Say it ain’t so: when athletes fall from grace …

  

   The temptation would be to trace it all back to Joe Jackson and
the melodramatic moment on the courthouse steps in 1920 and the cheesy tale of a youngster
pleading, “Say it ain’t so, Joe, say it ain’t so.” The big-time athlete is disgraced
and humbled, and in Jackson’s case at least, saddled with an unrelenting banishment
that survives eons past his own mortal demise.


   Jackson obviously wasn’t the first to suffer such ignominy – Jim Thorpe had
been stripped of his Olympic medals years earlier – but Jackson was perhaps the most
famous. Another legendary player from the period, Hal Chase, was banned from
baseball by Commissioner Landis at the same time, though the charges against him were
not directly related to the fixing of the 1919 World Series, though he was linked
to it unofficially because of his gambling connections.

   Comparing the fates of Chase, Thorpe and Jackson nearly 100 years later
shows vastly different outcomes, and gives pause to wonder what the historical record
will say about another fellow traveler, Pete Rose, many years from today.

   The degenerate gambler Chase is widely felt to have defiled his almost
cosmic fielding skills by intentionally botching plays to affect outcomes as dictated
by his betting. His fate, nicely summed up in the quotation below, was the most tragic
of all.

   In Chase’s own words: “You note that I am not in the Hall of Fame. Some
of the old-timers said I was one of the greatest fielding first baseman of all time.
When I die, movie magnates will make no picture like ‘Pride of the Yankees,’ which
honored that great player, Lou Gehrig. I guess that’s the answer, isn’t it? Gehrig
had a good name; one of the best a man could have. I am an outcast, and I haven’t
a good name. I’m the loser, just like all gamblers are. I lived to make great plays.
What did I gain? Nothing. Everything was lost because I raised hell after hours. I
was a wise guy, a know-it-all, I guess.”

   Thorpe, stripped of his 1912 Olympic medals in 1913 following revelations
in the press that he had, gasp, made a couple of bucks playing semipro baseball. The
public didn’t care all that much, but the guardians of the “amateur” ideal prevailed
at the time.

   It was to the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) that Thorpe sent a letter
pleading his case: “I hope I will be partly excused by the fact that I was simply
an Indian schoolboy and did not know all about such things. In fact, I did not know
that I was doing wrong, because I was doing what I knew several other college men
had done, except that they did not use their own names.”

   That reasonable entreaty fell on deaf ears, and the AAU stripped him
of his amateur status, later leading to the International Olympic Committee’s decision
to yank the medals. By 1950, though, the Associated Press named him “The Greatest
American Football Player of the First Half of the Century,” and in October of 1982
the Olympic medals were reinstated. Perhaps of limited utility for the man himself,
who died penniless in 1953, but certainly the historical record as been handsomely
revised.

   Jackson, though his “Permanently Ineligible” status persists a half-century
past his own demise, is largely vindicated in the public’s eyes. He is as revered
in our hobby as any Hall of Famer, and his cards and memorabilia are treasured to
the point of being beyond the reach of any but the most affluent collectors.

   Pete, who used to routinely disavow any linkage with Jackson back in
the heady days when Rose was still denying he bet on baseball, would do well if the
public would ultimately hold him in the same regard it has now for “Shoeless Joe.”

   All different sins, I know (I’m not even convinced Thorpe’s offense rises
to that level of ecclesiastical effluvium), but vastly different outcomes as
well.

   On a fairness scale, I would rate it two right on the mark, one clearly
unjust and one on the bubble. Hopefully, the fun is in deciphering which is which.

   For older collectors, that’s a pretty significant distinction, because
for the better part of nearly two decades, the hobby has gotten twisted around to
the idea of the companies that produce cards and collectibles apparently making the
decisions about long-term collectibility. That, my friends, is an illusion.

   I am not suggesting that all of the glitzy stuff that is being produced
these days (in relatively miniscule quantities) will fizzle out in 20 years, but merely
observing that – just as it is in the wider world – we just don’t know.

   Which leads me to a story (parable, really) that I am going to try to
tell as best I can remember it.

   A rabbi in a Russian village in the mid-1800’s would walk across the
village square every day at noon for morning services at the synagogue. Year after
year, rain or shine, he would walk slowly across the center of the village to attend
services, without exception or interruption.

   With that, the enraged Cossack grabbed the rabbi  by the scruff
of his neck and dragged him to the local lockup. The Cossack rudely shoved the rabbi
into the cell, and as the iron door banged shut, the rabbi quietly said to his jailer,
“You see, you just don’t know.”

