Is Jack BBWAA leader for life like Mugabe, Franco or Qaddafi?

Its a paid position, I think. He won't leave until he's fired or retired.

This sucks.

Jack is a former colleague and a wonderful guy - just ask his fellow BBWAA guys. A funny guy, too, in the press box. And actually, he has more charisma than you.

He spent the bulk on his baseball-writing career at the Hartford Courant, and wound up at mlb.com before I think semi-retiring.

His role at BBWAA is to inform winners, which in the old days meant calling up guys and saying, "Yes, you are a Hall of Famer."

They switched things up this year to make it "a show," but MLB, the network, and BBWAA should have recognized that there was one challenge here - Jack doesn't like dance like a puppet when the red light goes on.

Clearly a mistake by all involved in the TV production, but crappy to have Jack the object of the ridicule. Bad casting, among other things.

Too bad MLB Network couldn't zazz up the excitement, like the must-see television every October when Captain Charisma Bud Selig congratulates a team owner and says they've got a great organization.

This is basically what everyone should like in a studio on TV. It's the people that look natural in such a bizarre setting that are the real weirdos.

I'm not sure why MLB decided to have Jack present the awards since they have a great stable of broadcasters like Brian Kenney that would be great for this type of stuff.

It's not like the Oscars are presented by the guys from PwC.

Is Bill Conlin still a member in good standing?

I'm a Connecticut native and I don't remember much of his writing at the Courant. Did he cover Boston or New York? The nnames I mainly remember are the sports op-ed guys like Jeff Jacobs, Owen Canfield, Bob Sudyk, and Bill Lee. They had headshots. Lee was the columnist back when I was in grade school. His column was titled "With Malice Towards None." I had no idea it was a Lincoln reference.

I feel like in earlier generations people would not be made fun of for not having the skillset of Matt Vasgersian.

Nowadays being a smooth-talking grinning glad-hander is something you go to college to learn as a career, instead of something you learn by joining Toastmasters at age 35. So I guess it looks strange when any normal person is asked to do a job like this instead of hiring a professional glad-hander.

Jack covered the Mets for the Bergen Record through the 1980s, then covered the Yankees for the Courant in the 1990s. Became the overall baseball columnist for them at some point, then off the mlb.com.

mainly an in-the-trenches beat guy by trade