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Hall of Merit — A Look at Baseball's All-Time Best Sunday, October 16, 20051962 Results: Feller and Robinson, HOF Class of ‘62, Are Now Part of the Hall of Merit Class of ‘62!In his first year of eligibility, Cleveland Indians ace Bob Feller easily obtained immortality with 98% of all possible points. He also becomes the first player (and Hall of Famer) to win the honor who is still with us today! Also in his first year on the ballot, legendary Dodger star Jackie Robinson was inducted into the Hall of Merit with the very strong percentage of 93% of all possible points. Another newbie, Negro League and ML outfielder Monte Irvin, placed himself in a good position to be elected himself next “year” by becoming the top runner-up comfortably. HOFer Phil Rizzuto didn’t make too much of an impression in his first year on the ballot at #46. Rounding out the top-ten were: Wes Ferrell, Red Ruffing, Joe Medwick, Eppa Rixey, Biz Mackey, Clark Griffith, and George Sisler. RK LY Player PTS Bal 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 n/e Bob Feller 1151 49 31 17 1 2 n/e Jackie Robinson 1105 48 17 29 1 1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 n/e Monte Irvin 489 35 1 8 3 4 3 4 1 3 3 2 2 1 4 4 Wes Ferrell 369 30 2 4 1 4 2 1 5 1 1 2 2 3 2 5 2 Red Ruffing 361 26 5 2 1 3 3 6 3 1 1 1 6 3 Joe Medwick 360 30 3 4 2 2 2 2 1 4 5 3 2 7 6 Eppa Rixey 299 23 2 6 2 2 1 3 1 2 2 1 1 8 5 Biz Mackey 287 24 1 2 3 2 1 3 4 3 2 3 9 7 Clark Griffith 278 20 5 2 2 1 2 2 1 1 1 2 1 10 8 George Sisler 249 20 1 1 3 2 1 3 1 1 1 2 1 1 2 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11 9 George Van Haltren 246 20 1 2 3 3 1 1 2 2 2 3 12 10 Cool Papa Bell 235 20 1 3 1 1 2 1 4 1 2 3 1 13 11 Jake Beckley 232 17 1 2 3 3 2 3 1 1 1 14 13 Hugh Duffy 217 19 1 2 2 1 3 1 1 2 1 1 1 3 15 12 Cupid Childs 212 17 1 2 3 1 4 2 2 2 16 14 Pete Browning 198 15 2 2 2 1 1 2 3 1 1 17 15 Cannonball Dick Redding 195 18 1 1 2 1 2 2 1 1 1 3 3 18 16 Willard Brown 190 18 1 1 1 3 1 3 1 3 1 3 19 17 Bobby Doerr 174 15 2 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 20 20 Dobie Moore 165 13 1 2 2 1 1 2 1 1 2 21 19 José Méndez 161 14 1 2 3 1 1 1 3 2 22 18 Joe Sewell 160 14 1 1 3 1 2 2 1 1 2 23 23 Mickey Welch 158 11 4 1 2 1 1 1 1 24 21 Ralph Kiner 157 15 1 2 2 1 4 4 1 25 25 Alejandro Oms 141 11 1 2 1 1 3 1 1 1 26 22 Joe Gordon 138 14 1 1 1 1 5 2 3 27 26 Charley Jones 129 10 1 2 1 2 2 1 1 28 24 Bucky Walters 128 10 2 2 1 4 1 29 29 Tommy Leach 102 8 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 30 28 Edd Roush 99 10 1 1 2 2 1 3 31 30 Burleigh Grimes 99 8 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 32 27 Rube Waddell 98 9 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 33 34 Larry Doyle 91 7 2 1 1 1 1 1 34 31 Gavy Cravath 88 7 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 35 35 Quincy Trouppe 85 8 2 1 2 2 1 36 33 Wally Schang 80 7 1 1 1 1 1 2 37 32 Roger Bresnahan 78 7 2 1 1 1 2 38 36 Bob Elliott 68 7 1 1 1 1 1 2 39 39 John McGraw 52 4 1 1 1 1 40T 40 Tommy Bridges 42 4 1 2 1 40T 38 Bob Johnson 42 4 1 1 1 1 42 42 Jimmy Ryan 41 5 1 1 1 2 43 37 Bill Monroe 41 4 1 1 1 1 44 45 Charlie Keller 39 3 1 1 1 45 43 Vern Stephens 37 3 2 1 46 n/e Phil Rizzuto 36 5 1 3 1 47T 51 Luke Easter 36 3 1 1 1 47T 46 Dizzy Trout 36 3 2 1 49 55T Vic Willis 31 