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Here is an article from The Athletic by Peter Gammons, and it is fantastic. Kruk and Kuip make an appearance, too. If you guys don't subscribe to The Athletic (it is about $5/month), you should. Great writing. What Sports Illustrated used to be back in the day.
Gammons: A space in the Hall of Fame for those who made us love the game
By Peter Gammons Jul 27, 2018
159
COOPERSTOWN — The National Baseball Hall of Fame museum is part Smithsonian, part MOMA, part Museum of Natural History, brilliant in layout and its appreciation of baseball as part of American cultural history. After hitting his 600th home run, Jim Thome said the highlight of his career was right before he delivered the bat from his 400th to The Hall, on a cool autumn day, sitting on the porch of the Otesaga Hotel with his father, waiting to walk up the street to the museum.
This weekend Thome will be inducted into that museum, along with Trevor Hoffman, Alan Trammell, Jack Morris, Vlad Guerrero and Chipper Jones, players who earned the affection of millions of fans who loved the game as much as anyone who listened to a radio underneath their pillow or sat in the bleachers or stood for hours by a dugout begging for an autograph.
There is no question that, as Tom Seaver once said, “the club Hall of Famers join is one club whose admission cannot be bought or granted by legacy, only earned.” With the guidance of analytical giants like Bill James and Jay Jaffe, voters spend weeks studying candidates’ qualifications, as if they were applicants to Stanford or M.I.T.
But part of the joy of being a baseball fan who gets chills walking through The Hall is the fun of it all, as well as memories of special players who did so much to enhance our enjoyment. A couple of weeks ago, Tom Verducci, Jim Kaat and I were talking before a game at Fenway Park. Verducci and Kaat were working the game for MLB Network. When I began a television career at ESPN in 1988, my first partner was Kaat. After weaving through a half hour of stories and pitching theories, Kaat left, and as he walked away Verducci said, “How can Jim Kaat not be in the Hall of Fame? Look at all he’s done in and for the game.” Not just the 25 years, the 283 wins, the 16 Gold Gloves or the four appearances at age 43 to help the Cardinals win the 1982 World Series.
Contributions to the game beyond the field can be as important as numbers on it.
As I prepared to drive to this beautiful town, I started thinking of one more large room in the museum. It would be called “For the Love of the Game,” and set up so people with unique contributions to baseball would seem to be in this room together, talking about how they had made the real life of the game better.
Here is my first class of 20 people who made me, and so many of us, love baseball:
1. Jim Kaat.
2. Marvin Miller. By winning the Messersmith-McNally decision in December of 1975, Miller changed baseball. Free agency put baseball on the front pages of every sports section in America year-round, to the point where from November to the opening of spring training, the offseason draws as much attention as the regular season. When Gussie Busch and the owners held players captive, baseball was a seven-month business. Now, it’s 12 months a year, 24/7. Any ex-player on the Veterans’ Committee that did not vote for Miller doesn’t get it. And actually, even management voters should realize that when Miller removed the shackles of the reserve market, the business of baseball began its ascent to where it is today.
3. George Kissell. Sixty-nine years with the Cardinals, the most influential development figure of the last half-century. “The Cardinal Way” was the George Kissell way. “He could talk for 15 minutes about a ground ball,” Whitey Herzog once said. Ask Joe Torre, whom Kissell converted from catcher to third baseman using creative drills most had never imagined.
4. Larry Lucchino and Janet Marie Smith. When Edward Bennett Williams began the process of building a stadium near the Baltimore Harbor, Lucchino and architect Smith figured out what fans wanted — and as soon as Camden Yards opened, the sports industry realized that venues equaled revenues. It changed baseball and football, professional and amateur. Smith went on to turn Atlanta’s Olympic Stadium into a fans’ venue. They collaborated on Petco Park in San Diego, arguably the most underrated park in the game. They overhauled Fenway; there are no Monster Seats without them. Remember, the year before Camden opened, the White Sox opened their new Comiskey Park (now Guaranteed Rate Field), which was just another monotone ballpark.
