get too caught up in the voting hoopla anymore. In general, the writers do a good job and the veterans committee doesn't. If you stuck with the writers version of the hall, my guess is people would be much happier. Still, it often comes down to popularity. If Jim Rice had Joe Carter's relationship with the press, he would have been elected on the second ballot.

Here's another Hall of Fame vote for Goose Gossage. Grant does use the weaselly argument to keep McGwire off the ballot, however:

For me, McGwire's case is singular. It all comes down to home runs. Yes, he has 583 homers and currently ranks eighth on the all-time list, but I suspect he'll be out of the top 10 within five years. While I have no proof that McGwire used steroids, I must consider the possibility of inflated stats in the steroids decades (1995-2004). In the previous decade (1985-94), McGwire ranked seventh in homers. In the steroid decade, he ranked eight. Guess the question is: Will his homer total stand the test of time. Good question: It hasn't been 25 seasons since McGwire first broke in, that won't happen until 2010. But since 1986 (McGwire's first season), McGwire currently ranks only fourth behind Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa and Ken Griffey Jr.. Four other active players are within 100 homers of McGwire. It's conceivable that among his "contemporaries," McGwire may not end up in the top 10. If your case is built on home run ability, then you better be at the very top of the list.

McGwire combined the ability to get on base with the ability to hit home runs. He wasn't Dave Kingman. I'm perfectly fine with writers not voting for McGwire because they believe he used steroids. Trying to find a statistical reason not to vote for Mark, however, is simply looking for an excuse so you don't have to deal with that issue.

Dan Fox notes that when you adjust Jim Rice's career for his home park, he doesn't look as impressive. Here's a simpler version:

Rice, Career	Home	Away
Batting Average	.320	.277
On-Base Average	.374	.330
Slugging Average	.546	.459

Rice's road numbers just don't scream hall of fame.

Dan Lewis rounded up five Internet writers, including your truly, to discuss why various players should or should not go into the Hall of Fame.

The latest Hall of Fame Ballot is out, and the new class is pretty weak. Of the new class, Raines would get my vote, as I have a soft spot for leadoff men. Raines was very productive from age 21 to age 38. He posted a fine OBA of .385 for his career, has an excellent stolen base percentage, and hit over 100 triples. He's Rickey Henderson light, but a fine player. The weak ballot may open the door for a Goose Gossage election, and I'm also curious to see how McGwire does the second time around. Were the writers just trying to keep him from a first ballot election, or are they really taking a hard line?

Joe Nuxhall died overnight:

Nuxhall's place in baseball lore was secured the moment he stepped onto a big-league field. With major league rosters depleted during World War II, he got a chance to pitch in relief for the Reds on June 10, 1944.

No one in modern baseball history has played in the majors at such a young age -- 15 years, 10 months, 11 days old. He got two outs against St. Louis before losing his composure, then went eight years before pitching for the Reds again.

"When you think of all the individuals that played at the major league level and you're the youngest in the history of the game and in the Guinness Book of Records, it does make you in awe of it," Nuxhall said on the 50th anniversary of his debut.

Nuxhall went on to a good career, pitching his best in 1963 as he posted a 15-8 record with a 2.61 ERA. He then became a long-time and beloved broadcaster for the Reds:

Nuxhall and play-by-play announcer Marty Brennaman described the Big Red Machine's two World Series titles in the 1970s, Pete Rose's return as player-manager and then banishment for gambling in the 1980s, and another World Series championship in 1990.

My thoughts go out to his family and friends.

Barry Bonds says he'll boycott the Hall of Fame if his ball goes in with an asterisk. It's possible their evil plan is working!

I'm in agreement with Bonds on this one. The Hall of Fame should not accept the ball with an asterisk.

Jim Thome made his 500th home run count in a big way. The White Sox scored eight runs in their last three at bats, erasing a 7-1 deficit to defeat the Angels 9-7. The last two runs came on a walk-off home run by Jim Thome both winning the game and becoming the third player this season to reach the 500 milestone. Hats off to Jim Thome on becoming the 23rd player in major league history to reach that level.

Gene Orza left a comment to this post. That made my day!

The Houston Astros retired Jeff Bagwell's number today.

His closest friend on the team, Brad Ausmus, seemed to speak for an entire clubhouse and perhaps an entire city.

''He was the quintessential teammate,'' Brad Ausmus told fans. ''He was a superstar who always put the team before himself. Between he and (Biggio), they always shouldered the blame when he struggled and deflected the credit when we won.

Bagwell entered the peak years of his career just as offense was exploding in the major leagues. He came close to being a .300-.400-.500 player, missing only in batting average with a career mark of .297. And he did this despite the early part of his career in the Astrodome. While his career ended early, it's certainly a career worth celebrating.

It was noted in this Sports Illustrated article that with his 100th run scored Saturday, Alex Rodriguez became the first player to hit 35 homers, drive in 100 runs and score 100 runs ten years in a row. However, the best streak among the three for Alex is the streak of scoring 100 runs a season:

Most consecutive seasons scoring at least 100 runs.

Player	Streak
Lou Gehrig	13
Henry Aaron	13
Willie Mays	12
Alex Rodriguez	12
Stan Musial	11

One would think some great leadoff man would be in the top five here, but Billy Hamilton finishes tied for sixth with ten straight season of 100 runs scored. It's just easier for great sluggers to score a lot of runs. All these hitters owned great OBAs, and with their power didn't depend on others to drive them in as much as a low power leadoff hitter.

Notice that over the time period of Alex's streak (1996-present), A-Rod scored nearly 100 runs more than his nearest competitor, Derek Jeter (the current Yankees employee the top three on the list). He gets on base, hits for power, and he's even a great base stealer, swiping bases with an 80% success rate. He's the complete offensive player.

There's a good, level headed debate going on over at ESPN between Jim Caple, Rob Neyer and Jayson Stark on who is the greatest slugger of all time. Caple is really out of his league here, as he right off misses the point of the question. But what I find interesting is this comment from Caple:

But I agree with what both of you are saying. We always place statistics in context with what was going on in the era. Or we should. Ruth hit his home runs in an era when no minorities were allowed to play, when he never had to face the likes of Pedro Martinez or Bob Gibson, when there were no sliders, and a time when the talent base was further diminished because much of the male population was malnourished (source: William Manchester's account of 1940 draftees in "The Glory and the Dream'').

I wasn't aware of the malnourishment, but I'm not surprised. The 1930s were a rough time. However let me try to refute this argument against Ruth. While we don't know how Babe would have done against the best Negro League pitchers, how many of these players would really have made the majors? If Ruth was facing poor talent, weren't the best Negro League pitchers facing talent that was even worse?

At the time, there were 400 men on active rosters in the majors. There was a much larger talent pool to pull from than in the Negro Leagues, since the population of whites was nine times higher than the population of blacks. Since you're pulling from a larger talent pool, given the same number of players the average player in MLB at the time was likely to be better than the average player in the Negro Leagues by a lot.

You see this in the Olympics all the time. The big countries dominate, because with large populations they're more likely to have lots of players at the high end of the normal curve.

Now add in the nutrition study. If white males were malnourished, don't you think black males were malnourished? And I would bet that blacks were even in worse shape than whites, since in other aspects of their lives that was true. So the best pitchers and hitters of the Negro Leagues had it even better than Babe Ruth. Their competition came from an even smaller talent pool, and they were likely more poorly fed. So why would we expect black players of the 1920s to really improve the level of performance in the major leagues, enough to make a difference to Babe Ruth?

I think analysts see what happened after the integration of blacks into baseball post WWII and generalize back to what would have happened in the 1920s and 1930s. But the country changed after WWII, and so that may not be a legitimate comparison. The elite Negro League pitchers of the 1920s may not have looked so good when they were regularly facing teams with a higher concentration of good hitting talent.

None of this is to condone the racism of baseball before 1947. But in my mind, taking down Ruth a peg because of that doesn't make a lot of sense. The best black pitchers of the Negro Leagues were likely not as good as most elite white pitchers, so I don't see where they would have made a big difference.

I'm watching Baseball Tonight and it looks like today's Hall of Fame crowd will shatter the previous attendance record. There's lots of love today for Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken. The induction ceremonies are on ESPN Classic at 1:30 PM EDT.

Alex Rodriguez hit career home run 499 Wednesday night against the Kansas City Royals as the Yankees took the game 7-1.

Note Alex's eye's in the picture. Even at the end of his follow through, he's kept his eye on the ball.

When Rodriguez hits his 500th home run, he'll be the youngest man to reach that plateau. Based on seasonal age, Alex (who is 31) will be a year younger than the former fastest to 500, Jimmie Foxx. In terms of seasons, Alex is getting there one year and two months faster than double-X. Foxx's 500th home run came with his final long ball of his age 32 season.

Now, Alex is an old 31. Seasonal age represents your age on June 30th of the given year. It's the age you spend at which you spend half the season. Alex turns 32 on Friday (a nice day for number 500). Fox was also an old in terms of age versus seasonal age, but if you figure his final home run came sometime in September, he would have been 32 years and eleven months when the shot came.

Beating Foxx by a year isn't the most impressive thing about Alex and seasonal age. Consider:

• Alex stands first through seasonal age 31 by 35 home runs, and there's still two months left to go.


• He's second through seasonal age 32, one behind Foxx.
• Alex stands second through age 33, tied with Sammy Sosa and nineteen twenty behind Foxx.
• Through seasonal age 34, Alex stands seventh.

A-Rod finally falls off the top ten at seasonal age 35, but if he hits twenty more this season he'll rank eighth, one ahead of Mantle. And if you don't think age is important, when the season started, Alex was one of four players with a shot at cracking 500 home runs this season. Thomas, Thome and Manny Ramirez were all ahead of him. Rodriguez passed Thome and Ramriez and will likely get to 500 before either of them, and shaved nineteen home runs off Thomas' lead. He now trails Frank by four. Alex still has enough youth to keep blasting lots of home runs for a few more years.

Craig Biggio announced his retirement last night before the game:

After a 20-year career in which he stayed with one franchise, played multiple positions at an All-Star level and joined the elite 3,000 hit club, the Houston Astros infielder said Tuesday he will retire at the end of this season.

"There are a lot of guys that have the game taken away from them by injury," he said. "For me to be able to walk away now, on top, on my own accord, I'm very happy with that. I'm in a good place. I think I've done everything that I was supposed to do on a baseball field. I have nothing to be disappointed about."

He certainly punctuated his announcement with a bang:

Just to show how players have grown, Biggio appears small to me, but he's the same height and weight as two other players with 3000 hits, Willie Mays and Carl Yastrzemski. (All are 5' 11" and weight between 180 and 185 pounds.) That's another thing that gets left out as a cause of the great offensive era we're in. That players are a lot bigger than the superstars of the previous generation.

Congratulations to Craig Biggio on a great career!

Well, before there were blogs there were diaries, and Joe DiMaggio kept one. There's nothing juicy in them, but I liked this one:

He chafed at the benefits piling up early in 1991 to honor the 50th anniversary of his 56-game hitting streak. "If I thought this would be taking place due to the streak," he wrote on Jan. 14 with sarcasm (or was it disdain?), "I would have stopped hitting at 40 games."

The hand-written pages will be up for auction at some point.

The Astros are ready to move Biggio out of the lineup, at least on the road:

Biggio, who got his 3,000th hit on June 28, is OK with the arrangement, manager Phil Garner said Saturday, adding that the plan could change should Biggio go on a hitting tear. Burke started Saturday at second base and batted leadoff against the Chicago Cubs.

"It's difficult to have the conversation," Garner said, referring to Biggio, his 41-year-old second baseman who is one of the most popular players in Astros history. "And that's why it's subject to change."

I appreciate the Astros sticking with one of their greatest players as he went for 3000 hits, but Craig just isn't contributing wins any more. It's time for him to step aside.

The Mets designated Julio Franco for assignment today:

The New York Mets cut the 48-year-old utilityman Thursday, opting to give 22-year-old outfielder Lastings Milledge another chance in the majors.

The NL East leaders announced the move before starting the second half with a game against Cincinnati.

Franco hit only .200 in 50 at-bats with one home run and eight RBIs. Mostly a pinch-hitter, he also played a bit at first base and third base this season.

Popular in the clubhouse, Franco often acted as a coach, motivating both veterans and younger players. There has been speculation he might eventually have that role full-time; this week, the Mets hired Rickey Henderson as a coach.

Milledge can only hope he Lastings as long as Franco. Julio was a late bloomer, putting together his best years starting at age 28 and lasting through age 37. He was the only player still in the majors who debuted before I graduated from college. I hope he has a successful career coaching and managing.

George Brett wins a trademark infringement lawsuit, with the judge citing the pine-tar incident.

Joe Christensen and a group of reporters sat down for breakfast with Harmon Killebrew yesterday to talk about Home Run Derby.

Couple interesting notes: Killebrew said the winner of each one-on-one contest received $2,000. The runner-up received $1,000, and the players could make an additional $500 for hitting three homers in a row.

That might not sound like much by today's standards, but in 1959, the Washington Senators paid Killebrew $9,000. He said he worked in a men's clothing store in the offseason to help pay the bills. A different era, indeed.

"I haven't seen [the 'Home Run Derby' episodes] in years," Killebrew said. "So this is kind of fun to watch them again."

Somehow, they fit it into a half hour show.

Ken Griffey, Jr. hits the Reds third home run of the game to make the score 6-0 over Arizona. The blast ties Griffey with former Reds great Frank Robinson for sixth on the all-time home run list. Robinson is second on the Reds all time list with 324, Griffey ninth with 188.

The Heater is soliciting remembrances of Hank Aaron.

Craig Biggio knocked out two doubles this evening, raising his career total to 660. That's the same number of home runs Willie Mays hit. He needs six more to pass George Brett for fifth on the all time list. Of course, he may have a devil of a time getting there. :-)

The Astros lead the Phillies 7-3 in the top of the ninth.

