On my way to writing about Major League Baseball’s luxury tax and the desire of the high-spending Dodgers and Yankees to stay under the tax threshold in the coming season, I received an e-mail from a reader who for years has been a reader and supporter of The New York Times, my former and four-decade employer.

Peter Wagner has written to me before, usually decrying the Times’ treatment of baseball. I have never found him to be wrong in his view, and I didn’t disagree with him this time, even though the subject wasn’t baseball but the National Football League playoffs.

I’m sure Jason Stallman, the Times sports editor, thinks I put Wagner up to writing the e-mail; he has made this accusation before, apparently thinking Times readers don’t have a mind of their own. Wagner has previously sent me copies of his letters to the Times.

“Two NFL playoff games today and not a word about it in today’s nyt sports section,” Wagner wrote. “But there IS a full page on Australian woman’s Cricket??”

I had not seen the Times but immediately went to the recycle bin to retrieve the sports section. Sure enough, there was an article on Australian women’s cricket, headline and picture running across the top of the page.

Is it possible that any Times reader, a single Times reader, had any interest in Australian women’s cricket? I have not taken a survey (nor, I suspect, has the Times), but no one could convince me there is any interest among Times readers in many of the articles the Stallman sports section gives its readers.

The section “sickens me,” said one former prominent staff member when I asked what he thought of the sports section. During the baseball season, the Times slashed its baseball coverage. Toward the end of the season, the Mets practically disappeared from the section. By the middle of the football season, coverage of the Jets and Giants had been reduced to brief articles by the Associated Press.

Why has the Times embarked on this bizarre path? Since Stallman will not talk to me about it, I can only guess that this is part of the newspaper’s desperate attempt to attract new subscribers and stay afloat.

This was not the first time Wagner wrote to the Times or to me about the Times. Last month he wrote:

“Thought I’d share a letter I sent – once again – to the newspaper of record. Or what used to be. Read the clip on the Blackhawk game. They don’t send reporters a few blocks downtown from their offices to cover rangers/knicks at the garden, and now they get a.p. pieces wrong. What the hell has happened to them??? Shoddy embarrassing awful stuff.”

And this:

“Once again, the Times sports section has shown its disdain for baseball.

“Two pages of ten memorable moments from this year: three (!!!) on football, two on tennis, one each on track, soccer, hockey, basketball, boat racing. They’re appealing to their global readership, and showing their usual disinterest in baseball. It was a wonderful baseball season with many highlights. The first one I think of: Altuve’s three home runs in a playoff game.”

The way the Times circulation schedule has been changed, it’s very likely that many Times readers didn’t even know that Houston’s second baseman hit three homers in a game. I wonder if the Times sports editor knows of that highlight-worthy performance.

Changing topics, a Hall of Fame column prompted this response from Sidney Harris:

“Another couple of distinguished gentlemen who didn’t know their players were taking steroids were Joe Torre and Tony La Russa. There was a report that 12 of the 25 Torre 1998 Yankees were on something. And La Russa evidently played dumb when his Oakland A’s were so obviously on drugs that the general public was ridiculing the way they looked.”

I agree that managers escape scrutiny when they should be accountable for what goes on in their clubhouses. All of the players who have been nabbed or accused of use did it in the clubhouse.

Chuck Tanner, one-time manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates, was one of the nicest baseball guys in the game, but it was very disappointing when Tanner, in the Pittsburgh drug trials, testified that he was in his office and didn’t know what was going on in the players’ area.

Speaking of Torre and La Russa, Harris said,

“These two managers were middle-aged men living for half a year with a group of athletes young enough to be their children. They didn’t give a damn, and now they’re honored as outstanding managers. What hypocrisy! I never read anything about managers being enablers.”

Hall of Fame voting always brings lots of mail. After I recently disclosed my voting this year and explained it, Ed K. wrote, “Give up your vote, time has passed you bye.”

