Baseball Hall of Fame: Baseball’s Talent Finders Honored at New Museum Exhibit ‘Diamond Mines’

(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 and feature a computer interactive of an Anatomy of a Scouting Report that includes more than two dozen reports on players. [Sandy Koufax scouting report is shown at the page linked above]

WSJ: No, Really, Tell Me About You (Mariano Rivera’s farewell tour)

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 announced that in each ballpark, he wanted to meet people behind the scenes —- employees or fans or people connected to the game who don’t get to tell their stories. He has spent a lifetime in the spotlight, the solitary figure in the middle of the mound. But as his baseball career enters his final months, Rivera has found pleasure in quiet moments with everyday people who perform the often thankless jobs of the baseball world.

RTFA.

Chris Carpenter says he’s likely to never pitch again

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, more strikeouts than Babe Ruth, lower ERA than Red Ruffing. PUT HIM IN THE HALL.

ESPN: Hall To Honor Dr. Frank Jobe

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 removed a tendon from John’s forearm and repaired his elbow.

Lookout Landing: Lookout Landed (Jeff Sullivan retires)

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 is my final post for Lookout Landing. [...]

But that comes with its attendant upsides and downsides. LL has been a side job, but it’s felt a lot like my regular job. When you turn a hobby into work, you sort of lose the hobby. For a while, LL hasn’t served as a hobby; it’s served as an extension of what I do, and it’s at the point where that’s just become too much writing, too much baseball. I haven’t had time to develop other hobbies. I know that I could still run this place, but I know I’ve never been less motivated to do that. I don’t see that turning around with the season around the corner.

So long, Jeff, and thanks for all the fish.

Posnanski: What’s Good for the Goose…

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 talk about how great Mariano Rivera is, you know, how he’s a great guy. I mean, I’ll say it over and over again.

Hotline: Don’t do it.

Goose: “No, it’s OK, I’ll keep saying that Mariano Rivera is great, really great, but you can’t say he’s the greatest because he’s used in a different role than guys from our time, you know, like me. But he’s really, really great and all, it’s just that just guys from our time, you know, like me, would have been just as great if we were used the Mariano way. I guess what I’m trying to say is that while he’s super great, he might not be any better than guys from our time, you know, like me, if Rivera had been used the way we pitch. But he’s great.”

Hotline: “Don’t do it.”

There is no such hotline, sadly… The reason I think it was unfortunate is, well, there are actually two reasons, one obvious, the other perhaps less so.

The obvious reason is that it diminishes Goose Gossage to talk this way. Goose Gossage was a great pitcher. A truly great pitcher. Gossage is in the Hall of Fame, he’s widely remembered, he does not need to go around telling people how great he was or how he wasn’t used the way pitchers today are used. I think it cheapens him to do so, especially when he uses the beloved Mariano Rivera for effect. Rivera has been gracious and classy and respectful. Gossage shouldn’t use him as a prop… If Gossage was using the platform to fight for the Hall of Fame causes of other great relievers of his day—Dan Quisenberry, John Hiller, Sparky Lyle, Lee Smith, etc.—that would be one thing. But you don’t get the sense from Goose’s proclamations that he’s all that interested in new people joining him in the Hall. This kind of talk about Rivera is self-serving and should be beneath him.

But the second reason, the less obvious one, is why I wish Gossage would quiet down: When Gossage talks about Rivera like this, it’s only human nature to start making some comparisons. And Gossage won’t look good in the comparisons…

For Rivera to match Gossage in the basic numbers, he would have had to pitch 278 more innings—all those multiple innings that Gossage pitched—and he would have to allow 201 more (a tidy 6.51 ERA). He would have had to walk 350 or so batters in those innings, while allowing 42 home runs. And he would have had to do all that in a much lower scoring run environment. I’m guessing here, of course, but I think he could have managed it.

And as far as the ease of pitching one inning—Gossage has called it easy in the past—the Goose pitched exactly one inning 249 times in his career. His ERA in those outings: 3.75…

Gossage’s greatness stands the test of time. He was part of the bridge that took us from the 1950s and 1960s, when relievers were used sporadically and like pawns on a chess board, to now, when closers are celebrated and paid like kings. He was of his time, and that’s a good thing. If he had been used like a modern closer, sure, he probably would have more saves, but he might not be in the Hall of Fame. He might have been like Jeff Reardon or Billy Wagner or John Wetteland—great pitchers who lit up the sky and then burned out in their mid-to-late 30s.