   I hope I told that adequately. I’m not suggesting that the Conlon Collection
card pictured here, which I think are among the coolest things produced in the hobby
in the last 30 years, are going to be more highly regarded in 20 years than some of
the shiny stuff offered in those expensive packs. Since roughly 1990 or so, the card
companies (for example) have been telling collectors what’s collectable (ie. valuable),
a designation that is implicit in the price of the packs that house these creations.
I just take comfort in the fact that the passage of time is going to render the final
verdict.

   “You just don’t know.”

   Change is coming in this hobby of ours, what with a shrinking and convulsing
economy that has already and will certainly continue to exert downward pressure on
anything that might be regarded as frivolous. Much as I like ’em, sports cards are
certainly all of that.

   The card companies are going to have to find innovative ways to maintain
revenue streams, and it says here that one way would be a greater utilization of reprinted
cards. That obviously means different things if you’re Topps or Upper Deck, but there
should be potential there for both behemoths to sell cards to the modern generation
and also to the baby boomers who launched the hobby in the first place.

   I am convinced that the efficacy of such an idea hinges upon MLB finding
a way to get an umbrella licensing arrangement with retired players. Topps hasn’t
reprinted one of its vintage sets in 14 years, presumably because of the double-edged
dilemma of getting licensing for so many long-retired players and the wrangling that
surrounds the top guys, like Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Henry Aaron and Roberto
Clemente.

   I suspect it’s the former problem that poses the greatest obstacles.
Before there was a union, players signed individual contracts with Topps in an egalitarian
system that gave everybody the same amount of royalty money. With the union, the monies
are likewise divvied up on a similarly socialistic platform, but when dealing with
long-retired guys, it’s probably tough to convince Hank Aaron that he and Hank
Foiles should be on equal footing.

   Still, you have to think that for an area not already trampled to death
with expensive autographs, jersey swatches, bat chips, etc., there ought to be some
potential in tapping into that nostalgic vein.

   For one thing, the scale is likely much more attractive today than it
would have been 14 years ago, relatively speaking. The new-card hobby was so much
larger at that time that you would think trying such a project in the new, smaller-scale
version would make it more enticing.

   I think I once calculated in a column that Topps produced enough of the
1954 Reprint Set to account for almost 200,000 sets or so. Even at that big number,
boxes of the 1954 Reprints are tough to find in 2008, and pretty expensive when you
do, certainly above their original retail price.
Even more striking (pardon the pun), the two Ted Williams cards and the ersatz
1954 Topps Mickey Mantle that were missing from the Topps Reprint but picked
up by Upper Deck in a kind of unique, hybrid licensing deal, are even tougher to find.

   Buying an unopened box or the whole 1954 Reprint set might set you back
anywhere from $75 to $125; picking up just those three single cards would like add
more than another $175 to your price tag.

   I know Upper Deck would be faced with a greater challenge, but I still
think it would be cool to charge your designers with trying to replicate the tenor
of the times.

   For Topps, it’s obviously a lot simpler (assuming the licensing problem
could be solved). Anybody else out there would like to see a reprint set of 1956 Topps?

   I suppose the Detroit Lions fans have a lot more to whine about than
I do. I am a Packers fan, and I was terrified that the combination of one team playing
largely not to lose (my guys) would be at a disadvantage to a squad with ample incentive
to avoid winding up embarrassed in the record books. In the end, I wound up feeling
sorry for our friends in Michigan (the whole state, not just the Lions), who have
more to complain about than most when it comes to 2008.

   When I moved out to the Midwest in 1991 after three decades or so on
the East Coast, I lived in northern Indiana and would visit southern Michigan from
time to time. I had lived in Michigan as a kid, and I was struck by the kind of sad
lethargy that I saw as I traveled around the lower part of the state.

   This was a purely visceral observation, but it was disconcerting to see
so many lovely, stately older homes that had seemingly gotten kind of tired, so many
downtowns that seemed not tired but truly exhausted. I am rooting for the whole state
to fare better in coming years, which is not so much a prediction as a silent prayer.

   I did make some predictions last year, and was essentially dead on with
at least one of them. I wasn’t one of those who got mad at Packer management over
the Brett Favre debacle; that pathetic business seemed to me to be largely
of Favre’s making. I didn’t think Favre would drag the Jets into the playoffs, though
he did offer a nice early fake up the middle that such might be their fate.