3 1 1 1 50 48 Sam Rice 30 3 1 1 1 51 47 Ed Williamson 28 3 1 2 52 50 Carl Mays 25 3 1 2 53 44 Ernie Lombardi 25 2 1 1 54T 55T Chuck Klein 24 2 1 1 54T 53 Dutch Leonard 24 2 2 56T 52 Addie Joss 23 2 1 1 56T 49 Ben Taylor 23 2 1 1 58 41 Dizzy Dean 22 2 1 1 59T 58T Leroy Matlock 17 1 1 59T 58T Pie Traynor 17 1 1 61 54 Bobo Newsom 16 2 2 62T 64T Ed Cicotte 16 1 1 62T 58T Fielder Jones 16 1 1 62T 64T Johnny Pesky 16 1 1 65T 64T Tommy Bond 15 1 1 65T 68T Frank Chance 15 1 1 65T 64T Bobby Veach 15 1 1 68 61T George J. Burns 13 2 1 1 69 70 Dolf Luque 13 1 1 70T 61T Lefty Gomez 9 1 1 70T 72T Joe Tinker 9 1 1 72T n/e Bus Clarkson 8 1 1 72T 71 Fred Dunlap 8 1 1 72T 68T Hack Wilson 8 1 1 75 72T Sam Leever 7 1 1 Dropped Out: Tommy Henrich(75), Dick Lundy(57), Rabbit Maranville(74), Tony Mullane(76), Dom DiMaggio(61T). Ballots Cast: 49
John (You Can Call Me Grandma) Murphy
Posted: October 16, 2005 at 04:54 PM | 101 comment(s)
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Nice to see Monte position himself for the next election, too.
And I have Medwick with at 360 with 4 4th place votes.
Those do check out: 4 6th place votes for Ferrell, 4 4th place votes for Medwick. I can tell you who cast them, if that will help.
If you don't mind, OCF.
Is Feller the first living HoMer?
Thanks for reminding me, Guapo. I addeded that tidbit at the top.
Medwick 4th place votes: sunnyday2, Adam Schafer, Mike Webber, Jeff M.
Medwick 4th place votes: sunnyday2, Adam Schafer, Mike Webber, Jeff M.
I made the correction for Medwick, but you missed Sean Gilman's last place vote for Ferrell.
Thanks, OCF!
Jennings 16976
VAN HALTREN 16403.5
BECKLEY 15747
DUFFY 15607.5
GRIFFITH 14920
BROWNING 13589.5
Pike 13399
Thompson 12349
WADDELL 11862
Bennett 11503
CHILDS 11464
WELCH 11407
RYAN 10742.5
Caruthers 10704
Beckwith 9920
H Stovey 9576
RIXEY 8659
Start 8378.5
McGinnity 8232
Pearce 8073
McVey 7985.5
SISLER 7980
Grant 7969.5
BRESNAHAN 7805
Suttles 7696
(TLeach 7660, C Jones 6818, Ferrell 6376, Sewell 6311, Monroe 5443, Redding 4903, Mendez 4787, Roush 4730, Doyle 4665, Williamson 4430, Ruffing 3707, Medwick 3518, CP Bell 3506)
Max possible: +14.
Average: +1.9
Howie Menckel: 10
DanG: 10
dan b: 9
andrew siegel: 8
TomH: 8
Chris J: 7
...
David Foss: 2 (median)
...
EricC: -3
Dolf Lucky: -3
Gadfly: -8
karlmagnus: -9
yest: -17
I was at +5. Some others: Chris Cobb: +6, sunnyday2: 0, John Murphy: 0, PhillyBooster: -1.
For all the eccentricities of his ballot, Gadfly did get most of the top candidates in there somewhere. Leaving Robinson completely off is the main thing that makes yest such an outlier.
This was a case of great agreement about the top two spots papering over wild disagreements below that.
Now that we've made it through most of the WWII generation (Williams still to come), has credit for military service made any difference in the voting? For all our discussion and hand-wringing, it seems to me that the players we've elected with significant war-time interruptions (Feller, Robinson, Greenberg, Appling, DiMaggio, Herman, Mize) would all have it even without war credit. Greenberg is the only one I see any question about. On the other hand, the players for whom I thought war credit might have made a difference between election and also-ran status, such as Gordon and Rizzuto, haven't done well in the voting.
