The news comes to you in two parts this week – old news and new news. The old news is old news because by now you most likely know about it. However, before I present the new news I have to make sure you are aware of the old news.
As expected, the Hall has put Marvin Miller on this year’s “Modern Baseball Era” ballot despite Miller’s 2008 request not to have his name on any more ballots. The Hall’s position: first you reject him, then you ignore him.
The Hall, however, knows how its rejection of Miller has shamed it and feels it has to shake off that shame. How to do that before any more time passes? That’s where the new news comes in.
A study of the nine players who share the ballot with Miller leads me to suspect the Hall is rigging the election. Rather than take the chance with the Hall-appointed 16-member electorate, the Hall has stacked the ballot with players no voters would elect.
The Hall, as expected, denied performing any funny tricks. “The ballot construction was strictly the decision of the Historical Overview Committee,” Jon Shestakofsky, the communications director, said in an e-mail.
However, I am not saying Hall officials actually drew up the ballot, but they could easily have told the committee what to look for and the committee came up with the names.
Hall officials would never admit to such a scheme, and the 11 members of the historical overview committee, which is appointed by the Baseball Writers Association, would not confess to conspiring with the Hall because if committee members talk to writers they are booted off the committee.
That’s what happened to two writers in 2013 when I quoted two people about Bud Selig’s omission from the ballot, and Jeff Idelson, the Hall’s one-time-good-guy president, ignorantly thought he knew who they were but didn’t but fired them nevertheless.
But back to the alleged ballot-rigging scheme.
Not only has the Hall of Fame ignored Miller’s 2008 request that after three snubs he no longer be placed on a Hall of Fame ballot, the Hall has virtually assured Miller’s election next month. How could that happen?
The 10-man ballot, devised by the historical overview committee contains Miller and nine former players. Yet another committee, comprised of 16 Hall-appointed members – writers, historians, club owners and executives – will meet at baseball’s winter meetings in Florida Dec. 10 and vote on the candidates. Any candidate receiving 12 or more votes will gain election.
Unlike four years ago when three managers were elected unanimously and other candidates, including Miller, received no more than six votes, the weak ballot will not present a problem for Miller. Jack Morris and Steve Garvey may receive support, but they do not clutter the ballot as Bobby Cox, Tony La Russa and Joe Torre did four years ago.
There are critics – there will always be critics – who don’t agree, but I think the writers have done a pretty good job in their annual voting. Joe Morgan, the Hall of Fame second baseman and HOF vice chairman, made that observation several years ago in response to criticism of the writers’ voting.
Let’s look at the nine players who occupy the ballot with Miller. First, though, let me say that any player on a ballot with Miller is an insult to Miller. In my view and in the view of many, if not most observers, the only people who belong on Miller’s level in terms of their impact on Major League Baseball are Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey. I might add Walter O’Malley, who opened the western half of the United States to Major League Baseball.
The players on the ballot: Steve Garvey, Tommy John, Don Mattingly, Jack Morris, Dale Murphy, Dave Parker, Ted Simmons, Luis Tiant, and Alan Trammell.
They were all good players but not, in my opinion and the opinions of hundreds of other writers, great players, elite players who should be in the Hall of Fame. Each appeared on 15 years of writers’ ballots, but none won election. Morris was the only one who approached election.
Collect them on a ballot, and Miller would be by far the brightest light. How could anyone not vote for Miller unless you didn’t want to elect anyone? The writers clearly showed just about all of them were unworthy of election.
Start with Simmons, a good guy but far from HOF worthy. Simmons didn’t receive enough votes in his first year on the ballot to make it to a second year. He received 17 votes, only 3.7 percent of the 456 votes cast. Election required 342 votes. Simmons was only 325 votes short.
Trammell received fewer than 100 votes in each of his first eight years on the ballot. He exceeded 200 votes only once.
Tiant gained 132 votes his first year and didn’t reach 90 again, mostly staying in the 32-to-64 range.
Parker had 116 and 104 votes in two of his first four years but didn’t have four consecutive years over 80 until his last four years, reaching a high of 89 his last year.
Murphy reached 100 only twice, receiving 116 his second year and 106 his last, remaining under 80 for 10 straight years in between.
Mattingly had 145 votes his first year, didn’t reach 100 the next 10 years and fell to 47 and 50 his last two years.
John exceeded 100 votes a dozen times, but his highest total was 171, and he reached that number only his last year. It was only 31.7 percent of the total votes.
Garvey was in the 150-196 range his first nine years, but he fell below 150 in each of his last six years, dropping to 115 in his last year on the ballot for a 21.1 percentage.
Then there was Morris, whom I voted for every year he appeared on the ballot once I left the New York Times in 2008 and was able to resume voting.
Morris was a slow starter on the ballot, failing to exceed 200 votes until his seventh year and 300 until his 12th. In his last four years his vote totals were 311, 382, 385 and 351.
His 385 votes in 2013, his next-to-last year on the writers’ ballot, gave him his best percentage, 67.7, but he still fell short. But that strong finish should carry over to the “modern baseball era” voting, which is a good sign for Morris and his supporters.
At the same time, it should not in any way block Miller’s election. The only shortcoming to a Miller election is he didn’t want to be elected, certainly not in 2017, five years after he died.
Peter Miller, Marvin’s son, has said if his father is elected, he will honor his father’s wishes and instructions and not acknowledge or recognize the decades-overdue honor (my term, not Peter’s). His plan is to have no one appear at the induction to accept the honor and speak on Miller’s behalf.
I’m torn over what I think should happen. I believe Miller should be recognized for his impact on Major League Baseball, though that recognition would be a couple of decades late.
I remember a conversation I had a couple of decades ago with Leonard Koppett, a Times colleague, a fellow baseball writer and as fervent an admirer of Miller as I am. Koppett was a member of the HOF veterans committee, the forerunner of the Hall’s current committees, and I asked him why the veterans committee had never acted to elect Miller to the Hall of Fame.
His answer was very disappointing. Miller, Koppett said, didn’t fit into any category the committee voted on and therefore could not be discussed or considered. It was the most disappointing comment I had ever heard from Koppett.
But if Koppett wasn’t willing to fight for Miller’s election no one would take up the fight.
Now Miller appears to be on the verge of election. Of course, there’s always the chance the management representatives among the electorate could vote as a bloc and assuming there will be four of them they would need only one other voter to block Miller’s entry.
I would think, though, if Hall officials went so far to allegedly rig the ballot, they would make sure Miller would be elected, though I can hear Jeff Idelson, the HOF president, saying, “Hey, we rigged the ballot. What else do you want us to do?”
WHERE IS THE BUD BOOK?
Long before Bud Selig retired as commissioner in January 2015, he talked openly about writing a book. It would be a natural step for a two-decade commissioner to take. However, it has been near three years, and no book has been sighted. No book, in fact, I have learned, has been written.
“I think I have written one chapter in 11 months,” Richard Justice, an MLB.com writer, told me Saturday.
Justice is supposedly writing the book with Selig. But Charles Steinberg also is said to be working on it.
Originally a dentist, Steinberg has been a long-time associate of Larry Lucchino, who is retired after operating the Orioles, the Padres and most recently the Red Sox.
I was unsuccessful in my attempts to reach Steinberg. His cell phone mail box was constantly full and was not accepting messages.
However, two people familiar with Selig’s literary effort said Steinberg travels to Milwaukee three days a week. “I don’t know why,” one of them said. “He’s been doing it for three years.”
Justice said they do not have a publisher.
“If there was a book out a year from today, I wouldn’t be surprised,” Justice said. “But if there wasn’t a book out a year from now I wouldn’t be surprised.”