   Being an odd amalgam of the naive and utterly cynical, I have long since
given up on the notion that legendary athletes should retire in a timely fashion so
as not to disrupt our treasured memories of their finest moments. It happens so rarely
that they step away while still on top of their game that it almost seems unfair to
ask them to do so when the normal instinct is to play they games they love for as
long as they possibly can.

   Besides, I’ve never been able to shake the feeling that there were more
heroics that we were supposed to be able to enjoy from Jim Brown and Sandy
Koufax, for example.

   Having said that, here’s the first prediction for 2009: Favre is done.
If could play golf even half as well as he does – and had the dough to do so wherever
and whenever I wanted – that’s what I would be doing.

   Happy New Year!

   I’ve never understood it for a moment, and it’s bugged me for 35 years
and counting. It’s like some Fred Flintstone type from the Pleistocene epoch dragging
himself out of the muck and the mire, club in hand, and promptly discovering fire
in the morning and by the early afternoon he’s composing a symphony worthy of the
Philadelphia Philharmonic.

   In 1973, when our hobby wasn’t even really a twinkle in anybody’s eye,
two guys collaborated on the best book ever written about baseball cards. Not just
best up to that point; we’re talking the best book that ever will be written about
baseball cards.

   Don’t believe me. Check this out ….
“In the 75 or so years that the World Series has been in existence, there have
been perhaps 1,200 pitchers who have pitched in it. Of these, Don Larsen is the only
one to have pitched a perfect game. Like Sophia Loren’s marriage to Carlo Ponti, the
continuing popularity of Danny Thomas and the political career of Spiro Agnew, there
is no rational explanation for this. It just is.”


   There you go. That gem is planted alongside a picture of Larsen’s 1958
Topps card (I don’t want to get sued, so I pictured his 1957 card here. Pretty
clever, eh?), one of maybe 100 or more such entries in the book. In one spectacular
sentence they managed to include Sophia Loren and Spiro Agnew, and how many writers
do you know who can handle that?

   The book is resplendent with nostalgia, wit and a loving regard for a
game of baseball, all elegantly wrapped up in a smart-aleck treasure called The
Great American Baseball Card Flipping Trading and Bubble Gum Book.

   The two guys, Brendan C. Boyd and Fred C. Harris, managed
to produce such a masterpiece back when our hobby truly was nothing more than those
pioneers we write about in the pages of Sports Collectors Digest and a handful
of others. The book was published the very same year as John Stommen’s first
issue of SCD.

   I’ve noted with some minor pretend grumbling over the years that I’m
thoroughly aggrieved that they pre-empted any hopes I might have in publishing a fun
book about baseball cards, since they had already done it in such a stunning fashion.
Over time, however, my anguish has dissipated a bit as I have gradually resolved to
someday write my own book anyway, with some obsequious admission included in the introduction
conceding that it’s a rip-off of their classic.

   Besides, in my version I’m going to include pictures of vintage cards
from Henry Aaron, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays. There … that’s how good that book
is. Spook Jacobs and Barbra Chrisley had their cards pictured, but Mickey, Willie
and Henry didn’t make the cut.

   It’s not really stealing if you announce beforehand that you’re going
to do it, is it Gov. Blagojevich?

   The guy, Mike DeRose of Chandler, Ariz., teamed up with Chris
Carlin, Upper Deck’s hobby marketing manager, to plant the “proposal,” including
the inserted diamond ring, into a pack of the company’s Ultimate Collection.

(An Ultimate Collection card is shown at right, though not the ersatz one that
included the proposal and the wedding ring.)


    I’m not overly sentimental when it comes to baseball cards or wedding
proposals, but I do often admire the ingenuity that some bachelors employ in finding
memorable ways to pop the question. This one I thought was cool enough to prompt me
to include the YouTube video link, which is below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVoMiapMTm0

   Always eager to find the dark cloud in any silver lining, the news also
elicited a bit panic as I pondered some of the various ways such an inventive plan
might be put to various less laudable undertakings.

   It would be just my luck, for example, to open a pack of cards and find
I had been named the sole beneficiary of an estate for a long-lost friend whose principal
asset was a storage facility in North Dakota packed with 150 unopened cases of 1991
Fleer. Not that I have anything against canaries, mind you.

   And while I realize that the nice people at the various card companies
aren’t likely to cooperate with such venal enterprises, wouldn’t it be a bummer to
open up a pack of cards and find a subpoena or a notification for jury duty?