Update: Dan Wheeler gives up a bases loaded double to Ruiz, but the Astros manage to hang on for a 7-5 win as Trever Miller comes on and gets the save. It seems Astros relievers like to keep fans on the edge of their seats in the ninth this year.

There's a great round up on the Biggio milestone at the Houston Chronicle. They provide plenty of links to stats and photos as well.

Craig Biggio picks up his third hit of the night to reach 3000 for his career. Two big milestones on the same day, much like August 4, 1985, when Tom Seaver reached 300 wins and Rod Carew reached 3000 hits. Congratulations to Craig on the milestone and an outstanding Hall of Fame career!

Now however, it's time to hang up the spikes. He's a shell of the hitter he used to be, with an OBA under .300. He's not helping the club, and it's time to go out on a high note and take a coaching or front office job.

Craig Biggio enters tonight's game at 2996 hits. That means he can hit the 3000 hit mark in any game, so keep your eyes open! I still wonder how soon after his 3000th hit the Astros bench him. A .279 OBA is just abysmal.

There's a new web site honoring Hank Aaron and raising money for worthy causes. Check it out at We Know Better.

The Mariners hold a pre-game ceremony in honor of Ken Griffey. Buhner and Edgar attended, and Griffey spoke. He talked about flying back into Seattle from Oakland and got a bit nostalgic. The crowd gave him a standing ovation and there were plenty of signs asking him to return to the Mariners. It was a nice touch.

Bill Russell and Bill Gates received honorary degrees from Harvard yesterday. As members of the 25th reunion class, we were close to them before the procession began. Here's Russell in his cap and gown:

Gates is standing next to him. Here's Gates by himself. Sorry for the quality, but I was using my cell phone:

After the morning exercises, Gates spoke in the afternoon at the meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association. The 25th reunion class sat on the stage for that one. As we left the yard, we passed very close to Russell.

Joe Christensen wrote a feature story on Tony Oliva, and in his blog gives us some background on the interview, including a great story about Tony and Telly Savalas.

Derek Jeter picked up three hits tonight, including a triple to lead off the seventh. That ties him, and then puts him two hits past the Yankee Clipper, Joe DiMaggio. Jeter now ranks fifth on the Yankees all time hit list, a list headed by Lou Gehrig with 2721. At 2216, Derek is about 2 1/2 seasons off that number. Barring injury, he'll be the first Yankees player to reach 3000 hits with the team.

Craig Biggio knocked out two hits today to bring his career total to 2966. He scored two from the leadoff spot as Houston defeats Arizona 5-2. Both the hits landed for doubles, putting Craig at 649. He's be the seventh player to reach 650 doubles for his career. While 700 looks out of reach, he should be able to reach George Brett at 655 doubles.

However, Craig no longer belongs in the leadoff spot. I appreciate the Astros giving him the opportunity to reach 3000 hits, but he shouldn't be doing it from an important offensive position. With a .309 OBA, let him bat seventh or eighth.

Hudson and Hairston accounted for the Arizona runs with homers, so $20 will go to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

Rickey Henderson is going to retire!

Henderson told reporters that he intends to officially announce his retirement this summer, unless, of course, a team says, "Hey, let me see, can you go out there and play?," in which case he'll return to action.

Given that the independent league teams are no longer interested in him despite his gaudy OBAs, I think Rickey is already retired. Does anyone know if playing in an independent league keeps the Hall of Fame clock from starting?

There are a number of comments to this post about Ron Santo. I don't agree Ron belongs in the Hall of Fame, mostly because his good numbers appear to be a product of Wrigley Field. Now that the Day by Day Database covers Ron's career, we can look at his home and road numbers. What you'll notice is a huge difference in power, and a substantial difference in OBA. He's Mike Schmidt at home but Graig Nettles on the road. I don't think a big boost from your home ballpark should put you in the Hall of Fame.

Once again, the Veterans Committee decided not to elect any new members to the Hall of Fame. This is how it should be. The old committee used to put friends in the hall. Now, there needs to be a real good reason to overrule the writers.

Bleed Cubbie Blue finishes up their series on the Top 100 Cubs with Ernie Banks. Be sure to check out the story on why the author missed Ernie's 500th home run.

Dom DiMaggio turns 90 tomorrow. Happy Birthday!

Tim Placher explains why he's now happy his wife named their son after Cal Ripken.

Correction: Fixed link.

Barry Bonds spoke up for Rose and McGwire:

"I congratulate Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn for their induction. But I also think McGwire and Pete Rose should be in Cooperstown," said Bonds, who was in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, for the Juan Marichal Golf Classic.

I'm sure that's going to change minds. It's like Michael Myers endorsing Jason Voorhees for the camp counselor hall of fame.

6-4-2 Links to Bill James' argument for Bobby Grich in the Hall of Fame. When my college roommates and I played the 1979 strat-o-matic season, I drafted Grich and Bob Watson. I traded Grich to a National League team, where he won the MVP, while Watson won the AL award. So Bobby's a favorite of mine.

His name also sounds like something you pull out of a sink trap, so he gets extra points for that. :-)

Via Baseball Think Factory Newsblog, Mark McGwire comments on the Hall of Fame vote.

"I had an absolutely wonderful career that I am very proud of," McGwire said as he signed autographs at a charity event benefiting the Orange County Abuse Prevention Center. "I'm not in control of what happens -- I was in control of hitting the ball."

Two old friends post about the Hall of Fame election. Christian Ruzich looks at the election from his new blog, The Dilettante's Dilemma. John Perricone takes the writers to task over McGwire at Only Baseball Matters.

Via FishStripes, Gaslamp Ball posts an excellent interview with Tony Gwynn. After all these years, Gwynn realizes the value of a walk:

Do you think another player will hit .400 again?

Yeah there will be and again he needs to be open, he needs to be disciplined and be consistent.

Do you know anybody playing today that could do it?

Sure, Barry Bonds could do it. He walks a lot. He's brought another facet that I hadn't thought about. I had never thought about a guy that would walk 200 times a season and it makes it a whole lot easier. You know what for a long time I thought you had to be like Ichiro. You had to break the hit record and walk a little bit so that you could do it. Barry Bonds comes along and he hits .380 and walks 200 times. Not being healthy works in your favor, it doesn't hurt you it helps you. You play in 5 games a week you walk whatever times a week and get 6 hits in 14 at bats you are gonna qualify for a batting title. There are different ways to get there, and his way I hadn't thought about. You flat out get there. The guy who does it is going to have to be media savvy because the scrutiny that will come from making a run like that is gonna be unbelievable.

I'm surprised Gwynn didn't get this until now. He was very close to Ted Williams, and Ted drew a ton of walks to help him hit for a high average.

The full voting is here. Jay Buhner got a vote!

One question now is how many of 417 who didn't vote for McGwire can be swung over the next 14 years. If there is a hard-core 25% against Mark, his election will never happen.

By the way, how does Ripken get five more votes than Gwynn? If I think about it, I can make a case against Ripken, but it's really tough to make a case against Gwynn. The only negative I can apply to Gwynn is that some of his high season batting averages came in shortened seasons. He never had 600 AB in a season after the age of 30. Given he didn't walk much, the short seasons didn't give his BA a chance to drop. But that's a really weak argument against Gwynn. I don't see how you vote for Cal and not for Tony.

My guess is with a weak class next year, Goose Gossage probably gets in next season. I'd like to see that. Steve Garvey is gone. I never liked him.

I thought the vote was coming out at 2 PM, but this article from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports Gwynn and Ripken are in. However, it doesn't report totals.

Update: I think the paper released the story early. The embargo was until 1 PM Central, and somebody probably thought it was 1 PM Eastern.

Update: Just saw the announcement. Ripken received 98.5% of the vote, Gwynn, 97.6%. I thought Gwynn would get the higher amount. McGwire received 23.5%. Gossage was third at 71.2%.

Dan McLaughlin looks at the prime value of middle infielders and finds Ripken is an easy selection to the Hall of Fame:

Cal Ripken: Yes, from 1982 to 1991, he really was that good, his only weakness being the double-play ball. How much a guy plays is so underrated as a measure of value: When you consider the average offensive production of the average backup shortstop in the '80s, Ripken's refusal to come out of the lineup even for an inning in those years becomes all the more valuable.

At 2 PM EST the Hall of Fame announces the results of this year's election. I was just looking at Cal Ripken's stats. I had forgotten how low he finished in OBA for his career, just .340. Part of that tainted memory is the odd way Ripken's career unfolded. He peaked very early in his career, ages 22 and 23. And while he continued to put up great season throughout his 20s, he only reached that peak one more time, at age 30 in 1991. After that, he spent 10 seasons having a useful but unspectacular career.

Part of it, too, is the way baseball evolved in his career. During the 1980s, his OBAs were very good compared to the league average. But the wave of offense that hit in the 1990s didn't catch Cal. He was declining while offense in the game was shooting up. His likely partner in induction, Tony Gwynn, was able to catch that wave, hitting better in his 30s than he did in his 20s.

And looking at all this again makes me wonder if the streak should have stopped in 1984. When Ripken put up consecutive .370+ OBA, .510+ Slugging at ages 22 and 23, he should have had serious upside in front of him. Maybe a .420 OBA, 40 home season when he peaked in his mid to late 20s. I really wonder how many injuries he played through that took a toll on his batting stats.

Still, I'll put him in the Hall. He was a great offensive player for a shortstop, especially in the day when no one expected offense from the position. Along with Trammell, he helped change the mindset that a shortstop was a small, light hitting player with a great glove. He showed that you can be big and powerful, and still play the position extremely well. He wasn't as good as I remember him being, but he certainly deserves induction.

Ducksnorts is excited about the Hall of Fame voting for the first time, because Tony Gwynn is on the ballot. He rounds up coverage of Gwynn, and praises the voter who left his ballot blank.

My initial reaction was one of shock, wondering what the heck this guy is trying to prove by not voting for Gwynn and Cal Ripken. The more I thought about it, however, the more I came to respect Ladewski's stance. His is the perfect response to anyone who has complained that a select few are being punished for an entire generation's legacy, and I respect the guy for voting his conscience and trying to uphold standards.

So for those of you hoping to see a unanimous election, it's not going to happen.

Update: The Big Lead is for banning the voter who left his ballot blank.

ESPN surveyed a sample of Hall of Fame voters. Not surprisingly, McGwire does not garner much support, but more than enough to keep him on the ballot. The question that's really interesting was the second:

If no, will you vote for him in succeeding years?

• Yes -- 5 (5.0 percent)
• No -- 31 (30.7 percent)
• Undecided -- 43 (42.6 percent)
• No opinion given -- 22 (21.8 percent)

So 31 of the 138 voters polled say they will not vote for McGwire. That's 22.5%. That's very close to the number (>25%) than keeps a player out of the Hall. If this is a representative sample of voters, that does not bode well for McGwire making it in the future.

6-4-2 Provides evidence of a Jackie Robinson Walter Alston feud over Sandy Koufax. However, I'd like to comment on this statement:

I should also close by mentioning that it was a good bit of an overstatement to call Koufax's early career "ineffective"; "erratic" would be more apt.

In the first edition of The POLITICS OF GLORY, HOW BASEBALL HALL OF FAME REALLY WORKS (reissued as Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame), Bill James points out that Koufax was actually a very consistent pitcher throughout his career. What changed was that in 1962 he moved into a ballpark that enhanced his stats. Koufax was not erratic. He pitched in a great hitter's park his first few years in Los Angeles.

A few days ago Jon Heyman explained why he voted no for McGwire on his Hall of Fame ballot. Now Mike Lefkow explains why he is voting yes.

Not that it matters when choosing whom to vote for, but McGwire is a decent man whose image has taken a much tougher beating than he deserves. He was a doting father to his son, Matthew. I don't ever remember him showing up late to games, not hustling or being arrested. He made the Maris family an endearing part of the 1998 homer chase.

If he used steroids, and the evidence suggests that he did, it was for the same reason athletes in all sports in all eras have used whatever enhancements were available at the time -- to improve their performances to maximize their value and, yes, help their teams.

So he'll get my vote for the Hall of Fame, 14 more times if I have to. It's not an issue I'm wrestling with anymore. He deserves enshrinement, and I hope he can enjoy it if that day occurs.

I don't buy this argument at all, however:

Not voting for McGwire means you had better leave Ripken and Gwynn off your ballots, too. They played during the steroids era. Ripken played in a record 2,632 consecutive games. Can we be positive Ripken didn't use any banned substances to keep himself in the lineup day-after-day for all those years? Not voting for McGwire is singling him out, making him the poster boy for the 1,500 players or so that Gammons estimates used illegal substances between 1986-2004.

There's really no comparison here. Besides, Gwynn was too fat to have taken steroids. :-)

Jon Heyman publishes his Hall of Fame ballot, and his reasons for leaving McGwire off:

Some will claim steroids were not disallowed at the time, and that, of course, is 100 percent false. There was no testing for them during McGwire's career, and no spelled-out punishment. But they were neither permitted in baseball nor legal in our society.

Some will say that everyone did them, and I'll agree that many did do them. But I will say first that not everyone did do them, and most who did got away with it. While McGwire has never failed a test or confessed, in my mind he is caught. So on my ballot, his box is blank.

Every vote requires thought and judgment, and it's hard to think any of other explanation for McGwire's 70 home runs or his no-comment stance beyond steroids. If anyone can come up with something else plausible, I'm all ears. Until then, McGwire doesn't get my vote.

So Jon is not keeping Mark out for one year. Heyman won't vote for McGwire until there's evidence to convince the writer that Mark didn't cheat. I wonder how many other writers will take this stand?

Isn't Pete Rose endorsing you for the Hall of Fame like Mark Foley endorsing you for Congress? You're happy for the support but wish it was from someone cleaner.

Jeff Bagwell will make his retirement official tomorrow.

The four-time All Star will remain with the Astros as part of a personal-services agreement reached with the team earlier this week, according to a person familiar with the team's plan who requested anonymity because an official announcement had not been made.

Bagwell, the greatest power hitter in Houston Astros history, is expected to work with young Astros hitters, assisting in the front office and making appearances for the team.