You know, if you just want to talk saves, Gossage does suffer. He blew 112 of the 432 save opportunities he had. Rivera has blown only 73 of the 681 chances he’s had. It’s not an entirely fair comparison, Gossage’s save opportunities were different from Rivera’s. But it’s a comparison we make because Gossage can’t just say “Mariano Rivera is a great and timeless relief pitcher” and leave it at that.

Tim Raines, George Bell, headline Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame’s class of 2013

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.

Bill James Mailbag - 1/26/13 - 1/29/13

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 got an extra day between starts.    That really didn’t work.   There was no chance that it would work.    If you damage a pitcher’s arm by asking him to do something marginally crazy, you can’t UN-damage it by giving him an extra day to recover.    
 
But what COULD have been done, instead, was this.    Many pitchers threw 280 to 300 innings in a season from 1965 to 1975, and many of them did so with no evidence of damage to their arms.   At 17 pitches per inning, 16.5 pitches per inning, that’s 5,000 pitches in a season, more or less.  Suppose that pitchers had been asked instead to pitch in a THREE-man rotation—but with strict limits of 90 pitches per start, and less than that for very young pitchers.   That’s 54 starts a season, 90 pitches per start MAXIMUM. . ..you’re actually REDUCING the number of pitches thrown in a season from about 5,000 to about 4,600 (assuming that the pitcher NEVER throws 91 pitches in a season and occasionally exits after 70 or 80.)
 
More significant than that, you’re also reducing the stress per pitch, for an obvious reason.   The most stressful pitches are those thrown when the pitcher is tired.    I would postulate that the strain on a pitcher’s arm is probably proportional to the SQUARE of pitches thrown. . ..in other words, throwing 100 pitches in an outing is four times as stressful to a pitcher as throwing 50, and throwing 150 is nine times as stressful as throwing 50. .. .assuming simply that the stress increases as the pitcher becomes fatigued.    
 
Using that assumption. . .that the stress is proportional to the SQUARE of pitches thrown….a pitcher who makes 37 starts in a season but throws 120, 130, 140, 150 or 160 pitches in each start has a total stress load of 724,000 “points” over the season.   The pitcher who makes 54 starts but throws 85, 88, 89, 90 pitches every start has a total stress load of a 431,000 points. . . dramatically lower. 
 
For this reason, I believe that if baseball had switched not from a four-man rotation to five, but from a four-man rotation to three, but with a strict 90-pitch limit, it would have worked better than what was actually done.   That’s my opinion.   
 
I also think that pitchers would have liked it.   A pitcher making 54 starts for a good team would have had a fair chance to “win” 30 games, and a hell of a chance to win 20.

[The questioner is referring to electing Marvin Miller to the Hall of Fame over his stated objection - TDA]

Because the Hall of Fame is a museum and has a duty to history.

Words.  That’s not an argument; that’s just a bumper sticker.  A museum has a duty to history, a duty to its community, a duty to the economy, a duty to integrity, a duty to doody. . ..so what?    That’s no more an argument in re Marvin Miller than it is in re Shoeless Joe, Spike Eckert or Lefty O’Doul.

Former Orioles manager Earl Weaver remembered at memorial service in Fla.

“...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 Baltimore. The men in blue, oh he drove them wild. The fight and the fire, that leprechaun smile. We’ll always remember the Earl of Baltimore…”

Time to put on my picture disk and sing along.

Jon Bernstein: Would Musial Crack the All-Dead Team

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.

Clubhouse Confidential: Examining Stan Musial’s Career

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

Posnanski: Stan Musial lived to make people happy

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 Game.” Musial would say he learned to play the harmonica because he did not like speaking in public, did not feel comfortable doing it, and the harmonica gave him a voice. It made people smile. [...]

“We all disappointed someone from time to time,” the Hall of Famer Robin Roberts said when we talked about kids and autographs. “Well, all of us but one.”

“Who was that?” I asked.

“Musial,” he said in a voice that indicated I should have already known.