   Not that these are likely, but if a relatively nice guy like me can think
up such awful scenarios, what do you think all those meanies out there are doing?

   Could Pandora’s box contain a really gloomy top-loader?

   Happy New Year!

   Bunning, 77, had been scheduled to sign at the show this past weekend,
but his “No” vote on the auto industry loan package last week prompted promoter Jim
Koester to send him to the showers.

  

   “Being a business owner in Michigan for over 30 years, I simply cannot
support anyone who, in my opinion, votes against the economic well-being of our great
state,” said Koester, organizer of the Gibraltar show. Fans would have paid $35 for
Bunning to sign a baseball and $55 to sign a bat.
  

   The wire reports that I saw on the flap didn’t note the small irony that
Bunning was one of the early players who helped start the Players Association, working
in the 1960s as Marvin Miller was brought in to help build what would ultimately
become the most imposing union in professional sports.

   A couple of days after the withdrawn invitation, wire services were reporting
that Bunning’s foundation was being scrutinized, with watchdog groups noting that
the Jim Bunning Foundation, which was set up in 1996 to collect money the Hall of
Fame pitcher gets from autograph signings, has taken in more than $504,000, the Lexington
Herald-Leader reported. Of that amount, Bunning has earned $180,000 in salary.
The foundation has given $136,435, or about one-fourth of its income, to churches
and charitable groups around northern Kentucky, according to the Associated Press.

   The report pointed out that Bunning is the foundation’s sole employee
and the only person to draw a paycheck from it.

   Rick Robinson, a foundation board member, defended Bunning’s salary,
saying there couldn’t be a Jim Bunning Foundation without Bunning.

   “The foundation is a charity that hired Jim Bunning to work for it,’’
said Robinson, a former congressional aide to the Kentucky senator. “Without hiring
him to do this, the charity wouldn’t have any income.’’

   According to the AP report, Robinson said Bunning created the foundation
so he could collect money from his baseball memorabilia autographs without violating
current Senate limits on outside income. That income increased after his 1996 election
to the Hall of Fame.

   Bunning spent nine years of his career with the Detroit and threw a no-hitter
for the Tigers in 1958.

   Though no mention was made of it in the article, it’s a pretty good bet
that without the flap over Bunning’s “No” vote on the auto industry plan there wouldn’t
have been much interest in the status of his foundation, at least at this particular
moment.

   Me, I’m more interested in the beef that somebody like Luis Tiant (or
maybe Jim Kaat or Tommy John) might have with Bunning’s HOF status.
There’s not a nickel’s worth of difference between Tiant’s lifetime totals and Bunning’s,
and both Kaat and John have about five dozen more wins that the junior senator from
Kentucky.

   As we all no doubt recall, HOF voting “shall be based upon the player’s
record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to
the team(s) on which the player played.”

   One presumes his Congressional status didn’t hurt Bunning’s chances when
he was voted in by the Veterans Committee in 1996. At the time he was a Congressman
from Kentucky’s 4th District; he was elected to the Senate two years later.

   Actually, I tend to get Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh mixed
up, but I am pretty sure that either or both of them pretty consistently opine about
the need to protect our borders, and on that question I can certainly agree.

   Of course, the borders I am talking about are cardboard, rather than
the more consequential ones that they are referring to. No matter: In the arcane world
of sports cards, the border can be pretty important stuff.

   What got me thinking in this odd fashion was a story told by veteran
vintage-card deal Bill Nathanson of The Polo Grounds, a first-rate purveyor
of high-grade cards from the 1950s and 1960s.

   Nathanson recounts a rare moment when he had to return a customer’s money
after selling him  three or four 1954 Topps Baseball cards. The man insisted
that the cards were off-center top to bottom, maybe even miscut, since there was no
top white border at all.


   Nathanson patiently tried to explain to the man that the iconic 1954
issue doesn’t have a top border but instead has the white border only on three sides.
The man would have none of it, and ultimately the good-natured Nathanson returned
the cards under the heading of: “The customer is always right, even when he’s wrong.”

   The longtime dealer theorized that the man might have first been acquainted
with the wonderful 1954 Topps Baseball issue through the reprints that were produced
in 1994, and those have the white border all the way around.

   So borders can be important, even more today than they probably were
20 years ago, since as hobbies mature there tends to be a greater emphasis placed
on condition. That very same significance also leaves those white – or even worse,
condition-sensitive color – borders susceptible to a lot of mischief. If you don’t
believe me, get a hold of some of the vintage Topps treasures where the white borders
have been bleached and you’ll see what I mean.

