600* BBWAA writers voted, but no one saw a thing.

* give or take

This, I think, was what made the Bert Blyleven-Jack Morris Hall of Fame discussion so interesting. The statistics made it abundantly clear that Blyleven was not just a better pitcher than Morris but light years better. But Blyleven just doesn’t have the Van Doren Gene … and Morris does. And so the debate over which pitcher was better raged on; in some quarters it rages on still. People don’t just see Morris as a Hall of ...

Lots of milestones:

Pettitte allowed three hits over 7 1/3 innings to earn his 250th career victory, leading the Yankees to a 3-1 win over the Seattle Mariners. The 47th pitcher in major league history to reach that milestone, he will turn 41 on June 15. But what happened just as the game ended meant even more to him. His first-born son, Josh Pettitte, a right-hand pitcher for Deer Park (Texas) High School, was drafted by the Yankees in the 37th round in the Major League Baseball draft.
. . . ...

8. Raul Ibanez, catcher

I’ll be honest. I had no idea he was once a catcher until I heard it recently on an ESPN baseball podcast. Heck, I had no idea he was ever young. He’s one of those guys who seems like he was 35 at birth.

It has been nearly 16 years since Philadelphia lost Richie Ashburn, one of the greatest Phillies players of all time. The beloved Hall of Famer, who played for the team from 1948 through 1959, died of a heart attack in 1997 after broadcasting a Phillies-Mets game from Shea Stadium. His family buried him in the cemetery outside of Gladwyne Methodist Church, where all was quiet until some developers announced plans to turn the church into condos and put a parking lot next to the cemetery. ...

(COOPERSTOWN, NY) – For every Hall of Fame player, there’s a scout who started him on the road to Cooperstown. Now, those scouts will have their place at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. The Museum will unveil the new interactive exhibit Diamond Mines on May 4 with a cast of baseball luminaries on hand for the celebration. Diamond Mines, made possible with the support of the Scout of the Year Foundation, will begin a scheduled two-year run in the Museum’s second floor ...

Mariano Rivera is…impossible to dislike.

CLEVELAND—It is two hours before the scheduled start of Wednesday night’s Yankees-Indians game, and baseball’s all-time saves leader is deep inside the bowels of Progressive Field, holding a marching band’s bass drum.

Mariano Rivera wants to know how the drum’s owner, John Adams, hits it when he’s really mad.

“When the Indians are supposed to score, and they don’t score, how do you hit it?” Rivera asks. [...]

When Rivera decided to retire, he ...

Given his diagnosis and the “it’s basically all over” comments from Mike Matheny and John Mozeliak last month, it’s not a terribly surprise to hear Chris Carpenter say this when he paid a visit to Cardinals’ camp today, but he said it all the same. Derrick Goold of the Post-Dispatch:

Asked if he sees a way back to the ballpark as a player, Carpenter did not sound hopeful.

“I do (want to keep playing),” Carpenter said. “I don’t think I can.”

More wins than Rich Gossage, ...

To be consistent, I’m sure the sportswriters will refer to the Medical Wing of the Hall of Fame:

Dr. Frank Jobe, who developed the elbow procedure known as “Tommy John surgery” that has helped baseball players extend their careers, will be honored during Hall of Fame induction weekend on July 27.

Tommy John will attend the ceremony to help honor Jobe for his impact on the sport. John was diagnosed with a ruptured MCL in his left elbow in 1974 when Jobe tried a procedure in which he ...

I’m genuinely gutted.  Sullivan was hands-down my favorite baseball writer on the internet.

For a guy who makes his living as a professional writer, I don’t know a whole lot about quality writing. This is one of the reasons I don’t like to self-identify as a writer, not that “blogger” is any better. But I do know that, when reporting news, you’re supposed to lead with the substance. This is why they call it the “lead”, or the “lede” if you want to seem smarter. With that in mind, my lede: this ...

There should be a hotline for former star athletes to call. They would use it just for emergencies, just for those moments when they have this interesting thought but are not sure if they should make that thought public. For instance, before doing an interview like this with Newsday, Goose Gossage might call the hotline.

Goose: So, I’m thinking about talking again about how you can’t compare Mariano Rivera to relievers of our time.

Hotline: Don’t do it.

Goose: No, this time I’m going to ...

Still waiting for Cooperstown, Tim Raines can say he’s a Hall of Famer.

The former Montreal Expos outfielder was selected for induction Thursday into the Canadian Baseball of Fame. Also included in the class of 2013 are former outfielders George Bell and Rob Ducey as well as former announcer Tom Cheek and longtime minor league owner Nat Bailey.

Can’t stop the Rock.

do you think it would be realistic for a team to use a 4-man starting rotation…?

... Between 1975 and 1988, baseball went through two separate transitions, both intended to accomplish the same thing, which was the reduction of injuries/protection of arms.    The first transition was from a four-man to a five-man rotation… The… idea… was that it would be OK for [a pitcher] to… face 35 or 40 batters per start, thus throwing 130 to 170 pitches per start (and sometimes more)... as [long as] he ...