A number of the anecdotes found in Posnanski’s obit originally hail from his classic 2010 Sports Illustrated profile of Musial, but there’s a lot of new material as well. RTFA.

Boswell: Earl Weaver, Words from a Baseball Master

“●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: ‘Skipper, what do you think?’ And you gotta look every one in the eye and kick their dreams in the [butt] and say, ‘Kid, there’s no way you can make my ballclub.’”

I know there was already a thread on Weaver, but this is worth a read. Follow the “Earl Weaver quotes to Boswell” link on the sidebar

BravesJournal: Some Evidene of a Greenie Effect

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: you’ve put together a database of every baseball game ever played. Can you try it?” So I did. I really didn’t expect to see anything, so I was a little surprised.

Taking every game from those two periods, I compiled a simple TeamOPS number for every game (H+W)/(AB+W) + (H+D+2*T+3*H)/AB. I then compared the average teamOPS (simple averages here – you don’t do anything fancy when you don’t think you’re going to get anything) separately for day games after night games (which I called greendays) and all other games.

I did this year by year and got the following results. The “difference” column measures the team OPS difference between greendays and non-greendays. The bold results are statistically significant.

NY Daily News: Earl Weaver dead at 82

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 managers whose careers began after 1960.

The “Earl of Baltimore” was one of baseball’s most colorful characters, an irascible and volatile 5-foot-6 “gnome” whose arguments with umpires and even his own players, like Hall-of-Fame pitcher Jim Palmer, are the stuff of legend. Weaver’s 97 ejections rank third on the all-time list behind Bobby Cox and John McGraw and to the best of anyone’s knowledge he never apologized for any of them. When asked one time by Orioles outfielder Pat Kelly if he wanted to participate in team chapel and “walk with the lord,” Weaver famously replied: (“No thanks. I’d rather walk with the (bleeping) bases loaded.”

Freakonomics: How to Live Longer (Get Elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame!)

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 Bonds, who deserved to be in, but won’t be elected …

RYSSDAL: Oh, oh!  Wait a minute.  Are we going to have to have that conversation?  You think they deserve to be in?

DUBNER: Well, no.  I’m not having that conversation — that’s another conversation.  But the argument was that because those guys are not going to get elected, it would free up a little bit more space, potentially.  But, as it turns out, nobody got in.  And, I gotta tell ya – this is what I’m here to talk about today – this is bad news. If you get nominated to a Hall of Fame and don’t get in — not only do you not get in, but I hate to tell you this, Kai, you actually might die a little bit sooner.

RYSSDAL: Ow!  Because?  Because?  Why?

DUBNER: Well, there’s a growing body of research that looks at the relationship between what we call “status,” generally, and life expectancy. So the economist David Becker – he looked at Baseball Hall of Fame data and he found that while a player who gets elected to the Hall of Fame doesn’t necessarily outlive the average baseball player, he does live a couple years longer than a player who gets nominated for the Hall of Fame but, year after year, gets rejected. Here’s David Becker:

David BECKER: “This seems to suggest to us that it’s really the story that getting close but not winning is what’s really bad for health, which we think is potentially a really profound point about the nature of status competition more broadly in our society.”

RYSSDAL: So actually it’s not “an honor just to be nominated.”

Oh my god, they killed Kenny! You bastards!

Murray Chass:  REMEMBERING WHEN IT RAINED COCAINE

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 illegal drug.That was Raines himself saying that – on the witness stand under oath in a federal court room. ...

But if a voter follows the BBWAA rules in regard to steroids, he should realize they also pertain to drugs such as cocaine. 

“Voting,” reads rule No. 5, “shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.

”Voters might not think about it consciously, but when they decide not to vote for a steroids user, they are invoking the “integrity, sportsmanship, character” clause. The same clause applies to Raines. ...

My favorite, Jack Morris, did not benefit from the absence of surefire first-timers on the ballot. With four fewer ballots cast, the pitcher gained three votes and only 1 percent to 67.7. Next year he could suffer with the addition of Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine to the ballot, or he could benefit if the voters say let’s put all the good pitchers in.

Most likely, he will join Gil Hodges as the only players who gained more than 60 percent of the vote three times and were not elected.

NY Times: “Quirks of the Game: The Case for Fred McGriff”

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, who was found to have androstendione in his locker, were among those ahead of him in key categories in 1994.