   But for the graphic designers, what seems like a very pedestrian element
can be pretty dramatically off-kilter when a problem develops. Fleer, which didn’t
have a great deal of baseball card experience when it produced its Baseball Greats
issue in 1960, found this out the hard way.

   At this juncture, the card company stumbled with arguably the most important
card in the set: No. 72 of Ted Williams, the only “modern” player included
in a set populated by Hall of Famers and mostly long-retired stars. It was the only
card of Williams produced that year, which was his last. Seems he would be the victim
of odd cropping like this to the end of his days and even beyond.

   When I saw President-elect Obama a couple of weeks back on the
television news program “60 Minutes,” I didn’t bat an eye when he was asked about
the idea of a playoff format to resolve the annual college football BCS silliness
and he offered his vote for a playoff system.

   I wasn’t offended by the question, since it was a light-hearted query
at the end of a long, serious interview, and it was a reasonable, fun solicitation
of an opinion from a guy with actual athletic proclivities. Who better to offer a
comment on Bowling, though we probably don’t want to hear his views on bowling.

   I actually read something from a syndicated columnist scolding Obama
for weighing in on a such a relatively frivolous subject during a critical juncture
in American history. Phooey. It’s not like he plugged it into the State of the Union
speech.

   And then after reading that, no less of an icon than the New York
Times offers the counter-argument: “College football needs Obama to assume the
bully pulpit for a playoff.” Uh, huh. Maybe after he’s worn out Teddy Roosevelt’s
bully pulpit on some of the other pressing issues of the day. We ain’t exactly running
out of those yet.

   All the blather about a playoff system is pretty annoying, since anyone
with a GED and without a vested financial interest knows that nothing more than contested
bushel baskets full of dough is keeping the powers-that-be in college football from
going to some kind of a playoff system. The posturing and idiotic debate will continue
until financial pressures and the continuing decline of the 836 existing holiday bowl
games gets profound enough to make the rational decision inevitable.

   Those pressures are already not inconsiderable, and they heighten every
year – like this one – when the convoluted, torturous “system” yields a national championship
picture as out of focus and unsatisfactory as we are looking at today.

   The fan ardor surrounding individual universities and even conferences
is still enormous, perhaps even imposing enough to pathetically hold off the inevitable,
but it certainly seems silly along the way.

   I, for one, couldn’t remember who the winners were of hardly any recent
bowl games, but I may not be the best choice for this rhetorical device. I can’t remember
what I had for lunch yesterday, either. But the whole bloated Bowl business is headed
for boxing’s fate, where nobody but the most ardent insider could tell you who the
undisputed heavyweight champion of the world is, if there even is such a thing.

   And if anybody writes me with an uplifting passage about the importance
of maintaining a commitment to the student-athlete, I’ll gag, if you can actually
do that in cyberspace. The NCAA’s commitment to the student-athlete looks good on
all the brass plaques on campus, but has little to do with deciding about a playoff
system.

   Topps had its factory in Duryea until a couple of years ago, and the
man said he had found a quantity of odd little plastic “statues” in his mother’s garage
just a few blocks from the former Topps plant in Duryea.

   According to the man, both his mother and his mother-in-law had worked
at the plant, and his mother would bring home the plastic pieces from work. He said
Topps officials would come to the local elementary schools from time to time, testing
various new card designs or flavors of bubble gum.

   While Drent was at the September Philly Show in Reading, Pa., he drove
to Scranton and met with the man. Together they visited the old garage that had housed
the Plaks for nearly 40 years, later returning to the man’s home, where the Plaks
were arrayed in shoeboxes on the kitchen table.

   The two items most typically found in connection with the Plaks
issue, the checklist cards and the packs themselves (both shown at
right) were not part of the recent Mile High Card Co. find.



   “I was floored,” said Drent in describing the scene. While the seller
has asked that the total number of pieces included not be released, Drent explained
that – as in the case of so many major finds – the actual number turned out to be
more than the man had originally described in phone calls.

   “It was fairly typical that he would have more than he initially said,”
Drent continued. “I kept thinking, ‘What does he want for these things?’ I didn’t
know what to pay, and I didn’t know how many people would be interested and how much
they would would pay.”

   Drent explained that while he had seen the Plaks in the Standard Catalog
of Baseball Cards, he had never handled any and didn’t even think he had ever
seen any of them. It was an awe-inspiring and scary moment, but one that produced
a euphoria once the deal was actually completed a few weeks later.