“...Dick Gordon, Weaver’s marketing manager, led the service. The family requested he obtain a copy of Terry Cashman’s song, “The Earl of Baltimore,” to be played during the ceremony.

“Being with Earl so many years, he wouldn’t be satisfied,” Gordon said. “I could do better than that.”

He then introduced Cashman, the famed baseball songwriter, to sing his tribute to Weaver.

Brooks was the heart. Frank was the soul. McNally, Mike and Palmer were his Orioles, winning with Weaver, winning for ...

I’ll start with the All-Dead Team. Talk about a hard OF to crack! We’ll certainly carry five OFers on the 25-man roster, and I’d think that the selections have been easy: Williams starts in LF, Ruth of course in RF, and then pick ‘em from Cobb, Mantle, and Speaker. Does Musial displace one of them? Yikes! That’s a tough call. By the way, just as a shortcut, that group of six count for six of the top twenty all-time in baseball-reference’s WAR list.

Brian Kenny examines Stan Musial’s contribution to the game of baseball on and off the field.

Shakespeare said the evil that men do is what lives on after them, with the good oft being interred with the bones. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t thinking about Stan the Man when he wrote that.

But this zeal to make people happy did not end when he stopped playing. Every single day, when Stan Musial left the house, he would tuck his harmonica into his pocket. Every single day, at some point, he would run into someone, and he would pull out that harmonica, and he would play “Take Me Out to the Ball ...

“●On managing in the lowest rung of the minor leagues: “You’ve got 100 more kids than spots on the team. Every one of them has had a goin’ away party. They have been given the shaving kit and the $50. ‘See you in the majors in two years.’ You write on the report, ‘4-4-4 and out.’ That’s the lowest rating in everything. You say, ‘It’s the consensus among us . . .’ Some of ’em cry. Some get mad. But none of ’em will leave until you answer ’em one question: ...

He opined that (1) the effect of amphetamines should be most pronounced on day games after night games; (2) batting should be more affected than pitching, on the grounds that even Whitey Ford probably drank a little less the day before he was supposed to pitch; and (3) the effect should be bigger in the 1970-74 period than in the 2006-2010 period, since in the latter period there was testing; indeed, in the prior period I don’t even think it was illegal.

He then said: “Hey, JonathanF: ...

RIP.

Loud, profane, egotistical, belligerent, confrontational, Weaver never denied being any of those things, but they were merely part of the makeup of what best described the Hall-of-Fame Baltimore Orioles manager: Winner.
In baseball’s manager annals, Weaver, who piloted the Orioles to six division titles, four American League pennants, five 100-win seasons and one World Series championship from 1968-86, ranks seventh all-time in winning percentage (1,480-1,060, .583) and first among ...

DUBNER: Thank you — to you as well.  Today, big news: the baseball Hall of Fame voting was announced — I don’t know if you caught that — and a grand total of zero people were elected to the Hall of Fame this year.

RYSSDAL: Now, were you surprised?

DUBNER: I was a little bit surprised.  It’s the first time since 1996.  You know, all the talk was about the fact that because the steroid age is happening now and guys like Clemens and ...

Chass forgets the Hall of Fame Molitor

With Raines’ vote total rising, the voting members of the Baseball Writers Association are either forgetting or ignoring that Raines admitted in 1982 and in subsequent years that he used cocaine.

At one of the drug trials in Pittsburgh in 1985, Raines testified that he kept cocaine in the back pocket of his uniform pants during games and that when he had to slide, he slid headfirst to make sure he didn’t break the glass vial in which he kept the ...

McGriff seemed like he was quietly amassing Hall of Fame numbers. And in 1993, after he was acquired by Atlanta on July 20 with the Braves 9½ games behind San Francisco, he led the team to the National Leage West crown. That year, however, there were already a few suspicious names creeping in front of him, pushing his numbers down: Lenny Dykstra was one of three players to best him in the 1993 most valuable player voting; Matt Williams, later named in the Mitchell Report, and Dante Bichette, ...

Jeff Idelson has learned, in his tumultuous time as President of the Baseball Hall of Fame, that you can’t ever get too caught up in the moment…

I ask [Idelson]: The character clause is obviously vague—do you think the Hall of Fame should clarify the clause to offer guidance to voters?...

Idelson says something a little bit unexpected: “Everyone should understand that ‘character’ is not to be used as a moral compass, but refers to how they respected the game, how they treated the ...

Kenny Lofton’s remarkable baseball career started in earnest just days after the basketball team returned from Kansas City. “After the Final Four,” he says, “I was missing baseball a little bit.” The itch developed the summer before, when his teammates staged a series of coaches-versus-player softball games. Lofton patrolled center field, insisting that his right and left fielders play shallow because he could cover the outfield turf from foul pole to foul pole. “He caught pretty ...

What do you do with the mad that you feel
When you feel so mad you could bite?

Sammy Sosa. Yes, I’m the real Sammy Sosa, and this is my Pinterest.