5. Gene Mauch. He was one of my baseball godfathers, and a fascinating man. In the winters in the early fifties, before the first westward expansion (to Kansas City), players who lived in the Los Angeles area had hot-stove banquets, many emceed by Ronald Reagan. One night, as the players gathered to eat and drink, Reagan was complaining about taxes, and Mauch told him if he didn’t like them, he should run for office. I first wrote that in Sports Illustrated, and the fact checker contacted the White House, and Reagan’s press staff confirmed the story. When Mauch played in Havana in winter ball, he befriended Fidel Castro. He mentored generations of astute baseball minds, like Joe Maddon and Bob Boone.
6. Bill Dinneen. This is a Verducci contribution: Dinneen pitched andumpired in the World Series, pitched and called a no-hitter, threw the first World Series shutout, played for 12 years, umpired for 29 and is mentioned in the Dropkick Murphys’ “Tessie,” co-written by journalist Jeff Horrigan.
7. Bill James. He created the analytical world. His writing was musical, his thought process that of a genius. I would want James’ picture/plaque face-to-face with Jim Brosnan, because they changed the way I watched baseball and crafted my journalistic beliefs.
8. Jim Brosnan. The Long Season was written in 1959, when he bounced from St. Louis to Cincinnati. The book was intensely personal, and as a teenager, it taught me that the players are people — human and insecure. Ten years later, when I first covered the major leagues, I had a totally different view of the humanity of those who play the game.
9. Gil Hodges. First the heart of the Dodgers, then manager of the 1969 world champion Mets, and to millions of New York fans in the glory days of the 1950s and ’60s, he is the symbol of leadership, discipline and modesty.
10. Mark Shapiro. Mark started with John Hart, and when he became general manager of the Indians, opened the doors to bright, creative young executives with opportunity, empowerment and the realization that the Indians stand for developing executives as well as players. Look around the game: Ben Cherington, Chris Antonetti, Mike Chernoff, Derek Falvey, Mike Hazen and David Stearns all learned from the culture Shapiro established. When Antonetti says “my hiring is based on finding people that are smarter than I am,” those are also Shapiro’s words. You will find few in the industry smarter or more genuine than Shapiro (now with the Blue Jays) and Antonetti, who lead by the Marines’ motto that the first tenet of leadership is authenticity.
Gammons: A space in the Hall of Fame for those who made us love the game
By Peter Gammons Jul 27, 2018
COOPERSTOWN — The National Baseball Hall of Fame museum is part Smithsonian, part MOMA, part Museum of Natural History, brilliant in layout and its appreciation of baseball as part of American cultural history. After hitting his 600th home run, Jim Thome said the highlight of his career was right before he delivered the bat from his 400th to The Hall, on a cool autumn day, sitting on the porch of the Otesaga Hotel with his father, waiting to walk up the street to the museum.
This weekend Thome will be inducted into that museum, along with Trevor Hoffman, Alan Trammell, Jack Morris, Vlad Guerrero and Chipper Jones, players who earned the affection of millions of fans who loved the game as much as anyone who listened to a radio underneath their pillow or sat in the bleachers or stood for hours by a dugout begging for an autograph.
There is no question that, as Tom Seaver once said, “the club Hall of Famers join is one club whose admission cannot be bought or granted by legacy, only earned.” With the guidance of analytical giants like Bill James and Jay Jaffe, voters spend weeks studying candidates’ qualifications, as if they were applicants to Stanford or M.I.T.
But part of the joy of being a baseball fan who gets chills walking through The Hall is the fun of it all, as well as memories of special players who did so much to enhance our enjoyment. A couple of weeks ago, Tom Verducci, Jim Kaat and I were talking before a game at Fenway Park. Verducci and Kaat were working the game for MLB Network. When I began a television career at ESPN in 1988, my first partner was Kaat. After weaving through a half hour of stories and pitching theories, Kaat left, and as he walked away Verducci said, “How can Jim Kaat not be in the Hall of Fame? Look at all he’s done in and for the game.” Not just the 25 years, the 283 wins, the 16 Gold Gloves or the four appearances at age 43 to help the Cardinals win the 1982 World Series.
Contributions to the game beyond the field can be as important as numbers on it.
