One of the things I like best about this job is never knowing when a great story might develop. By great, I don’t mean finding out that the owners and the players are on the verge of signing a new labor agreement or learning that a team is going to sign a major free agent or that two teams are about to make a trade of major players.

Those are all good news stories that any reporter would like to get, but I’m talking about a highly unusual news story, maybe a bit on the bizarre side, which no one would have expected. I have one of those stories to relate here.

On Tuesday of this week the Hall of Fame issued a news release naming 20 candidates on two ballots for a Dec. 6 election, one for former executives, the other for former managers and umpires. About an hour after reading the release and seeing that Marvin Miller, against his wishes, was back on the executives’ ballot, I learned that his new, strongest supporter was Ray Grebey.

“Absolutely; I think Marvin deserves to be in the Hall of Fame,” Grebey said of his bitter adversary in the players’ 50-day strike in 1981. “He was a strong adversary, but I respect what he did for baseball. When you sit across the table and have disputes, it doesn’t diminish what he did.”

Grebey was the owners chief labor negotiator whose hard-line approach to the 1980-81 talks led to the strike, which at the time was the longest sports shutdown ever. Talks between Grebey and Miller became so contentious that Miller refused to meet alone with Grebey and the day the strike ended refused to pose for news photos shaking hands with Grebey. 

Late in the talks the owners had Lee MacPhail, the American League president, meet with Miller, and after the strike ended and a new agreement was in place, they fired Grebey.

But time has a way of mellowing memories. Grebey, 82 years old and retired, is more than a Miller supporter. He wants to change the electoral system and find a way to get the 92-year-old Miller elected. Miller failed to gain entry in each of the last two elections, in 2005 and 2007.

Grebey, joining Bud Selig and George Steinbrenner in calling for Miller’s election, said he was spurred to support Miller by a visit to the Hall of Fame earlier this year. “When I was at the Hall with my grandson – he goes to Hamilton College – I saw the rather pretentious memorial to Bowie,” Grebey said, referring to Bowie Kuhn, who was elected two years ago. “It offended me.”

Kuhn was the baseball commissioner when Grebey was the owners’ chief negotiator. Kuhn supported Grebey during the strike, then turned on him afterward and participated in the decision to fire him.

Grebey never liked me when I was covering those negotiations for The New York Times, but he agrees with me now about the Hall of Fame: Kuhn didn’t deserve election, and Miller does.

“I’d like to see Marvin Miller get in, but I don’t know how to do it in time,” Grebey said by telephone from his home in Stamford, Conn.

Ideally, Grebey wants to see the Hall’s board of directors change the executive electorate. He wants to wage a major public relations campaign with 50 or more Hall of Fame players petitioning the Hall’s board to put Miller in. “The board is subject to pressure like any corporate board,” he said.

It will never happen, of course. The board made changes on the committee this year, substituting Robin Roberts and Tom Seaver as the player-members for Monte Irvin and Harmon Killebrew, John Schuerholz for Bobby Brown as an executive and Phil Pepe as a baseball writer for Paul Hagen. But if all new members vote for Miller, he would have seven votes and still fall short by two.

The committee remains heavily weighted with management members, who continue to resent what Miller did for the players. Although the Hall keeps allHall keeps individual votes confidential, one person involved in the process said he believed that MacPhail was the lone management member to vote for Miller in 2007.

Miller’s assessment of his chances of getting nine votes this year? “It’s impossible.”

But Miller doesn’t want to be on the ballot this year. After he failed to make it two years ago, Miller wrote a letter to Jack O’Connell, secretary-treasurer of the Baseball Writers Association, asking that the nominating committee no longer consider him. O’Connell forwarded the letter to the Hall.

“I vaguely recall Marvin’s request,” Jeff Idelson, the Hall’s president, said. “But we can’t allow potential candidates to control the process. This isn’t the first time we’ve had that request. Qualified candidates deserve recognition and consideration.”

Miller disagreed where he is concerned but could only ask, when I told him he was on the ballot, “What the hell can I do about that?” Yet he knew what he would do about it. “I wouldn’t accept it,” he said. “This year there would be an added reason. It would be a sympathy vote.”

Miller’s wife of virtually 70 years, Terry, died last month. Several weeks before she died, Miller had a telephone call from Grebey, who first asked an intermediary to call and make sure Miller would take his call.

“There was never anything personal about what happened,” Miller said. “He called and couldn’t have been more gracious and kind. He was most indignant about the Hall of Fame.”

Everyone who has followed baseball and who cares about the credibility of the Hall of Fame should be most indignant. Miller should have been elected years ago. For the Hall to allow narrow-minded men like David Glass, owner of the Kansas City Royals, to continue blocking Miller’s entry is disgraceful.

Personally I have mixed feelings about this vote. I wan to see Miller elected because he belongs in the Hall of Fame for his unparalleled contributions to baseball’s strength and its popularity. However, I also feel he is right for rejecting election in 2009. The Hall’s voters have had their chances. Like bad closers, they have squandered them.