The Astros have scheduled a Friday morning news conference to announce the retirement.

Bagwell was quite the hero at STATS, Inc. The STATS Baseball Handbook following the 1990 season was the first to include Bill James projections for the next year. Included were predictions for players likely to be rookies in 1991, including Bagwell. When Peter Gammons read the book, he wrote in his review that Bill James predicted Jeff Bagwell would win the National League batting title.

What happened was that Bagwell's prediction turned out to have the highest batting average among National League players. No one at STATS noticed this at the time. Bill felt at the time that if Jeff had a poor season, no one would respect the predictions again. Bagwell didn't win the batting title (he finished 5th in OBA), but he did have a great season and won the Rookie of the Year, ending up making the prediction look pretty good. With that season, he became one of Bill's favorite players.

The Big Lead would like your input on whether Manny Ramirez ranks in the top five all-time among right-handed hitters. This paragraph, however, makes me wonder if they think about baseball all that much:

It makes for a decent offseason discussion. Upon closer inspection, who knew that the majority of the greatest hitters - remember, we're not counting fielding or salary, just hitting - in the last 75 years were lefty (Ted Williams, Tony Gwynn, Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Mickey Mantle - switch, mostly lefty)?

Pretty much everybody. Lefties have two advantages:

• A shorter run to first base.
• Most of the pitchers they face are right handed.

And one name they need to include in the discussion is Rogers Hornsby.

As for Ramirez, his career OPS is 1.011, and he's likely to come very close to 700 home runs for his career.

The AP polled Hall of Fame voters. If their sample is representative, McGwire won't be elected but will stay on the ballot.

Frank Robinson contributes his two cents to the Mark McGwire for Hall of Fame debate:

"Should I vote for Mark McGwire?" a visiting writer asked Robinson after the Moeller card show Friday night.

The 71-year-old Baseball Hall of Famer shook his head and firmly said, "No."

But it doesn't stop there. Robinson wants records stricken. He's probably afraid of falling out of the top ten in career home runs:

A woman standing nearby chimed in: "Once it's proven they were on steroids, their records should be stricken."

"I've heard you agree with that," the writer said to Robinson.

"I do," Robinson said. "Why should baseball have to try to prove when (these sluggers) started using (steroids)? They used 'em, and they knew they were wrong."

But of course, they make a statistical error:

"Let's take Barry Bonds," Robinson said. "You don't get better as you get older."

Bonds won his last four - consecutive - of seven Most Valuable Player awards after he turned 37. In order, in those four seasons, Bonds hit 73, 46, 45 and 45 home runs. When Robinson was the same age, he hit 19, 30, 22 and nine homers , respectively, the usual decline as a slugger passes 35 years old.

Of course, Henry Aaron and Babe Ruth hit more than a quarter of their career home runs after age 35. Somehow, no one notices that.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch notes that at least one writer won't be voting for Mark McGwire on the Hall of Fame ballot:

Back in 2005, during the weekend Wade Boggs and Ryne Sandberg were enshrined, three Hall of Famers on different occasions approached baseball writer Bill Madden with a request:

Protect the Hall.

"They said to me, basically in the same manner, 'It's up to you guys, it's up to you guys to uphold the integrity of this place,'" said Madden, the baseball columnist for the New York Daily News. "They said, 'Only you guys can do that.' I consider that a serious obligation."

Madden's later says he's leaving McGwire off his ballot. My question is, how many of the 575 voters will follow suit? Mark needs 29 votes to stay on the ballot, and I wonder if he'll get those. It going to be an interesting month as columnist debate this topic in preparation for the vote.

Update: There's more of a debate in this piece, in which Claire Smith asks a number of sports writers their opinion. Who knows if this is a representative sample, but from reading this, I'm guessing Mark will stay on the ballot but not get elected, pushing the vote off until another time.

What's interesting is that many of the writers are finding a statistical reason not to vote for McGwire, many invoking his low hit total to keep him out of the hall. While his .263 BA is low for the hall, his .394 OBA is not. My guess is, if McGwire didn't have the steroid taint, the writers would not be looking at his hit total.

The Hall of Fame ballot came up on this week's radio show. The topic was, are voters going to put Mark McGwire into the hall with both Ripken and Gwynn?

For the first time, the writers get a chance to punish players for the excesses of the 1990s. In addition to McGwire, Canseco and Caminiti make the ballot for the first time. And while the cases against Canseco and Caminiti based on their stats are strong, the two would normally garner some level of support, probably enough to stay on the ballot. At this point, I wonder if they get any votes.

But the more interesting case is McGwire. Mark posted a very high OBA and slugging percentage for his career, as well as the highest HR/AB ratio of all time. Without the steroid allegations, we'd be hearing Creeque Alley played at the induction ceremony. But I believe things are going to play out very differently.

Once the ballots are distributed, you'll see many stories along the lines of, "The McGwire controversy shouldn't detract from the Gwynn and Ripken induction." (The number of these will easily rival the mass of "David Eckstein is a scrappy little ballplayer" stories that followed the World Series.) Some will argue he shouldn't go into the Hall at all, and I suspect a few will argue for his enshirenment. But I believe the consenus that emerges is, "We don't need to put him in this year, let's wait."

Now, a problem arises. A player needs about 25 votes to stay on the ballot. What if the consensus is so strong that McGwire doesn't even get 25 votes? I assume all the writers don't get together and say, "Okay, you 25 vote for Mark so he stays on the ballot, and the rest of us will leave him off." They argue in their columns. The "don't vote for him this year" argument will be pretty convincing, and I feel there's a high probability that McGwire falls off the ballot.

And that's okay with me. It's my opinion that someone's Hall of Fame credentials don't change from year to year. If Bruce Sutter should be in the Hall, it should have been obvious on the first ballot. It's not like there were 10 better candidates every year better than Sutter before Bruce was elected.

So voters should make up their mind about Mark now. They have the evidence of his career and the evidence of his drug use. If they try to fudge it, they may end up eliminating McGwire's chances for good. The controversy isn't going away. Why is it okay to muck up Tim Raines' induction but not Gwynn and Ripken? No matter what year they decide to add McGwire, he's going to detract from someone's honor. The writers have a chance to send a clear message. They've been much more angry about drug use than the casual fan. Argue in your columns if McGwire belongs in the Hall or not. Don't worry about who else will be at the ceremony. That could lead to unintended consequences.

Jeff Bagwell's playing days with the Houston Astros are officially over, as Houston bought out the rest of his contract. However, expect him to be back with the team in some other capacity:

One door has closed, but several other opportunities are in play once Bagwell is ready.

Don't expect to see Bagwell in the broadcast booth, though.

"I wouldn't close the door on something like that, but at this particular time that wouldn't be my forte," he said of broadcasting. "I mumble."

Maybe so, but he realizes his accomplishments and leadership qualities give him the attention of every teammate.

"I do have something to offer as far as my passion for the game and my experience," he said. "I think there's something to be offered. That's something for another time to talk about."

My guess is that Bagwell at some point will become the hitting instructor or bench coach for the Astros, and eventually replace Garner as manager.

The thing that impresses me the most about Jeff's career was his hitting at the Astrodome. This was a notoriously tough park for power hitters, yet over his career Bagwell posted a batting average over .300, an OBA well over .400 and a slugging percentage in the mid .500s. Impressive numbers for anyone, but even more impressive in that park.

Glenn Berggoetz wrote up his research on using Runs+RBI as a Hall of Fame standard. Here's his summary:

Recently I've heard some sports talk radio hosts speaking of Frank Thomas and whether he's a Hall of Famer or not. I have long seen Thomas as a sure-fire Fame member, and was surprised by the hosts' comments. A solid RBI man who scored lots of runs because of his high on-base percentage, I began wondering if there was a magic number involving runs and RBIs that would guarantee a player Hall of Fame induction. And there is.

I began quite simply - I added up hundreds of players' totals when it came to their career runs scored and RBI numbers. I quickly found that, just like with hits, everyone who has ever combined for at least 3000 runs plus RBIs has made it into the Hall of Fame. And since Thomas has surpassed 2900 and should reach 3000 by early 2007, he seems a certainty for the Hall of Fame.

I also became intrigued with those stars who just missed the 3000 total, and some recent retirees and where they stand in regards to the magical 3000.

Topping the list of non-Hall of Famers who are close to 3000 R+RBI is Andre Dawson, with 2964. Close behind is Harold Baines with 2927, a player who is typically not referred to as a Hall of Famer.

The list of non-Hall of Fame players with at least 2800 R+RBI is a short one. Along with Dawson and Baines, Fred McGriff has 2899, Dwight Evans comes in with 2854, and Bill Dahlen rounds out the list with 2824.

It's also interesting to note the totals of some players who have retired in recent years and are sometimes spoken of as Hall of Fame material. Roberto Alomar proved to be a strong offensive performer, but his R+RBI total stands at just 2642. Even farther from the magical number is Edgar Martinez. A standout for years, Martinez's total is just 2480. Sandwiched between these two stars is Mark McGwire, whose total sits at 2581.

Other notables include Hall hopeful Jim Rice, who totaled 2700 R+RBI. Other impressive totals for players with little or no chance of making the Hall include Dave Parker with 2765, Darrell Evans with 2698, Rusty Staub with 2655, Joe Carter with 2615, Chili Davis with 2612, and Jose Canseco with 2593.

A current player whose Hall of Fame status is a bit nebulous is Bernie Williams. How does he stand in the R+RBI category? Williams recently went over the 2600 mark. While reaching 3000 R+RBI for Williams seems out of the question, his total is getting high enough to where his Hall of Fame status is steadily improving.

The R+RBI formula, however, bodes well for Dawson. Of every Hall of Fame-eligible player who has accumulated 2900 or more R+RBI, Dawson is the only one not in the Hall. It would seem Dawson's Hall of Fame election is probable.

Adding runs scored with runs batted in may seem like a simple formula, but reaching 3000 R+RBI has proven to be a perfect indicator of Hall of Fame election.

I like that standard a lot better than others I've seen. The game is about runs, and it seems the voters recognize that. High OBAs and high slugging percentages get you there, and those are the best hitters.

I was having a discussion about Mark McGwire and the Hall of Fame yesterday, and was asked how I would vote if I had a vote. My answer was that I'd like to wait for the Mitchell investigation to finish to see if any new allegations turned up about McGwire, or if the FBI investigation would be confirmed. So I would not vote for McGwire on the first ballot.

Others offer different reasons for the same non-vote, along the lines of Ripken and Gwynn shouldn't need to deal with McGwire when they get elected. What's going to be interesting is if that idea takes hold.

What if 96% of the voters take either of these reasons as legitimate? McGwire is then off the ballot. In other words, there's a real chance that if McGwire doesn't make it on the first ballot, he's not going to make it period. I don't think the BBWAA rigs elections. I don't think they go around saying, "Make sure a few of you vote for so-and-so," to keep him on the ballot. You could turn out with what amounts to a protest vote shutting McGwire out after one year.

Does anyone have an idea of how much support there is for Mark on the first ballot?

The Hall of Fame honored Bruce Sutter today:

Perhaps the biggest debt Sutter owed was to Fred Martin, the man who taught him to throw the pitch that saved his career - the split-fingered fastball. After undergoing surgery to fix a pinched nerve in his right elbow, Sutter met Martin, the roving minor league pitching coach for the Chicago Cubs, in 1973 and three years later was pitching in Wrigley Field.

"Nobody was throwing what he called the split-finger," Sutter said. "It was a pitch that didn't change how the game was played, but developed a new way to get hitters out. Everybody who throws the split-fingered fastball owes a great deal of thanks to Fred Martin (who died in 1979) because he was the first one to teach it."

Also honored were 17 players and executives from the Negro Leagues.

Although Sutter was the lone player selected by the Baseball Writers Association of America, he was part of the largest class of inductees in Hall of Fame history. Seventeen players and executives from baseball's segregated past, all of them deceased, were also inducted, including Effa Manley, the first woman to be so honored.

"It's a wonderful day," said Rachel Robinson, the wife of Jackie Robinson, who broke baseball's color barrier 59 years ago. "I'm very excited about it. It's a long time coming. We're very, very proud of the Negro Leaguers."

Congratulations to all!

Via Baseball Think Factory, a look at how Hall of Fame voters are thinking of voting with McGwire, Canseco and Caminitti on the upcoming ballot.

Andrew Godfrey received an early father's day gift, a surprise trip to the Hall of Fame!

The Astros called a news conference for this afternoon. It looks like the Clemens signing will be true today.

Why did Clemens wait an extra month to come back? Look at his statistics from the 2005 season:

Clemens through August 12, 2005.

Clemens from August 18th through the end of the regular season.

Clemens can probably go four good months and a bit. That takes him through the rest of the regular season and into the playoffs. If it works out that the Astros can catch, the Cardinals, make it back to the series and win, it will certainly be a fairy tale ending to a tremendous career.

Seventy one years ago today Babe Ruth hit the final three home runs of his major league career.

No.714 was the first to travel over the mammoth right-field roof at then 26-year-old Forbes Field, a feat only nine other men achieved before the ballpark closed in 1970. The prodigious drive was estimated at more than 500 feet, a Ruthian shot indeed.

"Boy, that last one felt good," Ruth told Pirates rookie Mace Brown, the pitcher related in a 1995 interview with the Associated Press. When Ruth left the game, he plopped down on the Pirates bench beside Brown, since all visiting players exited the field through the home dugout.

Bonds won't get the chance to pass the Babe today as the Giants have the day off.

I didn't know Ozzie Smith and Tony La Russa disliked each other so much:

Cardinals manager Tony La Russa, after reading a story in Sunday's Post-Dispatch that, in part, reiterated Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith's disinclination to participate in club-related field activities as long as La Russa was manager, said he had changed his mind about inviting Smith to spring-training camp as an instructor.

La Russa, before reading the text, had said he didn't think they would be going to dinner, given their past differences, but that Smith could be helpful if he wanted to join the other Hall of Famers who generally go to Jupiter, Fla., in the spring. Upon further review, there was a stark reversal of field Sunday by La Russa, who was not proffering an olive branch.