Then suddenly and almost completely, McGriff dropped off the Top 10 lists. But this is not the tale of a player like Dale Murphy, whose career suddenly faltered. McGriff continued to flourish, it’s just that there was a bulkhead of bulked-up heads clogging the top spots. In 1995, McGriff hit .333 with four homers in 14 post-season games to help Atlanta win the World Series. It was typical McGriff, who batted .323 over nine post-season series with the Braves. In 1996, McGriff hit 28 homers, drove in 107 runs and had a .365 OBP.

But the leaders list now included new names like most valuable player Ken Caminiti, along with plenty of players who have been suspected of using. (Unlike the steroids users, McGriff also rarely missed any games-on average fewer than seven per year from 1988-98.)

While many players in the steroids era suddenly developed power - think Caminiti or Brady Anderson—McGriff was the same player at the end of his career as he was at the beginning. From 1999 through 2002 McGriff averaged 30 homers and 104 R.B.I., with little variation from year to year, yet it was players like Bonds, Giambi and Rodriguez that topped every list and drew all the attention. Compared to them, McGriff looked merely average. Yet he was remarkable, his consistent excellence a true marvel.

Posnanski: Patience and Virtue

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 game, how they used that character in the contributions they made to their teams.”

Maybe this is common knowledge … but I had never actually heard the Hall of Fame clarify that character should not refer to morality and instead should ONLY refer to baseball. It makes sense, of course, but if this is what the Hall of Fame means by “character” then I would argue that it should be written in the BBWAA guidelines that way. Because I think some voters DO look at character beyond the baseball diamond, and they hide behind the character clause when they do so. What this version of the character clause means for PED users … hard to say. On the one hand, the steroid question is obviously DIRECTLY tied to respect for the game, how they treated the game and so on. On the other hand, I hear people say all that time that even though steroids weren’t policed at all by Baseball, it was “against the law.” If the character clause refers only to baseball, that shouldn’t be part the conversation.

Deadspin: He Could Always Steal

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 much every ball and he was throwing coaches out at third and home plate,” Mason says. “This guy was so serious.”

Sammy Sosa. Sammy Sosa Official Pinterest

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.

Goold: Seeking full disclosure at Hall of Fame

Among many things, the Hall is a museum, a tangible monument to the game and its history. That means warts and all. The Steroid Era should not be absent from its hallways. The Steroid Era should be rooted there along with all of the other eras. It should be there as a big neon sign shouting: Don’t Let this Happen Again. And one way to do that while also solving the dilemma of Bonds, Clemens and McGwire is to put their transgressions on the plaques. Same with Rose and Jackson. We all know there are already cheaters, racists, and scallywags in Cooperstown. Let’s just put it in writing.

Hardballtalk: The Hall of Famer who proudly extolled the virtues of PEDs

The player: 365 game winner Pud Galvin.

His PED: extract of monkey testicles, commercially known as “Brown-Sequard elixir.”

The media reaction:

“if there still be doubting Thomases who concede no virtue of the elixir, they are respectfully referred to Galvin’s record in yesterday’s Boston-Pittsburgh game. It is the best proof yet furnished of the value of the discovery.”

Roger Clemens’ reaction to HOF vote

BBWAA.com: No Players Elected for First Time Since 1996

Nobody. Not one. Ugh. Click the link to see the results.

A winning candidate did not emerge from the Hall of Fame balloting conducted by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America and verified by Ernst & Young. There were 569 ballots cast, the third highest total in the history of the voting, but none of the 37 candidates in the 2013 vote gained mention on the required 75 percent for election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Craig Biggio, who totaled 3,060 hits and was a seven-time All-Star while playing three positions (catcher, second base, outfield), topped the ballot with 388 votes – 39 shy of the 427 needed for election. His total reflected 68.2 percent of the electorate, which consists of BBWAA members with 10 or more consecutive years of Major League Baseball coverage. Five blank ballots were among those submitted. Other players named on more than half the ballots were pitcher Jack Morris with 385 (67.7 percent), first baseman Jeff Bagwell with 339 (59.6), catcher Mike Piazza with 329 (57.8) and outfielder Tim Raines with 297 (52.2).