As I prepared to drive to this beautiful town, I started thinking of one more large room in the museum. It would be called “For the Love of the Game,” and set up so people with unique contributions to baseball would seem to be in this room together, talking about how they had made the real life of the game better.
Here is my first class of 20 people who made me, and so many of us, love baseball:
1. Jim Kaat.
2. Marvin Miller. By winning the Messersmith-McNally decision in December of 1975, Miller changed baseball. Free agency put baseball on the front pages of every sports section in America year-round, to the point where from November to the opening of spring training, the offseason draws as much attention as the regular season. When Gussie Busch and the owners held players captive, baseball was a seven-month business. Now, it’s 12 months a year, 24/7. Any ex-player on the Veterans’ Committee that did not vote for Miller doesn’t get it. And actually, even management voters should realize that when Miller removed the shackles of the reserve market, the business of baseball began its ascent to where it is today.
3. George Kissell. Sixty-nine years with the Cardinals, the most influential development figure of the last half-century. “The Cardinal Way” was the George Kissell way. “He could talk for 15 minutes about a ground ball,” Whitey Herzog once said. Ask Joe Torre, whom Kissell converted from catcher to third baseman using creative drills most had never imagined.
4. Larry Lucchino and Janet Marie Smith. When Edward Bennett Williams began the process of building a stadium near the Baltimore Harbor, Lucchino and architect Smith figured out what fans wanted — and as soon as Camden Yards opened, the sports industry realized that venues equaled revenues. It changed baseball and football, professional and amateur. Smith went on to turn Atlanta’s Olympic Stadium into a fans’ venue. They collaborated on Petco Park in San Diego, arguably the most underrated park in the game. They overhauled Fenway; there are no Monster Seats without them. Remember, the year before Camden opened, the White Sox opened their new Comiskey Park (now Guaranteed Rate Field), which was just another monotone ballpark.
5. Gene Mauch. He was one of my baseball godfathers, and a fascinating man. In the winters in the early fifties, before the first westward expansion (to Kansas City), players who lived in the Los Angeles area had hot-stove banquets, many emceed by Ronald Reagan. One night, as the players gathered to eat and drink, Reagan was complaining about taxes, and Mauch told him if he didn’t like them, he should run for office. I first wrote that in Sports Illustrated, and the fact checker contacted the White House, and Reagan’s press staff confirmed the story. When Mauch played in Havana in winter ball, he befriended Fidel Castro. He mentored generations of astute baseball minds, like Joe Maddon and Bob Boone.
6. Bill Dinneen. This is a Verducci contribution: Dinneen pitched andumpired in the World Series, pitched and called a no-hitter, threw the first World Series shutout, played for 12 years, umpired for 29 and is mentioned in the Dropkick Murphys’ “Tessie,” co-written by journalist Jeff Horrigan.
7. Bill James. He created the analytical world. His writing was musical, his thought process that of a genius. I would want James’ picture/plaque face-to-face with Jim Brosnan, because they changed the way I watched baseball and crafted my journalistic beliefs.
8. Jim Brosnan. The Long Season was written in 1959, when he bounced from St. Louis to Cincinnati. The book was intensely personal, and as a teenager, it taught me that the players are people — human and insecure. Ten years later, when I first covered the major leagues, I had a totally different view of the humanity of those who play the game.
9. Gil Hodges. First the heart of the Dodgers, then manager of the 1969 world champion Mets, and to millions of New York fans in the glory days of the 1950s and ’60s, he is the symbol of leadership, discipline and modesty.
10. Mark Shapiro. Mark started with John Hart, and when he became general manager of the Indians, opened the doors to bright, creative young executives with opportunity, empowerment and the realization that the Indians stand for developing executives as well as players. Look around the game: Ben Cherington, Chris Antonetti, Mike Chernoff, Derek Falvey, Mike Hazen and David Stearns all learned from the culture Shapiro established. When Antonetti says “my hiring is based on finding people that are smarter than I am,” those are also Shapiro’s words. You will find few in the industry smarter or more genuine than Shapiro (now with the Blue Jays) and Antonetti, who lead by the Marines’ motto that the first tenet of leadership is authenticity.