"Speaking personally, I don't think he would be good for our ballclub," said La Russa, who sought out the Post-Dispatch before the game. "For him to repeat those comments is really unreasonable. That invitation is no longer there.

"He's not welcome

."

Wow. Even Yogi Berra made up with George Steinbrenner. St. Louis fans, is it really just about playing time? Most pros realize after they retire that they were at the end of their game and probably deserved to play less. Is this just two big egos clashing?

Dan Lewis posts on Babe Ruth's 715th home run. The rules at the time only credited a batter who hit a walk-off home run with the number of bases needed to win the game. Ruth was credited with a triple on one of those.

I guess that's balanced by the rule at the time that credited balls that bounced into the stands as home runs. They're the ground rule doubles of today. I know Ruth didn't hit any of those in 1927, but I'm not sure about the rest of his career.

Willie Mays turns 75 years old today. Gary Peterson remembers.

Here's a nice story about Babe Ruth helping a church in Philadelphia pay off a loan on a ballfield by playing in an exhibition game during the 1923 season:

It was not recorded how much money the game raised, but it was enough to pay off Casey's loan.

Curiously, while all the Philadelphia newspapers dispatched reporters to cover the exhibition game, they weren't inclined to cut Ruth any slack.

"Ruth's Bat Fails Ascension Club" read the story's headline in the next day's Evening Bulletin.

I guess some things never change. :-)

I was born and raised in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and still have family in the area. Now there is a baseball controversy involving the city. They want to knock down the house of Jim O'Rourke, the only Hall of Famer to come out of Bridgeport.

As you can see from the aerial photograph, there's not a lot around the O'Rouke house anymore. The East Side of the city is a mess. The Pequonnock River is lined with closed factories that can't be knocked down or rehabilitated due to the toxic waste contained within. Once beautiful two family houses are falling in on themselves from decades of neglect. When my grandmother died in 1984, her funeral took place in that part of town. I remember thinking with a little work on the residences how nice this area could look. When my uncle died over a decade later, and we drove the same route, everything looked beyond saving.

This house is an example of that.

A few years ago, they formed a group, the First Hit, and a Web site, Thefirsthit.com, and began holding small fundraisers to help pay the costs of either moving or restoring the home. Bielawa and Crowley estimate that they would need at least $500,000 to finish the work. Asked what they have raised, they looked at each other and did some quick mental calculations.

"Under $10,000," Crowley finally said.

Thirty years ago, it could have been saved easily. Now the price is too high.

So I understand the city's desire to develop and the knock down the house. I understand the desire to keep a piece of history in a part of town where history is decaying. It's unfortunate that decades of poor judgement and corrupt management led to this. Maybe the best compromise at this point is a shrine in the shopping mall to be built on the spot remembering the Bridgeport legend and the house he constructed, a reminder of how easy it is to lose our past.

Julio Franco hit his first home run of the season last night, making him the oldest man to homer in MLB. Congratulations to Julio! He's so old (or I'm so old), Julio came up a month before I graduated from college.

Albert Pujols hit three home runs in yesterday's Cardinals victory over the Cincinnati Reds. I was actually surprised to see it was only the second three home run game of his career; he's such a great hitter I thought he'd have more.

I'm sure you've seen the stats about most X over the first Y years of a career. But have you noticed that the only thing Albert doesn't do well offensively is hit triples? He has a break even base stealing percentage for his career, and is 18 for 20 since the start of 2005. Look at the splits for his career. I dare you to find a weakness. He hits lefties and righties. He hits home and away. He hits in every situation. His averages with a runner on third and less than two out: .413/.463/.800 with twenty nine sacrifice flies. He doesn't ground into many double plays for a slow, right-handed batter. At age 26, he's just four hits away from 1000. With forty four hit by pitches and 414 walks, Albert Pujols earned his way on base 1454 times in his career.

There are only seven players who reached base 5000 in their careers; Rose, Cobb, Henderson, Yastrzemski, Musial, Aaron and Barry Bonds. Albert should be in the most productive five years of his career. He's laid the foundation to be at 5000 by the time he hits 40. With a little imagination and a great five year stretch here, one can see Albert becoming the first player to reach 6000 times on base.

And while we're setting goals, how about 700 doubles and 700 home runs? There are four players with 700 doubles, and three with 700 home runs, and the lists do not intersect. Albert has over 200 of each very early in his career.

One correspondent recently asked me about Albert's age. When someone comes up at age 20 and hits like that, it's very easy to believe he's older than claimed. If that were true, if he were 23 or 24 when he came up, we might be seeing a decline by now. If he were 22, we might not. If Albert continues to hit like this over the next two or three seasons, that's a pretty good indication he was 20 when he joined the big leagues. And then the sky's the limit.

Sean Kirst reflects on Jackie Robinson day and how to get more African-American children involved in the game.

Yankee Stadium announcer Bob Sheppard is missing today's opener in the Bronx:

Public-address announcer Bob Sheppard's authoritative voice was missing from the New York Yankees' home opener for the first time since 1950 because of a hip injury.

Sheppard threw out his left hip Monday night at his Long Island home, the Yankees said before Tuesday's game against Kansas City. He will miss the three-game series against the Royals and hopes to be back April 21.

"I am very disappointed," Sheppard said in a statement. "I am optimistic that I will return to the stadium for the next homestand."

Here's wishing Bob a speedy recovery!

Bagwell started his career in 1991, and from 1991 to 2005 he was fifth in the majors in home runs with 449. It's an impressive total, especially given than he spent the first nine years of his career hitting in the Astrodome. Notice that number six on the list is Frank Thomas, who was born on the exact same day as Bagwell. That's nearly 900 home runs from two players the exact same age. That was a good day to be born.

Note, too, that Biggio and Bagwell were first and third in doubles over this time.

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Jeff Bagwell decided to start the season on the disabled list, but it looks like he's very close to retiring.

"I may never play again," he said. "It's been 15 years with the Astros. I have to do what's best for me, what's best for the Astros and best for baseball."

According to this ESPN report, Bagwell may end up staying with the Astros in a non-playing capacity.

Over the last couple of years, as Bagwell's shoulder problems have worsened, the Astros have talked about the possibility of bringing him into the organization in a non-playing capacity. Axelrod said Bagwell is open to that if it turns out he can't play anymore.

"Needless to say, there haven't been discussions of that in detail," Axelrod said, "because our position has always been that Jeff was trying to be a player. But it has been discussed in the past, even as far back as [four years ago] when we were doing the contract -- that they want him to be involved for his lifetime as an Astro, much like Nolan Ryan is involved.

"Right now, we're just waiting for the air to clear a little bit. But Jeff has been an Astros for his whole life. He's a quality baseball guy. But more than that, he's a quality guy. So I think he'd be an asset to the organization, certainly. And he's 38 years old. He's not going to want to sit on his behind and play golf every day. I think he'll want to be involved somehow."

It's too bad Bagwell could not go out playing. But he had a great career and saw his team make the World Series for the first time. And he's another of the rare breed that spent his entire career with one team. He'll be missed.

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I hadn't realized Davey Johnson had been through so much pain and misery over the last two years:

Johnson, 63, nearly died in 2004 while suffering from a mysterious stomach ailment that turned out to be a year-long ruptured appendix. At one point, his weight plummeted from 250 pounds down to 145. But even that ordeal couldn't prepare him for the pain of last June when his youngest daughter, 32-year-old Andrea Lyn, an accomplished surfer, died suddenly after a lengthy battle with schizophrenia.

Johnson's my favorite manager. I hope he continues to recover from his illness and loss.

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Super Astros fan Lisa Gray kept her eye on Bagwell this spring, and she believes he's done:

Jeff Bagwell had to remove himself from the game because of pain in his shoulder. Again. I’ve watched him “throw” - and to be honest, I throw a LOT better than he does right now. Heck, my KIDS throw a lot better than he does right now. He’s not hitting well or hitting for power and it looks to me like he’s barely following through with his right arm when he does swing. He hit a ball to the warning track the other day and it looked to me like the shock and pain went clear down to his feet.

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Jeff Bagwell keeps trying to convince himself that his shoulder will allow him to play, but he's sounding like a person in denial. Once again, he came out of a game early instead of playing five innings:

"I didn't feel that great today," Bagwell said. "I knew it was going to be a battle and it got to the point of 'What am I doing? What's the point?' Just to go out there and force it, there's no reason. I'm going to look at it as sometimes a day off doesn't do me well.

And:

"Obviously, it's not great," said Bagwell, who went 0-for-1 with a walk in the 10-7 loss. "I wish I could have been out there for six or seven innings, but that's not the way it was going to work today. We'll see what tomorrow brings."

Bagwell has played 16 innings at first base this spring but has yet to have to make an overhand throw in the field to test his shoulder. He made some throws in warmups, but never felt good.

This far into spring training I'd expect Bagwell to be doing better if he were going to make the team. It looks to me that the Astros were correct in filing the insurance claim. Will Bagwell realize that?

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Dan Lewis pens an open letter to Peter Schmuck on the subject of Hall of Fame Voting (spelling corrected).

The BBWAA should, in its effort to democratize the election process, choose regular fans as delegates. Allow people like myself to apply for the job of Hall of Fame voter. Give us the opportunity to demonstrate to you our resume of fandom, our knowledge of the game, etc. We watch game after game, crunch stat after stat, and root for (and against) players and teams year-round. We know the game backward and forward. We are perfectly capable of making informed decisions. And you are perfectly capable of identifying us.

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Clemens tells USA Today he'll retire after the World Baseball Classic. Unless he doesn't.

Clemens, who turns 44 in August, left himself an out, however. He could sign with a team -- most likely a contender -- later this summer.

Clemens is very competitive. My guess is that at some point he finds a team.

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Effa Manely took her place beside the greats of baseball today:

Effa Manley became the first woman elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame when the former Newark Eagles executive was among 17 people from the Negro Leagues and pre-Negro Leagues chosen Monday by a special committee.

Manley co-owned the Eagles with her husband, Abe, and ran the business end of the team for more than a decade. The Eagles won the Negro Leagues World Series in 1946 -- one year before Jackie Robinson broke the major league color barrier.

The electees include seven Negro leagues players: Ray Brown, Willard Brown, Andy Cooper, Biz Mackey, Mule Suttles, Cristobal Torriente, and Jud Wilson; five pre-Negro leagues players: Frank Grant, Pete Hill, José Méndez, Louis Santop, and Ben Taylor; four Negro leagues executives Manley, Alex Pompez, Cum Posey, and J.L. Wilkinson; and one pre-Negro leagues executive Sol White.

Manley used the game to advance civil rights causes with events such as an Anti-Lynching Day at the ballpark. She died in 1981 at age 84.

Congratulations to the families of all the elected players and executives. These are honors long overdue.

Matt Welch reminds us of Bobby Grich's greatness in his column on the best seasons by Angels second basemen.

I wonder how much Bobby's last name had to do with his non-election to the the Hall of Fame. Grich is one of those words that just sounds yucky; if you didn't know what the word meant, you might think it's something that clogs a drain pipe.

Via 6-4-2, Barry Bonds is going to retire at the end of the season.

"I'm not playing baseball anymore after this," Bonds told USA TODAY in a telephone interview from his home in Beverly Park, Calif. "The game (isn't) fun anymore. I'm tired of all of the crap going on. I want to play this year out, hopefully win, and once the season is over go home and be with my family. Maybe then everybody can just forget about me."

Bonds says he is taking a ton of pills for pain and to make him sleep (looks like he picked a bad year to give up amphetamines). He also says he can't run anymore, but he can still hit.

If this is for real (can you imagine him retiring one short of Aaron?) Hammerin' Hank is safe. I don't see how Barry can hit 48 homers in just 120 games, many in which he'll be taken out early. Of course, he always manages to surprise people.

He will, however, likely possess most home runs by a lefty, and most in the National League. Not a bad way to end a career.

Update: Wait. Bonds tells another reporter he can play another ten years:

In a second article, written by MLB.com reporter Barry Bloom, Bonds said he thought his conversation with Nightengale was personal and merely reflected his state of mind that day.

"If I can play (in 2007), I'm going to play; if I can't, I won't," Bonds told MLB.com. "If my knee holds up, I'll keep on going. I'm playing psychological games with myself right now. I don't want to set myself up for disappointment if things don't work out this season. So I go back and forth, back and forth every day. These are the things that are going through my mind. This is what I'm struggling with."

In fact, Bonds told MLB.com, the new brace on his thrice surgically repaired right knee "feels great. It's awesome. Right now, I feel like I can play for another five years, another 10 years. It's given me a new lease on life. That's how I'm feeling today. I'm ready to get going."

Whatever.

The plan to turn Honus Wagner's house into a bed and breakfast was rejected.

Plans to turn the former home of Hall of Fame shortstop Honus Wagner into a bed-and-breakfast and museum were rejected by a zoning hearing board amid parking concerns, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported.

Owners of the house several miles outside Pittsburgh had wanted to restore it in time for the All-Star Game, which will be played July 11 at PNC Park. Now, the owners will auction it in part or whole around the time of the game, the newspaper reported.

"We're done," said Michael Gissin, president of Wagner Carnegie Inc., which paid $130,000 for the house in October. "We don't want anything the community doesn't want."

That's too bad. Will he restore the house anyway? Maybe some baseball collector would like to own the place.

Plans are in the works to turn Honus Wagner's Pittsburgh house into a bed and breakfast:

Wagner moved into his three-story, yellow brick colonial at 605 Beechwood Ave. in 1918, a year after playing his last game for the Pirates. Though the home since has been split into two apartments, many of the original features remain, including stained-glass windows, chandeliers, mantels and hardwood floors.

Restoration efforts will be guided by more than 50 builders' records, part of Wagner's scrupulous oversight of the project. Klos bought the documents -- including the original contract Wagner signed to have the house built -- at a New York City auction for $15,000.

Getting those documents was the key to the deal for Klos.