   The very rarity of the pieces would have made negotiations problematic
anyway, and the normal dance between dealer and collector ensued. “I asked him what
they wanted for the pieces,” Drent continued, adding that he had tried to explain
to the man how difficult it was to figure out values.
The bargaining continued until Drent had upped the ante to every bit of cash he had
brought along, but the man still balked. Ultimately, Drent flew home to Colorado without
a deal in hand but with a well-honed sense that he wasn’t out of it, either. “The
whole time as I flew home I was telling myself, ‘Don’t let this get away.’ ”

   He didn’t and it didn’t. Drent got home and started calling around to
close confidants in the hobby trying to gauge what he could reasonably pay and what
they might sell for. The man had insisted that he had other offers for the Plaks,
but it only took a week or so and they were back in touch and nailing down a final,
uh, imposing, number.

   Drent didn’t have to wait too long to find out how much enthusiasm was
out there for the pieces, as he sold a Mantle at the GBSCC show in Boston in November
for $15,000, and a Clemente for $8,000. The Plaks, which typically come three to a
sprue like the pieces in a plastic model kit, also proved to be a popular way to move
the pieces. A sprue with Catfish Hunter, Pete Rose and Al Kaline sold for $7,000 at
that same Boston show.

   Drent’s concerns about moving the rare treasures subsided pretty quickly
with another private sale to one collector, who spent $45,000 for four different “trees”
of three players on each tree, and two other individual players.

   All of which made writing a recent story about the Mile High Card Co.
find of them in Duryea, Pa., all the more interesting. It wasn’t released exactly
how many turned up in the find, but according to Mile High President Brian Drent,
there were at least enough for his crew to make a startling discovery: five of the
players long thought to be part of the checklist may never have been issued.
  

   “From the 24 players slated for production, no collector with whom we’ve
spoken has ever seen a single example of Aaron, Drysdale, Mays, Peters, or Frank Robinson,
and it is our belief that they were simply never produced,” said Drent.
   

   Given that this find almost certainly represents the single most significant
body of evidence concerning the population and configuration of this rare issue, it
was inevitable that the absence of those five players would have profound implications.
  

   “As far as we can tell, every player in the set can be found in two separate
three-player sprues, save for Pete Rose, who only appears in one sprue arrangement,
and another five players: Tommy Davis, Catfish Hunter, Harmon Killebrew, Jim Longborg,
and Jim Wynn, who all appear on three different sprues,” Drent continued. “We believe
that these five players, for whatever reason, took the place of the notorious five
whose existence, after weeks of telephone calls to the hobby’s most prolific collectors,
we still cannot confirm.”

   I’ll have more on this amazing find in tomorrow’s blog.

   The vote this year continues the disappointment for Ron Santo,
who missed once again, snagging the highest vote total of the Post-1942 Ballot … 61
percent. Kibitzing about Hall-of-Fame voting is one of my favorite pastimes, and it’s
hard not to opine that giving the nod to Gordon while offering yet another thumbs
down to Santo and Gil Hodges (shown at left) seems hard to understand.

   That is until you remember that Gordon’s election required nine out of
12 voters (he got 10), and the Post-1942 guys were voted on by the full body of Hall
of Famers (I refuse to include the redundant “living” modifier that usually appears
in such instances. Unless you’re in Chicago, who else but the living would have a
vote?).

   I have a lot of sympathy for the Hall officials, who continue to tinker
with the voting process to ensure as much fairness as possible in what still ends
up being a highly subjective system. There was a good deal of grumbling seven years
ago – including among Hall of Famers themselves, allegedly – about the Mazeroski nod,
and the subsequent tightening of the procedures produced blank slates from the Veterans
Committee for the next seven years.

   The complaint that used to dog the Committee many years ago was that
certain “favorites” seem to emerge – sometimes seemingly out of the blue – to be elected,
apparently at the hands of powerful members able to steer the voting. It’s hard to
see how that can be avoided on a panel of 12 voters; the alternative, having the full
body of HOFers do the voting, would seem to yield a different puzzle of being able
to find enough voters to get anybody at all elected.

   I suspect that would be the lament of Santo and supporters of  Hodges, Jim
Kaat and Tony Oliva, the top four vote-getters from the Post-1942 Ballot.
for those keeping score at home, the rest of the results would be (in order): Joe
Torre (30 percent), Maury Wills, Luis Tiant, Vada Pinson, Al Oliver and Dick
Allen.

   I at least give the Hall a lot of credit for paring the list to that