But Eddy wrote, “Was so very happy to see your ballot this morning. You have and will put a smile on many a Pacific Northwest baseball fan this morning. The game of baseball needs your voice.”

Mark Perlin offered an interesting perspective on the Miami Marlins $1.2 billion sale to Derek Jeter and friends:

“There is a reason the other owners were happy to let this sale go through even though they knew this dismantling would happen.

“If the worst managed team is worth $1.2 billion it means all the other teams’ value increased substantially.

“The Marlins with a terrible TV contract, very few fans, a stadium not easy to get to – I know I have been there. Also, not a lot of parking – I parked in the back of someone’s house.

“Now the owners of Kansas City and San Diego and Pittsburgh can say if the Marlins are worth $1.2 billion we have to be worth a lot more.

“This is the same thing that happened when Steve Ballmor bought the Clippers in basketball.

“They also know the Marlins will be an easy team to beat.

“The owners and the commissioner are not interested in the “good of the game.” Rather, they are only interested in their own good.”

After I wrote about my radio run-in with Casey Stern about my blank ballot a year ago and said Stern didn’t return my subsequent telephone calls, Brian wrote and told me I owed Stern an apology.

“You need to apologize to him for saying he never returned your calls. That is a lie. I am sure mlb radio can send you a copy of the interview to refresh your memory.”

I asked Brian how he was so certain Stern called me back. Did he have access to a call that didn‘t exist?

In response, Brian wrote:

“Sir, I will apologize for saying Casey Stern never returned your calls,”. “You are correct. I do not know for a fact that happened. Have a Happy New Year.”

BASEBALL’S ROYAL FAMILIES IDENTIFIED

In a column last month about the Yankees’ naming Aaron Boone as their manager, I unwittingly created a tease for readers by saying Boone was a member of one of baseball’s four royal families.

Who are the other so-called royal families, readers wanted to know. The term is my own, not an official designation. But they are families who have had members of three generations play in the majors. That definition excludes the Alous, even though four different Alous played in the majors: brothers Felipe, Jesus and Matty and Moises, son of Felipe.

The baseball Royals are the Boones, the Bells, the Colemans and the Hairstons, who had the most family members play in the majors but some only briefly.

There are the Boones:

• Ray, an infielder, primarily with Cleveland and Detroit, for 13 years (’48-’60)
• Bob, a catcher, primarily with Philadelphia and California for 19 years (’72-‘90)
• Bret, an infielder, primarily a second baseman, primarily with Seattle and Cincinnati, for 14 years (’92-’05)
• Aaron, an infielder with six clubs (’97-’09) and now manager of the New York Yankees

These are the Bells:

• Gus, an outfielder, primarily with Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, for 15 years (’50-’64)
• Buddy, a third baseman, primary with Cleveland and Texas, for 18 years (’72-’89)
• David, an infielder, primarily a third baseman and second baseman, primarily with St. Louis, for 11 years (’95-’06)
• Mike, a third baseman, with Cincinnati, for 19 games and 31 plate appearances (’00)

These are the Colemans

• Joe, a pitcher, primarily a starter, primarily with Philadelphia Athletics, for 1 game in ’42 and 10 years (’46-’55)
• Joe Jr., a pitcher, primarily a starter, primarily with Washington and Detroit, for 15 years (’65-’79)
• Casey, a pitcher, primarily with Chicago Cubs, for 4 years (’10-’14)

These are the Hairstons:

• Sam, a catcher with the Chicago White for 4 games and 7 plate appearances (’51)
• Johnny (son of Sam), an outfielder, with the Chicago Cubs for 3 at bats and 4 games (’69)
• Jerry Sr. (son of Sam), an outfielder, primarily with the Chicago White Sox, for 14 years (’73-’89)
• Jerry Jr., infielder-outfielder, with 9 teams, primarily Baltimore for 16 years (’98-’13)
• Scott, an outfielder with 6 teams, primarily with Arizona, for 11 years (’04-’14)