"It's really a find. We know what's original and what isn't. We have the documentation for everything. It's very rare to have the actual documents pertaining to a house that early," he said.

That's sounds like a nice baseball trip, a stay at Wagner's house and a couple of games at PNC Park.

Brian McTaggart chronicles the departure of some star Houston atheltes as Bagwell and the Astros head for a showdown over whether the first baseman is healthy enough to play.

Beyond the Boxscore uses Jay Jaffe's JAWS system to create a Ray Lankford Wing of the Hall of Fame. These are players who had fine careers but just haven't qualified for the Hall of Fame. Nice to see Mickey Tettleton listed among the catchers.

There's a good discussion going on in the comments of this post on Dale Murphy's credentials to be in the hall of fame. One of the points of contention is Murphy's ranking during his career peak, 1980 through 1987. One view is that Mike Schmidt was the only player better during that time (NL). Others counter that there were many better players during those years. From looking at the numbers, there were a few players who were better than Murphy during that time.

From 1980 to 1987, Dale Murphy ranked 20th in the majors in on-base average among players with 2000 plate appearances. His .374 mark is very good, but it's not outstanding.

During the same period, he ranked sixth in slugging percentage. Of the five players ahead of him, four also had better OBAs. That's a good handful of players who were better than Murph during his prime.

Now we'll level the playing field by looking at road games only, 1500 plate appearances. Murphy drops to 10th in slugging percentage. His OBA drops to .355 which pales in comparision to Guerrero, Schmidt, Mattingly, Murray, Brett and Jack Clark. Pedro Guerrero was easily the best hitter of the era.

If you look at OBA on the road in that time, Murphy drops to 28, sandwiched between Hall of Famers Yount and Winfield, each of whom had much longer careers.

There were a number of players who were better hitters than Dale Murphy, especially when you consider park effects.

Baseball Widow writes (she says she'll be blogging again soon) to point out a number of good articles about Dale Murphy at Braves Journal. The consensus opinion there is that Murphy's peak makes him Hall of Fame material, but his longevity does not.

That argument hits the nail on the head. Both are important. Sometimes you can get by on one of those (Koufax comes to mind) if the peak is mind boggling, or like Griffey Jr., you come up at such a young age you can decline greatly in your thirties and still have awesome career numbers. It's the lack of building on the foundation that's keeping both Murphy and Rice out of the Hall.

Ken Rosenthal believes conflicts of interest in voting for baseball awards are overblown:

Here's the rub: The media and sports worlds are full of conflicts, many far greater than the ones described above. FOX and ESPN both broadcast and cover Major League Baseball. The Tribune Co., owns both the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Cubs. The New York Times owns a 17 percent stake in the company that controls the Boston Red Sox. But good golly, Times writers can't vote for Bert Blyleven for the Hall of Fame.

(Hat tip David Gerstman).

Joe Strauss of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch interviews the current and former presidents of the BBWAA about what might happen with the Hall of Fame Voting next season:

"The one thing that argues against (McGwire being elected) is this clear-cut alternative. You have Mr. Clean from Baltimore and Mr. Happy from San Diego," said Baltimore Sun columnist and current BBWAA president Peter Schmuck. "Your last image of McGwire is a guy shrinking in front of your eyes at the hearings. I'm sure it will affect the percentage but I believe all three still get elected. I'm sure some people will want to knock McGwire back a year. Will it be enough to knock him below 75 percent? I don't know. But you're giving it another year also."

Next year's vote on McGwire is going to cause a lot of controversy, no matter which way it goes.

Goose Gossage released his anger toward the Hall of Fame Voters:

"I just don't get it," a frustrated Gossage told The Post from Colorado on Tuesday. "I'm at a loss for words."

Gossage, a former Yankees' fireballer, seems angry that he failed to get into the Hall of Fame despite the fact that he has, among other things, more career saves, victories, and strikeouts (948) than Sutter.

"I just can't believe Sutter got in before me," Gossage added."He deserved it. I was hoping Sutter and I could go in together. ... I don't know if I ever will make it."

"You know what, I never hear from these guys who don't vote for me," Gossage said. "But I'll take on any writer, anywhere, on any show, and I will bury him."

Devon Young writes:

I think this says a lot....

Click Here.

...this covers ONLY the years of Sutter's career, thus eliminating a few years of stats from Gossage's career, but this tells us what was what during the years Sutter could steal headlines and show dominance. Both Sutter and Gossage had the exact same number of GF's during this period.

One cannot claim Sutter was a standout pitcher between the two even during his own era. This is amazing.... wins, IP, GS, CG, Winning Percentage, ERA, K9 are all in Gossage's favor. Plus, considering that back then the firemen weren't just 9th inning guys and often came in with men on bases...it's interesting to see that Gossage allowed ONLY 37 more runs than Sutter despite pitching almost 200 more innings. He also allowed only 1 HR more than Sutter in all those innings. Some of those extra runs surely came in games where batters would see Gossage more than once....imagine if they didn't (like with Sutter, they didn't)?

If I were a GM, I'd take Gossage over Sutter. He was clearly better and he was more versatile (he could be a spot starter if you needed one). I wonder how many people would take Gossage, if they only saw the numbers and not the names behind them?

He follows up with another letter:

Instead of going by exactly the years of Sutter's career, I altered it to reflect those years plus a little bit, in order to have the stats of both pitchers be equal in the amount of games they appeared in. I figure this would be a more accurate showing of what was what...

09/06/1975 - 11/16/1988
Click here.

or...03/26/1976 - 05/10/1989
Click here.

..I consider the first to be more accurate, since it includes Gossage before he began to fade off...and that's an important thought since we can't get Sutters fading years but only his best years due to a shorter career. Know what I mean? Either way, this whole thing is interesting...it really reveals a HUGE lack of knowledge about the players that the voters really have. I think they need to revamp their rules for voting..

Just one factual correction. Gossage wasn't a spot starter. In 1976, he was a starter. Except for 15 complete games, he was unimpressive as a starter, as his K per 9 went way down. I guess he was pacing himself.

What I want to focus on is the voting. Ben Kabak at Talking Baseball also suggests the voting be changed:

It doesn’t make sense, and something has to give. Yesterday’s voting shows an institution stuck in its ways. The Hall of Fame voters had to elect someone. So they opted for a reliever who couldn’t garner 25 percent of the vote seven years ago while omitting players whose careers were nearly identical.

Other comments in various posts yesterday express the same feeling. Yet no one seems to be suggesting an alternative. I'll give it a try.

Normally, I like a Borda count for elections. Voters would rank players 1-10. Players then gets points, (10-rank) + 1. You set a point threshold (80% of possible points), and anyone over that amount gets in. However, this has the same problem as the current system. It encourages writers to vote someone in, even if no one is really deserving.

Instead of voting, a ratings system might be better. Instead of voting for 10, each player on the ballot is given a rating of 1-10, where 10 means one of the all-time greats, and 1 means on the ballot due to service time. You then set a threshold (an average score of 8? 8.5?) and if you are above the threshold, you get in. The only players who stay on the ballot are players near the threshold (average score of 6). If you're not elected after three seasons, you're off the ballot.

So here's how this might work. Someone like Rickey Henderson would gets nines and tens and get in right away. Someone like Jim Rice would get sixes, sevens and eights, and not get in on the first try. He'd stay on the ballot, and voters would get to rethink their ratings. If you rate Rice a five, but his average score is seven, you might take a second look at his stats and re-evaluate your rating. You talk to other sports writers about why they rated Rice so high. Maybe you raise your rating to a seven. Maybe the arguments become so good that Rice goes up on lots of ballots, and he reaches the magic 8 spot within the three year time frame. If not, nothing is going to change minds, and he's off the ballot.

What we had this season was a bunch of sixes and sevens on the ballot. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, this type of voting would be useful for rating players all time. The average rating of the final ballot for the player becomes part of his record, and would be a useful tool for historians ranking the best players of all time.

Notice, too, this would do away with the friendship votes, such as the one for Walt Weiss. Walt might get rated a two or three for being rookie of the year, winning a World Series, and playing a tough defensive position. Maybe the guys who really like him rate him a four. But no one is going to say, "who's the idiot who rated Weiss a four?"

As always, your criticisms of the system are welcome in the comments.

Update: The URLs were causing the site to display strangely, so I changed the links to "click here." The URLs appeared in the original e-mail.

I'm a little disappointed that Dwight Gooden didn't receive enough votes ro stay on the ballot for next year. His career, even with the drug abuse was very good. When I looked back for my research, I found it better than I remembered. He's a lot better than the others who didn't get the votes. I guess it doesn't matter since he wouldn't make the hall anyway.

I want to disagree with some conventional wisdom:

Sutter was on the ballot for the 13th time, the first player elected so late since Ralph Kiner in 1975. Rice was appearing for the 12th time and has three years remaining on the writers' ballot. Gossage was on the ballot for the seventh time.

It might be difficult for Rice and Gossage to gain votes next year, when Cal Ripken Jr., Tony Gwynn and Mark McGwire appear on the ballot for the first time. Each voter may select up to 10 players.

There's plenty of room for Rice and Gossage to move up. With 520 ballots cast, there were a maximum of 5200 votes possible. Only 2933 votes were cast. That's more than enough room to vote for the first timers and Rice and Gossage.

It looks like Jamie Mottram lost his bet. I hope to be posting a picture of the mustache in a month.

Dan Lewis writes:

In 2005, there were 516 votes. In '06, there were 520. Here's how those who _didn't_ get the call in 2005 fared, comparing last year to this (min 100 votes in both years), in order of their 2005 finish.

• Sutter: +56
• Jim Rice: +30
• Goose: +51
• Andre Dawson: +34
• Blyleven: +66
• Lee Smith: +34
• Jack Morris: +42
• Tommy John: +32
• Steve Garvey: +29

It's interesting to see that all eight players made significant gains. Even assuming that the new voters all voted in favor of these eight, only Garvey did not get 5% more "new" votes (and he was close -- 5% is 26 votes.)

Those of us in the Enshrine Bert Movement should take specific note of the gains he made. Even if you assume some sort of inflation for a year with little new blood of note, Blyleven still made huge gains.

I don't understand how someone votes for Sutter and not Gossage. Gossage had a longer career, and a longer productive portion of his career. Win share shows Gossage with a productive length of 11 years, with 8 of those seasons with at least 15 win shares. Sutter was productive for 9 seasons, with 15 wins shares or more in 6 of those seasons.

Sutter's top three seasons were 27, 23 and 22 win shares. Gossage's were 26, 23 and 20. Is Sutter getting credit for being revolutionary? So was Goose. I could see voting for Gossage but not Sutter. I can't see the reverse.

Update: Here's a table of win shares showing what I mean. I only went through age 37, but Gossage kept pitching.

Age	Gossage	Sutter
20	3	0
21	0	0
22	4	0
23	23	12
24	10	27
25	26	16
26	20	22
27	11	16
28	18	13
29	12	17
30	17	9
31	16	23
32	15	8
33	15	2
34	5	0
35	7	3
36	4	0
37	5	0

Bruce Sutter is the only player elected. More to follow.

Update: Here's the story and voting from MLB.com.

ESPN writers submit their Hall of Fame ballots. Goose Gossage is a unanimous choice among that group.

Eric Mirlis at The Writers asked 18 internet writers to vote for the Hall of Fame candidates, with reasons why and why not (includiing yours truly). No one was on 75% of the ballots, which I believe is likely to happen tomorrow.

The Detroit Tigers Weblog points to a discussion of Alan Trammell's hall credentials. I agree with this point from the discussion:

It’s truly amazing to me on how asleep a majority of the voters could be on these two players, considering their all-time ranking.

Trammell was a good hitter and a good shortstop at a time when you seldom saw both. He deserves a lot more consideration than he's getting.

This article has a nice summary of the case for and against Jack Morris.

The dichotomy between a high win total and a high ERA raised the question: Did Morris win because his teams were so good, or was his ERA uncharacteristically high for a great pitcher because he pitched to the score? The fact that he tossed a complete game in nearly one out of every three starts would help suggest the latter. The fact that he had more games with five or more runs of support than most of his peers in the American League argued the former.

Morris was very good at his peak, 1979-1987. The only other pure American League pitcher with a better ERA over that time was Dave Stieb. I'm very torn over Morris going into the Hall of Fame. I remember him as the guy who started every opening day, the one pitcher on the Tigers a team didn't want to face. He played in a tough ballpark for pitchers, but for a very good team.

And not only a good offensive team, but a good defensive one as well. Morris had a low strikeout rate. My guess is the excellent defense the Tigers had in the 1980s scooped up a lot of balls and kept Morris' ERA low.

He wouldn't be a bad choice for election, but I understand why voters are hesitant to check his name.

Frank Thomas always struck me as the right-handed Ted Williams. They hit for average, hit for power, and had an amazing knowledge of the strike zone, leading to tons of walks and gaudy on-base averages. But they were alike in that they were not universally loved in their baseball towns. Williams gained a lot more love and respect from Red Sox fans after he retired, and same thing appears to be happening with Thomas.

Witness this article about Frank Thomas and his rebar warmup:

If you're a baseball fan, you've seen Big Frank's routine in the on-deck circle, reaching for a length of that heavy rebar, the steel green and pitted, as he'd start swinging lightly, stretching. And whatever conflicting emotions we fans felt about Thomas over the years, one thing was constant. When he reached for that rebar, it was prelude to one of the most exciting moments in sport, because he was about to do something spectacular: Hit that ball hard and far.

Vince Fresso has been with the team since Bill Veeck had the Sox, first working bullpen security, then the visiting clubhouse, before being promoted to working the umpires' room. That's when he saw the young Thomas hunting through some construction debris.

"You remember how dilapidated the old ballpark was; there was always some construction going on there," Fresso said. "Frank was rummaging around, looking for something, but he didn't know what, exactly."

As Fresso talked, I wasn't thinking of the public Frank, the star, awkward and uncomfortable with writers, some teammates and himself. Instead, I saw the young artist on the edge of greatness, knowing the sense of what he was looking for but not the thing itself, yet.

