I’m 48 and a lifelong Detroit-area resident, growing up on the east side. I work for a major corporation as a church auditor. Previous to this, I was a Mr. Mom for about a decade. I’ve been married 20 years and have two boys ages 19 and 16. (My younger son is the sports guy, a natural athlete, unlike his dad.)

I’ve been compiling and puzzling over the hall of fame voting for over 30 years, constantly concocting improvement schemes and lists of who should be in or out. A lot of this is reflected in my articles here in Primate Studies.

I started following sports when I was 8, when Detroit was Tigertown, not Hockeytown. Although baseball has always been nearest to my heart, I’ve enjoyed following all the Detroit-area champs; Tigers 68, 84; Spartans 79, 00; Pistons 89, 90, 04; Wolverines 89, 97; Red Wings 97, 98, 02; Lions?  I concluded 30 years ago they were hopeless as long as WC Ford was the owner.

I collected baseball cards for the numbers on the back. (I was pretty miffed in 1971, IIRC, when Topps printed only two stat lines rather than whole careers.) When I finally discovered Who’s Who in Baseball, I was ecstatic. When I got my first MacMillan Encyclopedia for my 17th birthday, I was in heaven. A couple years later I discovered APBA baseball and played in a league for about eight years.

As a college senior in 1982, I discovered the Baseball Abstract. The next year I joined SABR. For a couple years I had a regular featurette, called “Dan Greenia’s Freakshow”, in Bill James’ bimonthly sabermetric journal, The Baseball Analyst. In 1984 I applied for the position of Bill James assistant, when he was looking to hire his first; I made the first cut, but he eventually hired Jim Baker. I also authored two articles that appeared in Baseball Digest in the late 80’s.

I’ve never had an article published by SABR, mainly due to the attitude of their former publications director. A couple times I pitched hall-of-fame-fix oriented articles to him, but he said they don’t print articles about that because there are too many submitted on the topic. I was reminded of Yogi Berra’s quote about a popular restaurant: “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.” I suspect he was actually seeking to avoid controversy, in order to maintain SABR’s chummy relationship with the HOF.

Other part-time jobs I’ve had: phonebook deliveryman, guitar teacher, bookkeeper, symphony usher, reporter, retail cashier, accounting tutor, bank teller and music minister. Although I am a practicing Roman Catholic, my spirituality is greatly influenced by the teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff, aka The Fourth Way.

SABR has never been a social outlet for me. I’ve never been to a SABR convention but might be making the trip this year.