Too bad more people didn't appreciate his artistry when he was playing.

There's a bet going on at Sports Blogger Live concerning Will Clark, Don Mattingly, Hall of Fame voting and mustaches. All I have to say is that Jamie should be a man and grow it for the month! I guess he's not too confident in his man winning.

The 2006 Hall of Fame ballot is out, and this may be a year when no one gets elected. The freshman class is pretty weak, with Albert Belle and Orel Hersisher being the strongest candidates.

There are lots of different reasons to put people in the Hall of Fame, but significantly outstanding season performances don't seem to be enough. Belle knocked out 100 extra base hits in a strike shortened season in 1995. Hershiser set the mark for consecutive scoreless innings in 1988. Those events brought fame to those two players, but aren't enough to take them to the Hall.

The Baseball Hall of Fame arrived at a ballot designed to elect Negro League and pre-Negro League players to the Hall of Fame. Unlike previous elections, this will be conducted by a panel of historical experts. The twelve people will vote yes or no on each candidate. If a candidate receives nine votes, he is in.

It seems the Hall wants to rectify past slights due to the lack of knowledge in this realm of the old veterans committee. This seems like a decent way of bringing closure to this issue, but such a system might have worked better 50 years ago when the experts were alive who actually saw many of these people play.

Update: William Li has a proposal to get sports reporters involved in documententing what fans saw in the Negro Leagues before those fans are gone.

Richard Blackwood sends this entry from Michael Barone's blog. Barone ran into Bob Kendrick of the Negro League Baseball Museum who was working on getting Buck Williams into Cooperstown. Richard wonders if anyone wants to tackle the highlighted project:

My own suggestion: Let's have some computer whiz work up a program that would simulate how the Negro League stars would have performed in, and would have transformed, Major League Baseball if they had been allowed to compete there before MLB was integrated in 1947. Baseball is, after all, a game rich with statistics, and today people fool around with computerized simulations of games in various sports. What would an integrated baseball competition have looked like in the 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s? Let's give Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, and Ted Williams some more competition, with the Negro League greats. And let's open up the Hall of Fame more to those who deserve to be there.

I wouldn't be surprised if someone had already done this. If not, you'd need to figure out how Negro League statistics translate to MLB statistics, much like the formulas that project minor leaguers into the majors. There are some good simulation engines out there. It shouldn't be too difficult.

Balls, Sticks and Stuff is launching a campaign to get Richie Asburn elected to the Hall of Fame as an announcer. He even has a campaign button!

Update: Greg Andrew correctly points out that this is not really an election to the Hall. It is to help determine the winner of the Frick award.

You can participate in the Ford Frick Award for broadcasters. The Hall of Fame has an on-line ballot that will decide which broadcasters are included on the final ballot.

They're introducing the Latin All-Star team before the game. Edgar Martinez gets the vote at third base. It's a stretch, but he deserves to be on the team. They should have had a slot for designated hitters. It's tough to come up with another one, however. A-Rod is the shortstop, but by the end of his career he'll probably be the first baseman. Bobby Bonilla, Aramis Ramirez, Eric Chavez and Aurelio Rodriguez also come to mind.

A reader needs help finding some information. She writes:

In Aug 1962, my Dad (Bruno), brother (Tom) two uncles (Sal and Dominic) and a cousin (Nicky) went to the Old Timer's Game at Yankee Stadium. (Sounds like a casting call for the "Sopranos"). Anyway, Nicky had his face buried in a hotdog when Joe D. stepped up the plate. Joe was 48 years old and looked great. He hit a home run and the stadium erupted! Fans were standing on their seats going berserk. Tom said the yelling was deafening. My cousin Nicky, still more interested in his hotdog, looks at my brother and asks "Hey Tom, when's Joe D coming up to bat????"

Famous old family story -- we still laugh at Nicky for being such a dope.
Anyway -- here's the controversy. My brother, who was there, claims the homerun Joe D hit was "inside the park". My husband who was 9 years old at the time was watching the game on TV -- he claims the HR was over the left field wall.

They argue about this every time they get together which is about twice a year.
How can I find out who's right? I tried to find stats for Old Timers' Games on the net, but no dice.

Thought you might know...

If you know anything about this event, please leave a comment here.

MLB is running a promotion where fans can vote for a Latino Legends Team. According to the article, 29.2% of players on opening day rosters were Hispanics born outside the United States. That makes the calculation used in this post come out to 12.7% African Americans in baseball, right in line with the overall African American population.

The Daily News looks at the graceful way Mike Piazza's career with the Mets is winding down.

In one sense, it wasn't really news that he was hitting seventh last night, since he'd been moved out of the middle of the lineup a couple of weeks ago. Then again, this is still Piazza, perhaps the greatest hitting catcher ever. So every step down in the lineup is not just an acknowledgement of decline at the plate, but a reminder that he is in his final days at Shea.

The fans seem to be growing more aware of it all the time. They've been cheering his every at-bat, and last night they gave him a curtain call for his game-tying home run in the fourth inning, then chanted his name after Piazza threw out a runner stealing third with the game tied in the ninth inning.

I just did an interview where I was asked about Rafael Palmeiro and the Hall of Fame. One good thing about the Hall of Fame voting is the five year cooling off period before you get to vote for a candidate. Mostly it's so that a player who was really buddy-buddy with the media doesn't get in because everyone likes him. The five years gives you time to more objectively look at a player's career.

I think this will work towards Palmeiro's favor. As time goes by, people will remember his stats more than this scandal, especially if Palmeiro tells us what he took that caused the positive test. My guess is that Palmeiro won't get in on the first couple of ballots, but he won't be kept out of the Hall by the writers permanently. After all, there are probably a few amphetamine users that were elected.

I just wanted to say Congratulations to Peter Gammons on the day of his induction to the Hall of Fame. When I arrived in Boston in 1978, Peter's Sunday column was a must read. When I started to work on Baseball Tonight, it was more of a thrill for me to be working with Gammons than with the former Major Leaguers. Peter's been a good friend and great supporter of mine. All the best on his big day.

Sean Peter Kirst offers a solution to Joe Jackson and Pete Rose not being in the Hall of Fame. I could live with that, although I have my doubts about it remaining a quiet spot.

Sean Kirst speaks with Buddy Kerr, a former New York Giant who would like to see a reunion of the NYC Giants and Dodger teams as we approach the 50th anniversary of their departure for California. The Mets, the child of that move, don't seem interested.

Yet as we move toward the summer of 2005, a spokesman for the New York Mets says there are no plans to reunite or honor surviving members of the old Giant and Dodger teams at Shea Stadium.

"Somewhere along the line," said Bob Golon, a baseball historian, "the Mets really lost touch with their historical heritage."

It wasn't always like this:

Golon, a researcher from New Jersey, wonders if the best year to bring them back would be 2007, the 50th anniversary of the last season the Giants and Dodgers spent in New York. It would be one small step, Golon said, toward reviving a rich National League tradition.

He remembers how the Mets, in their early years, built upon their roots. They took their colors, blue and orange, from the two teams they replaced. The insignia on Mets caps also came straight from the Giants, and it remains the most time-honored symbol of baseball in New York.

With their American League monuments and "Yankeeography," the Yankees understand the power of history. The Mets, for their part, seem to suffer from National League amnesia, which is a shame when so many white-haired guys who thrilled New Yorkers could use one grand last call.

And maybe a new generation of children could appreciate where the Mets came from, and why.

It would be another sell out for the Mets. Who wouldn't want to see Willie Mays back at Shea?

Last week during the radio show I suggested that if Roger Maris were playing in this decade, he would have been accused of steroid use. He had a big jump in home runs hit, and his hair started falling out. Taking steroids is associated with hair loss. There is a big difference between hair loss caused by steroids and hair loss caused by stress; in stress situations, the hair grows back.

So, given that Tom House used steroids in the late 1960s, is it possible that power hitters used them even earlier? I wrote to Bart Maris and asked him if Roger's hair grew back.

Dear Sir,

I'm curious. I've read many places that Roger lost hair during the 1961 season due to stress. Did it ever grow back once the race was over?

Thanks very much,

David Pinto

And Bart was nice enough to reply:

David

Thanks for writing. Good question. It was only a temporary thing and his hair did grow back right away.

Take care

Bart

So it looks like the story of Maris losing his hair due to stress is absolutely true.

Does anyone know if Roger Maris' hair grew back after the 1961 season?

It's the second annual Jackie Robinson day around major league baseball. MLB.com has extensive coverage. There will be a special ceremony at Dodger Stadium tonight. All fitting tributes to a great ballplayer and a great man.

Somehow, this doesn't seem to be the right year for honoring Gaylord Perry.

Baseball Musings is holding a pledge drive during March. Click here for details.

The New York Times has a very interesting article about a ticket found in an auctioned book that led to the discovery Jim Thorpe having a basketball career. Thorpe was the model for the multi-sport athlete, having success in baseball, football, track and field and now basketball. Don't miss the slideshow that's connected to the story.

Baseball Musings is holding a pledge drive during March. Click here for details.

An interesting comment to this month old post today.

My brother & I had a unique opportunity to to meet & talk with Rickey Henderson for 10 minutes yesterday (3/18/05) at the Royals-Angels spring training game.

Rickey deserves a chance to play.

He said, “I tell General Managers ‘pay me the minimum salary & then I’ll donate that entire salary to whatever local high school you want me to & I’ll play for free…I already have money, I know I can play…give me a shot & forget about how old I am.”

The game needs more guys like Rickey.

The Royals could use his influence on their young hitters.

Baseball Musings is holding a pledge drive during March. Click here for details.

It's official, Roberto Alomar has retired.

"I played a lot of games and I said I would never embarrass myself on the field," Alomar said. "I had a long career, but I can't play at the level I want to play, so it's time to retire."

He said he had doubts even entering camp.

"I just can't go anymore," Alomar said. "My back, legs and eyes aren't the same."

My discussion of Alomar's Hall of Fame chances is here.

Baseball Musings is holding a pledge drive during March. Click here for details.

Congratulations to Steve Rogers and Dave Stieb. Both pitchers have been selected to the Canadian Hall Of Fame.

Rickey Henderson is looking to play one more season.

Henderson plans to return to organized ball this summer. According to the report, Henderson was hoping for a spring training invitation from a major league club, in particular the A’s. With none forthcoming, he is willing to play inMexico or an independent league.

I just love Rickey. I hope he ends up in Newark again so I catch him playing in Bridgeport.

It's Boggs and Sandberg.

Update: Wade Boggs is no surprise. His 3000 hits and high batting average and OBA made him an easy pick. Sandberg makes it on his third try. I'm sure they're celebrating in Chicago. Ryne was a very productive 2nd baseman from 1984 through 1993. While his numbers may not be a gaudy as some second sackers of today, remember his prime years were before the offensive explosion of the 1990s. He gathered 346 win shares in his career, 38 coming in his big 1984 season that led the Cubs to the playoffs. He added 3 more 30+ seasons in the early 1990s. A great a second baseman, it's too bad his career was cut a bit short. It's nice to see the writers recognize his accomplishments after short changing him on his first ballot.

Baseball will announce the new inductees to the Hall of Fame today. You can watch it live on MLB.com. (It's not the point of this post, but I really like the way MLB is developing radio and TV on the web. Eventually, it will slide right in to satellite radio and TV, if it hasn't already done so.)

I find myself becoming less interested in Hall of Fame arguments as time goes on. Most take two forms:

1. I really like this player, and he's done something some other hall of famer did, so he should got in. This we'll call the Don Mattingly argument.
2. This player was good for a long time. He should go in the hall. This we'll call the Tommy John argument.

The first argument is usually made fan-to-fan. I don't believe it has much bearing on the voting. The second often leads to debate in the media. To me, it's a weak argument. The Hall isn't about being good, it's about being great, and greatness comes in many forms. So if you are going to get in being good for a long time, you better reach an important milestone like 3000 hits. I'd much rather see a player go in who had five unbelieveable seasons in the middle of his career than one who above average skills that happened to age well.

It looks like Wade Boggs is the leading candidate for enshrinement this year. Whenever I think of Boggs, I think of Tony Gwynn also. Two great hitters who on the surface look very similar but had very different approaches to the game and different career paths. Here are their career averages:

Career	Boggs	Gwynn
Batting Average	.328	.338
On-base Average	.415	.388
Slugging Percentage	.443	.459

Boggs and Gwynn both had high averages, but Wade was better at not making outs. Tony was the better hitter in that he was more likely to get a hit when he stepped to the plate. But Boggs was the better offensive player because he didn't use up the team's supply of outs. So you'd use these two hitters in very different ways. If you have a man on 2nd with two out in ninth, and you need that one run, you send up Gwynn. Tony is more likely to get the hit to drive the runner home. But if the situation is bases loaded and you need one run, you send up Boggs because he's more likely to reach base, and his reaching base will push the run across.

Boggs and Gwynn are also different in the path of their careers. Boggs had the best part of his career in his first half, Gwynn in his second.

Win Shares	Boggs	Gwynn
1982-1989	237	183
1990-1999	157	208
2000 on	0	7
Total	394	398

You can see where Bogg's advantage in OBA helps him out in win shares. Boggs averaged 22 win shares per season vs. 20 for Gwynn. Boggs is going into the hall because of the great seasons he had early and a subsequent good career that allowed him to reach the hit milestone. Gwynn saved his best averages for late in his career, although injuries and a strike limited his playing time.

Two great hitters, two different approaches, two different career paths to the Hall of Fame. We'll see if Boggs gets in later today.

Correction: I made a math error. Boggs actually has 394 win shares, which gives him an average of 22 win shares per season and moves him even closer to Gwynn. The mistake has been corrected above.

George Kell is in the hospital recovering after an auto accident.

Baseball Hall of Famer George Kell is hospitalized and will need some physical therapy after breaking his left leg and left arm in a car crash, his wife said Friday.

Carolyn Kell said her 82-year-old husband was "doing very well" but remained hospitalized following a crash Tuesday with a tractor-trailer.

Not a fun way to spend new year's eve. Here's hoping for a speedy recovery. In case you're not up on George Kell, here's a account of the 1949 AL Batting Race, where Kell beat out Ted Williams on the last day of the season. Notice that even without an internet and cell phones, information found it's way to the right people. :-)

Edgar Martinez is being honored today at Safeco Field. As part of his retirement, the city is naming a road after the career designated hitter.

Usually the naming of civic places for people is a posthumous deed. But sentiment for Edgar Martinez runs so strong in Seattle that even the "dead rule" stood no chance.

"Why wait?" said Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, a big baseball fan who will announce today that Atlantic Street, which marks Safeco Field's southern boundary, will be renamed "Edgar Martinez Drive."

Bonds is in the lineup today. I'll be updating this post as the game goes on.

Update: Bonds up in the first, 1st and 2nd 1 out.

Update: They're pitching to him, but carefully. First pitch high, second, low. The third pitch was very nice, above the belt over the inside corner for strike 1. Next a foul at the plate. Again, a good pitch. Santos gets the fifth pitch just below the belt over the plate, and Bonds rifles it down the rightfield line for a double and an RBI. Giants lead 1-0. You just can't make a mistake to Bonds.

Update: Bonds will bat 3rd in the 3rd.

Update: Bonds comes up after Pedro Feliz makes the score 4-0 after a solo HR. One out.

Update: Bonds walks on four pitches. Santos didn't challenge him, and that brings a visit from the pitching coach. At this rate, Santos won't be around to face Bonds a third time.

Update: Going to the top of the fifth, Bonds due up third. It looks like Santos is still in the game, the score is still 4-0.

Update: I should have waited for them to come back from commerical. Matt Wise is the new pitcher for the Brewers.

Update: Bonds up, none on, 2 out. There's a shadow between the mound and the plate, making it harder on the batter. Looks like Wise is pitching Bonds low and outside. After two balls, he comes inside and Bonds fouls it off. Pitch four is over the plate, and Bonds lines it hard into right. The 2nd baseman Hall, playing halfway out in right, leaps and just misses the liner, Bonds gets a single.

Update: Bonds is up with 1 out and none on in the 8th.

Update: Bonds starts 2-0 again, then a nice pitch on the low outside corner for a taken strike. The next pitch is taken into left-center for a single. Bonds comes out for a pinch-runner; looks like he'll reach 700 in San Francisco.

I'll be updating this post during the Giants-Brewers game.

Update: Obermueller gets the Giants 1-2-3 in the first. Bonds will lead off the 2nd inning, making it likely the Brewers will pitch to him.

Update: Bonds just gets under the first pitch and send one to the warning track in right near the line. Brady Clark makes the catch. Ten more feet and it was gone. The Milwaukee announcer describes it as a pop up.

Update: Bonds will be leading off the fourth. Again, no reason to pitch around him.

Update: Once again, Bonds grounds out to Ginter in shallow right field. Almost the exact same play as Bonds' last AB last night. He's 0 for 2.

Update: The Milwaukee broadcast just did an interview with the representative from MLB who is there to make sure the ball hit for #700 is authentic (as opposed to accurate). When Bonds comes up, the ump gets his baseballs from the MLB rep, and returns them when the AB is over. There's an accountant from a major firm there to keep track of which balls are used. And there are high tech markings on the ball as well. I just hope Dan Ra^ther doesn't catch it. :-)

Update: Bonds up with Alfonzo on first and 1 out. The Brewers are pitching carefully to him. Obermueller runs the count to 3-0, then Bonds takes a strike. The fifth pitch is low and outside, Bonds walks. Barry just won't chase pitches out of the strike zone. Yesterday, the Giants scored both times Bonds walked. That would be good for them tonight in this 0-0 game.

Update: Earl Weaver is smiling. Single, walk and Snow hits the three run homer. Giants lead 3-0 in the top of the 6th.

Update: Bonds is leading off the 8th. I assume they'll pitch to him again.

Update: Luis Vizcaino is in, just like yesterday.

Update: Ahead 1-0, Bonds swings at a pitch low and outside. You don't see him chase a bad pitch too often.

Update: Bonds grounds out to Ginter, just a little way into right. And once again, the crowd starts to exit.

Update: They shouldn't have left early. Alfonzo walks with 2 outs in the 9th to bring Barry Bonds to the plate for the fifth time in the game. And the crowd cheers the walk!

Update: The crowd is booing pitches out of the strikezone to Bonds!

Update: Pedro Liriano finally throws a strike on a 3-0 pitch, and Bonds hits it to Overbay, who does an excellent Bill Buckner impression and muffs the ball. Bonds is removed for a pinch runner.

I think the series so far shows the benefits of pitching to Barry. So far, when they've pitched to him, he hasn't gotten a hit. When they walk him, the Giants score. Stop the IBB! Pitch to Barry, you'll be better off!

Watch this post for updates on Bonds' progress tonight.

Update: They are using specially marked balls for Bonds' AB.

Update: Davis is pitching to Bonds with first base open and a man on in the first.

Update: Davis gets two early strikes on Bonds, then runs the count to 3-2 as Barry won't go fishing. After a number of fouls, Barry pops out to the 2nd baseman directly behind the bag in shallow center.

Update: People started streaming out of the park after the Bonds AB. I hope the Giants send a bunch of men to the plate so Bonds bats again.

Update: Bonds up in the top of the 4th with a man on first and no outs. He's obviously swinging for the fences as he's taken two huge cuts.

Update: Bonds walked on a 3-2 count. Davis went after Barry, but didn't give him anything good to pitch. Bonds is just too disciplined to go for the close pitches.

Update: With a man on 2nd and 2 outs, Barry Bonds is given the IBB in the 5th.

Update: Bonds will lead off the top of the 8th.

Update: Luis Vizcaino on to pitch to Bonds.

Update: After missing twice with fastballs outside, Vizcaino gets Bonds to hit what appears to be a single to right, but the 2nd baseman Ginter was playing in the outfield toward first base, and threw out Bonds from shallow right field. Great defensive alignment, and a great play.

Update: Giants win 3-2. Bonds goes 0 for 2 with 2 walks, and the Giants score runs after each of Barry's base on balls. He also saves the game, pegging the tieing run at the plate with a strong throw from left (where was that throw when Sid Bream was scoring?). He'll try it again tomorrow.

I assume ESPN is going to show Bonds' plate appearances live tonight. And you should watch the game if you can. Think about it; 700 HR has only happened twice before, in 1934 and 1973. Very few people saw Ruth reach the milestone. Many more saw Aaron. But everyone has the chance to experience this momentous moment. And if you don't, you might have to wait 30 or 40 years to see it again.

Jim Hawkins needs your help:

Together with a small group of veteran writers from around the country, I have been selected to serve on a screening committee to choose the top 25 players who spent at least 10 years in the big leagues prior to 1983 - but who have not, as yet, been judged worthy of plaques at Cooperstown.

Those 25 former players - rejected or unappreciated for whatever reason by the country's baseball writers in earlier elections - will constitute the Hall of Fame Veterans Committee's ballot in 2005.

He's looking for suggestions and comments. Here's your chance to influence the hall voting.

I posted a comment here on Bobby Grich's Hall of Fame credentials.

I once drafted Bobby Grich for my 1979 SOM team, the Pinto Hatchbacks. I then traded him to an NL team for Willie Randolph and Bill Madlock.
Bob Watson won the MVP for my AL team that year, and Grich won the MVP in the NL. Two MVP's in one draft isn't bad.

Edgar Martinez announced he's retiring at the end of the season. Given how Roger Clemens' retirement went last year, you never know.

The debate now is, does Edgar belong in the Hall of Fame. The two positions appear to be:

1. The DH is a position, so people who play the position should be considered for the Hall.


2. DH's can't play anywhere else, so their careers are artifically extended. If Edgar had to play the field, his career would have been over long ago.

I lean more toward the first argument. One thing you need to do when considering Hall of Fame qualifications is look at the position people play. The offensive qualifications for a short stop should not be as high as for a first basemen, for example, because shortstops are not expected to be great offensive players. And yet, we tend to judge shortstops for the Hall of Fame more on their offense than their glove skill. So why put such a high price on defense for a designated hitter?

To a certain extent, I reject the idea that DH's would have had earlier ends to their careers due to their fielding. Hitting has always been considered valuable; you can always find a place to hide a poor fielder. Just look at the 1992 World Series. Cito Gaston played Molitor at first base when he lost the DH instead of Olerud (who was also a good hitter and a better fielder) because he wanted Molitor's bat in the lineup. If there were no DH, someone would have found a position for Edgar Martinez.

So I think the rule of thumb should be that if you are going to put a DH in the Hall of Fame, he should be a truly great hitter. Martinez has a career .300 BA, .400 OBA and .500 slugging percentage. He's the greatest DH ever. He's what a DH should be. If there is a DH in the Hall of Fame, Edgar should be the one.

An interesting post on Babe Ruth and how he became a selective hitter over at the Baseball Crank.

NPR has an audio report on Rickey Henderson playing in the minor leagues. It's really well done. Rickey also appears to have learned to speak in the first person, something that is addressed in the piece.

The raindrops ask, "How can you not love Rickey Henderson?" Well, I do love him, and I'll be going to opening day in Bridgeport with my good friend Jim Storer to see Rickey play for Newark against the Bluefish. If you're in southern CT, here's your chance to see Rickey up close and personal.

The Baseball Crank describes the day he met Ted Williams (including a picture to prove it.

Today's the 30th anniversary of Hank Aaron breaking Babe Ruth's career HR record. In an unusual move at the time, NBC was interrupting their regular programming. The buildup for this had started in September of 1973, since Aaron was close to the record and had a shot at breaking it then. They would run projections showing how many HR they thought he would have at the end of the year. It was very big news.

I remember watching the game. I remember the swing, the ball going into the bullpen, the fans running on the field and patting Hank on the back. It was a fantastic evening for a very deserving player.

I don't agree with this from Tim Kirkjian, however:

Someday, perhaps, Barry Bonds will break Aaron's record, but with all due respect to the brilliant Bonds, it won't be the same. Aaron broke Ruth's record, one that had never been seriously approached. Aaron broke it in an era when the home run was significant, as opposed to today, when it is overexposed and devalued. In 1974, no one had hit 50 in a season since Willie Mays in 1965. Last year was the first time since 1994 that there wasn't a 50-home run man. When Aaron hit 714, he was one of only 11 players with 500 career home runs, only 15 players had 400. Now, we have 19 players with 500, and 36 with 400 -- over twice as many as in 1974. In 10 years, there's probably going to be 30 guys with 500 home runs and perhaps four players -- Bonds, Aaron, Ruth and Sosa -- with 700.

There were about 40 years between Ruth and Aaron reaching 700. If Bonds reaches that plateau, over 30 years will have passed. That seems about right to me. There may be three or four 700-HR hitters from the current crop of active players, but there just as likely may be none. As for the 500 HR club, there were 11 players who reached it over the first 50 years of clubs playing long ball (starting in 1920). There have been many more players in the 30 years since, so the growth seems about right to me. I get the feeling that some people just want one 50 HR season per decade. I'll take the occasional 70, and the occasional 700.

The Expos announced they will retire Tim Raines number on June 19. Raines was the NL's Rickey Henderson during the 1980's. Tim got on base, and stole with abandon. And he stole successfully, swiping 808 bases while only being caught 146 times, and .847 success rate.

His best year was 1987. He was a victim of collusion; as a free agent, no one appeared to want him, despite the fact that he was one of the best players in baseball. He could not re-sign with the Expos until May 1, so he missed the first month of the season. Despite that, he set a career high in HR and scored over 120 runs. He also put up career highs in OBP and Slugging Pct. In my opinion, he's the greatest player in the history of the fanchise, and it's nice to see him recognized before the team leaves Montreal.

This would have been fun to attend.

Jim Reeves of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram sees Nolan Ryan's move from the Rangers to the Astros as a metaphor for the off-season in Texas:

No, the way to keep Ryan was probably to offer him less, not more. But keep him. Somehow, keep him.

Instead, he'll soon be hooking up with the Astros.

Andy Pettitte. Roger Clemens. Nolan Ryan. Now there's a trifecta for you.

Have two teams in the same state ever been at such different ends of the spectrum in one off-season?

ESPN.com has an editorial urging a living memorial for Jackie Robinson.

We propose that baseball keep alive the legacy of Jackie Robinson with a living memorial, that rather than retire Robinson's number, it instead put No. 42 back on the field.

A living tribute. One player. Each season. One No. 42.

The Jackie Robinson "42" Award, an honor that embodies all that Robinson meant to his sport and to fellow man ... to be worn one season at a time by the one player who exemplifies the best of Robinson's attributes: Courage. Dignity. Excellence. Respect. Sportsmanship. Sacrifice. This player would have the honor of reminding both the public and his peers of Robinson's historic role in baseball and this country. Wearing No. 42 would be baseball's most special recognition.

That player would be chosen by a process that would assure that the No. 42 Award winner is a man who personifies the spirit of Jackie Robinson, the man, the soldier, the pioneer, the inspiration.

It's not a bad idea. I'm surprised the editorial doesn't spell out the process, however. The qualities a player must posess for the award are all pretty subjective. And do we really know the players well enough to make these judgements? Kirby Puckett might have won this award in his career, but Kirby didn't turn out to be the good guy I thought he was. And frankly, I don't know how many ballplayers today lead as multifacted a life as Robinson did. I have difficulty, off the top of my head, thinking of someone playing today who would be deserving of the award. Looking at the top 20 in win shares from each league last year, the only name that really pops out at me is Mike Lowell. He came back from cancer, is an excellent player and a team player.

It's a fitting tribute, I'm just not sure there are enough players who fit the bill. I'm interested to see what process ESPN.com envisions for choosing the winner.

Captain Kangaroo has died. This was a show I watched every week day morning growing up. It's hard to believe Bob Keeshan was only 76! He seemed so much older than his mid-30's when I was watching him as a child.

The Captain's show came from the treasure house. He'd start the show by opening the door with a key, go inside and hang the key on a hook. As the key went on the hook, the theme music would stop. I remember one show in which the key would not stay on the hook, and the music just kept playing! Kelloggs' was the big advertiser, and they had a model train pull a car with a bowl of Rice Krispies to a water tower, which would fill the bowl with milk. That was pretty cool.

The Captain had puppet friends before Sesame Street was even thought of. Mr. Moose was a wise guy who would use knock-knock jokes to say the words "ping pong balls," which would release hundreds onto the Captain's head. Bunny Rabbit was a silent puppet who always managed to steal carrots from the Captain. The show had cartoons and entertaiment guests and of course, Mr. Greenjeans. A perfect children's show.

My thoughts go out the the Keeshan family. Captain Kangaroo will be missed.

Horsefeathers remembers Harry "The Cat" Brecheen.

Someone asked earlier today why I voted for Jack Morris and not Bert Blyleven on my ESPN Hall of Fame ballot. I must admit it was a gut decision; I didn't go checking all the stats at the time. I really liked Jack Morris during the 80's, and his game 7 victory in the 1991 World Series really sticks in my mind. The thing I remember about Bert was him giving up lots of HR, although that was really at the end of his career with Minnesota.

Having taken a closer look, Bert's years of peak performance were better than Jack's, and he had more of them. Morris' best years go from 1979-1988, and he accumulated 167 win shares during that time, 16.7 per year. He only had one great year after that, 1991. Blyleven's peak goes from 1970 to 1985, 16 years. In that time, he accumulated 269 win shares, or 16.8 per season. So if I'm going to vote for Morris, I should also vote for Blyleven. However, looking at both more closely, I doubt I would vote for either in the future. I try to have very high standards where the Hall is concerned, and neither really light my fire.

Note: Billy Sample on MLB.com's Hall of Fame broadcast today mentioned that Blyleven had a terrible record in 1-run games. Of his 685 starts, 235 were decided by one run. His teams were 113-122 in those starts. Bert was 56-75 in games in which he got the decision. If you turn those numbers around, Blyleven has 300 wins and he's in the Hall of Fame. So you can blame his non-election on some back luck.

Paul Molitor and Dennis Eckersley have been elected to the Hall of Fame.

Update: Here's the ESPN article.

Update: I'm very happy Dennis Eckersley was voted into the Hall of Fame. He was an excellent starter and an even better reliever. I really enjoyed watching him play.

It's also interesting, in light of the Pete Rose controversy, that both these players successfully battled addictions in their careers. Eck's alcohol and Molitor's cocaine addictions were not held against them.

It's my guess that Paul Molitor will be inducted into the Hall of Fame today. Molitor was a good player for a long time, and his 3000+ hits guarantee his admission. But there are of course, different levels of greatness. Molitor's career started in 1978 and ended in 1998. Here are the top accumulated win shares during that time:

Player             Win Shares
Rickey Henderson      494
Barry Bonds           418
Eddie Murray          416
Paul Molitor          414
Cal Ripken Jr.        398
Wade Boggs            388
Tim Raines            386
Tony Gwynn            373
Robin Yount           371
Lou Whitaker          351
Ryne Sandberg         346

Rickey came up in 1979, and this doesn't count 1999-2003. Barry Bonds didn't come up until 1986, and some of his best seasons were still in front of him after 1998. What I'm saying here is that Molitor isn't a first teir hall of famer. People think he is because he has the magical 3000 hits, but there should be more to it than that. He never had a season with more than 30 win shares (Henderson had three of those; Bonds has had 12 of those).

The writers used to separate the first tier hall of famers from the rest by electing them on the first ballot. It used to be a very big deal to be elected on the first ballot. But in recent years, anyone who is obviously admittable is getting in on the first try. Molitor is in the class of 2nd tier players, characterized by being good for a long time. I'd frankly rather see him get in on the 2nd ballot.

Yes, there's a lot of baseball news out there overshadowing the event, but it is the day the Hall of Fame will announce their new inductees. You hear the announcement live over the internet at 1:30 on MLB.com.

Update: ESPN.com has a poll of readers, where you are asked to fill out the Hall of Fame ballot. You can see the results here (my picks are in italics). I find it interesting that no player polls 75% of the fans voting.

Tug McGraw passed away today. Growing up in southern CT, I saw the Mets a lot in the early 70's. I'll never forget Tug walking off the mound pounding his glove on his thigh. The role of the closer was still new in 1973, but Tug did it with panache and helped define the position. In his heyday with the Mets, 1969-1973, he posted a 2.56 ERA and allowed .226 on-base average. He only allowed 30 HR in 526 2/3 innings, impressive numbers in any era.

Tug will be missed and my thoughts go out to his friends and family.

Mike's Baseball Rants presents a thorough analysis of this year's Hall of Fame ballot.

Warren Spahn died today at the age of 82. He was part of the famous rhyme of the Boston Braves, "Spahn and Sain and pray for rain." My deepest sympathy goes out to his family and friends.

Spahn was my standard trivia answer when I could narrow the question to pitching in the 1950s. He was the definition of a 20 game winner, reaching that mark 13 times. He didn't strike out a lot of batters per 9, but he didn't walk many either Most amazing is his 1963 season, when at the age of 42 he posted a 23-7 record (he had the same record 10 years earlier). In eight World Series appearances, he allowed a meager .269 OBA and had a 4-3 record.

Update: Here's a post I wrote about Spahn earlier this year.

The Baseball Crank has a nice tribute to long-time Mets announcer Bob Murphy.

I don't know if all of you can get at this article by Dan Le Batard, but it is in ESPN the magazine if the link doesn't work (or you can sign up for ESPN Insider). It starts like this:

Everything hurts.

"I've played most of the season with a hamstring tear," Barry Bonds says. "My knees ache. My hands are done. Two bulging disks. My legs don't work. I make a strong throw, I feel it, all over, the rest of the game. Willie and my dad always said the thing that knocked them out of baseball would knock me out, too -- when the pain became too much."

The pain has become too much.

"Losing Dad was the worst thing in the world," Bonds says. "I haven't slept in a month. My mind is always racing. I can't concentrate. What's been happening in baseball the past month? I have no idea. I'm just taking care of Mom, doing all the things Dad said he wanted done at the end. I'm drained. I'm constantly thinking, thinking. It's just too overwhelming. I'm devastated. I spend all my time just trying not to have a nervous breakdown."

He is talking about quitting.

"I'm done," Bonds says. "The young players, it's their turn. I had my fun, and I keep screwing up and coming back. What for? Why bother? I can't do this anymore. I've already told the guys: a few more games, and I'm gone. I'm day-to-day, man. None of those records mean anything to me. My godfather and my father are the only reason I played, for their approval. I admired the rest of them -- Hank, Babe, Ted -- but I wasn't fighting for their approval. I've always played for the acceptance of my godfather and father. That's it. And now my father's gone."

This may be the most positive article about Barry Bonds I've ever read. As his career winds down, he's making the transition from baseball jerk to baseball great. I think a big part of the change is due to the death of Bobby Bonds and how Barry handled that. I think part of it is that players like Jeff Kent came to be seen as even bigger jerks than Bonds, so their complaints became less credible. It's a very good article, the best that I've seen at exploring Bonds psyche; how Bobby and Willie Mays always pushed him, never let him sit on his laurels for a second. How his father let all that go at the end, and now it's just Mays pushing him. Find it and read the whole thing.

Update: Rob Neyer looks at what a Bonds retirement would mean for the Giants.

Rick Lederer has a nice tribute to Bobby Bonds at his web log. He takes a thorough statistical look at his career.

Fox is reporting that Bobby Bonds died. I remember Bonds the year he played with the Yankees. Great speed and power. I had him on my 1979 strato-matic team as a leadoff hitter. My condolences go out to his family.

Update: Here's the AP story.

Yesterday, I was talking to a friend, and told him, "If anyone asks you a pitching trivia question, and you don't know the aswer, say 'Warren Spahn.'" This morning, I get an e-mail from James Joyner of Outside the Beltway with an exceprt from an ajc.com about Warren Spahn. James thought the following passage was interesting:

"I don't think Warren Spahn will ever get into the Hall of Fame," Stan Musial once said. "He'll never stop pitching."

"I'm proud of the fact that I pitched as long as I did, and I was a consistent 20-game winner," Spahn said. "I always felt I had to win to keep my job. I felt I had a bad year if I didn't win 20.

"The ballclub never offered me a raise," said Spahn, who pitched during the age of one-year contracts and never made more than $87,500 in salary. "I had to fight for every damn dollar I made. I always felt I had to have a good year or I was going to lose my job because I was that old. And when Greg came along [in 1950], I had another mouth to feed. I couldn't fail."

Spahn led the NL in victories eight times. His 63 career shutouts are the most by a left-hander. He threw an NL-record 5,246 innings, pitching every fourth day in a four-man rotation. His first no-hitter came at the age of 39, a 4-0 victory over Philadelphia on Sept. 16, 1960. The following April, five starts later, Spahn no-hit San Francisco, 1-0.

But his most remarkable start may have come in 1963, when Spahn, 43, dueled the Giants' Juan Marichal for 15 scoreless innings. In the 16th, on his 201st pitch that night, Spahn hung a screwball to Willie Mays, whose homer won it 1-0.

"It became rhythmic that one out followed another," Spahn recalled. "I thought I had to get ahead of Mays and I hung that screwball. Afterward, I was beat. Oh, man. Gangrene set in after I got in the clubhouse. Marichal was 25, and said the only reason he stayed in was he didn't want an old guy to beat him.

"Today, everybody's afraid they're gonna hurt a guy's arm," Spahn said. "A guy gets a hangnail and they're out for a week. I had aches and pains, but I never had an arm I couldn't throw with. Now, guys are on the disabled list forever. I don't think we had a disabled list."

Well, plenty of arms got hurt back then, too. Old ballplayers have a habit of not remembering that. I think a reason is that often pitchers did not come back from injuries.

Spahn was born in 1921. Forty seven other ML pitchers were born that year. If you look at that group of 48, 29, or 60% had their careers end before 1951, when they would have been 30.

Go forward 40 years, and look at pitchers born in 1961. There were 55 ML pitchers born in that year. Twenty six of then had their careers end before 1991, or 47%. Why? I can site a number of reasons:

1. More jobs due to expansion.


2. Bigger money means the pitchers want to hang around longer.


3. When they are hurt, they are allowed to heal.

Spahn, like Nolan Ryan, Roger Clemens and Randy Johnson was a physical freak who could pitch forever. Guys like these are rare.

What I also found interesting in the article was Spahn's evaluation of today's Braves, and how spot on it is:

After Tuesday's statue unveiling, Spahn is eager to watch the Braves play in person that night. "You look at that lineup, there's so many new guys and where did they come from?" asked Spahn, who watches the Braves religiously on TV. "And they're all doing well. Their pitching isn't quite there this year, but the offense has taken over. What amazes me is, where did [Marcus] Giles come from? And [Rafael] Furcal? I didn't think he'd be as good as he is. And the first baseman?

"Who's the third baseman now?" Spahn asked of Vinny Castilla. "He's strong, but nobody changes up speeds on him. I had an instinct for pitching, for changing speeds. The hitters had to [adapt to] my game. With Chipper, everybody tries to pitch him inside. If they make a mistake, he hurts them. The raw talent is in centerfield, that son of a gun. But he doesn't have discipline. He chases balls in the dirt a lot. [Greg] Maddux has had his problems, but he'll get there. And [John] Smoltz has been amazing. He's added pitches, and been able to go out there every day. It seems like the Braves have a dead spot right at the time of the playoffs, but maybe this year will be different."

Congratulations to Warren Spahn on getting a statue honoring him in front of Turner Field!

I'm sitting here watching Fred Lynn being interveiwed at the Red Sox game, and I can't get over how much he looks like Ted Williams. Must be something about being a left-hand hitting outfielder from Fenway. :-)

The Dodgers have signed Rickey Henderson. He should help; the Dodgers have the lowest OBA from the #1 slot in the NL, .289. The next closest is the Expos at .304. Even if Rickey is lousy by his standards, he should help the team. I'm glad to see him back. I got to see Rickey play earlier this year when Newark visited Bridgeport. I thought he could play then.

The Dodgers also got Jeromy Burnitz from the Mets to replace the injured Brian Jordan. He's probably a good fit; if he could generate a slugging percentage in the high .500's playing half his games in Shea, he should have similar results in Dodger Stadium.

It's the 100th anniversary of Lou Gehrig's birth. The other night in Bridgeport at the Bluefish game, they were remembering Lou and selling t-shirts to help fight ALS. An ALS sufferer threw out the first pitch of the game. Although he had to be helped to the mound, he got the ball in the air to the catcher.

You can find out more about Lou at the official web site, www.lougehrig.com.

Larry Doby passed away yesterday. Doby broke the color barrier in the American League in 1947. He and Satchel Paige were the first African-Americans to win a World Series title (1948).

Just to see how good a ballplayer he was, here's his stat page from baseballreference.com. At the bottom, notice how many league top ten finishes he had, especially in OBA and Slugging Pct. He could get on base, he could hit for power, and he was a fine outfielder. Notice how his range factor is almost always above the league's.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer remembers him here. In another wire story, he's seen as Buzz Aldrin to Jackie Robinson's Neil Armstrong. That's about right. Larry Dolan, owner of the Indians, remembers him fondly.

"Larry Doby was such an exciting ballplayer," he said. "We want our young players to be just like him."

Dolan realized that Doby's death reached far beyond Cleveland.

"His loss will be felt through out baseball," said Dolan. "He was the Jackie Robinson of the American League. Where Jackie broke the color barrier with all sorts of controversy in the National League, Larry did it silently and with dignity.

Doby was overshadowed by Mickey Mantle in the 1950s, but Doby deserves to be remembered as a great hitter and a great outfielder, and for his role in helping the Indians to their last World Series title.