Similarly, on the issue of adjusting war-time performance for quality of competition, again I can't think of anyone we haven't elected because of inflated wartime numbers. Newhouser, Boudreau, and Hack have been elected; Trout probably wouldn't have been even with full credit for his wartime statistics.
Irvin may turn out to be the exception - if he's elected next year, I assume it will be based in part on credit for his military service.
From below average to top of the heap in only a few years, after previously also having been a 'high scorer.'
I didn't like the mid-1940s IFs as much as most, which cost me. But they're all in or out now. Plus my guys like Rixey and Griffith and Beckley and Browning and Childs are holding steady, or better.
I suspect I'll be near the top for a while now...
This is my first time showing up in OCF's posts -- and it's to tell me I'm the median. I've never been on either of the consensus or non-consensus lists. I suppose its not really good or bad, just average in my averageness.
Had Bob Johnson posted his 174 OPS+ in 1934 rather than 1944, I think he would be approaching a Medwickian level of support.
Bobby Doerr's another interesting case for a candidacy ruined by inflated wartime stats (though I think he may have been borderline, anyways).
Enos Slaughter in 1965?
And I don't think we're done with Gordon/Doerr yet by any means.
Holy Cow! Unbelievable!
I don't believe only five of these huckleberries wanted to elect me!
I bet it's that White's fault.... I'll never hear the end of this one from Yogi the next time we play golf.
Freudian slip?
Freudian slip?
Nope. Of any player who is in the HOF in Cooperstown, Feller is the only one who is still around that is now in the HoM.
Irvin should be #2 in '63.
I believe this is a first, the five year wait is becoming fairly standard now and they seem to have worked through their backlog enough to allow for first ballot elections. It will probably happen again, but not for a while it appears.
I wonder which induction ceremony Feller & Robinson will choose to attend? :-)
Ours, because they received more votes from us. :-)
FWIW, Feller and Robinson in 1962 became the first two guys ever inducted in their first year of eligibility after the five-year wait was established. (Joe DiMaggio, a few years earlier, was elected on his third (!) try.)
I suspect there were a few voters who felt he should wait a few more years before induction. I wouldn't be surprised if they were the ones that yelled the loudest for the changes that were enacted in the '60's, too. IOW, if DiMaggio had his ballot debut in '57 instead, I would imagine he would have been elected that year fairly easily (or was '57 a non-BBWAA year?)
Considering the modestness of Jackie's raw career totals -- and the general social climate of the country in 1962 -- it's fairly surprising that he was the first player to be elected in his first year of eligibility.
For some reason, I once took it upon myself to go through all the 1962 HOF ballots and record who did or didn't vote for Robinson. Nothing really noteworthy there, although Dick Young, who was famous for hating Jackie, not surprisingly left him off the ballot.
Do you know why Young hated him, Eric? He wasn't known as a racist, so I'm assuming it was Robinson's personality that grated on Young.
I think it was a combination of the two. Young was a big fan of black players as long as they were the yassuh-boss type of black player. A lot of what he wrote about Robinson criticized him for being too outspoken, too temperamental, etc.
Young's very favorite player of all time was Roy Campanella.
Robinson, of course, was the anti-Campanella personalitywise. Where Campy was cute, Jackie was scary. Where Campy was cuddly, Jackie was abrasive. Where Campanella was nonconfrontational, conflict followed Jackie around like Pigpen's black cloud. Where Campy liked to do everything he could to please The Man, Jackie did everything he could to tear down The Man. Et cetera.
Campy was HOF-1969, Berra was not until 1972. Berra had a token appearance in 1965 that delayed him (not sure why the BBWAA took an extra year on top of that, though as he went in with Koufax... not in a position to look that up right now).
Aaron-FRobinson in 1982 should be an easy one. It might happen before that, but that's one appears certain.
Obviously, you're correct, David. I remember Berra's induction in '72, so that was my bad.
I also forgot that Johnny Bech is the only catcher ever to be elected in his first year of eligibility. Will Piazza be the second?
Ford got 255 in his first try in 1973, short of the 285 needed. That was because they wanted to elect him with the Mick in 1974, which they did by a fairly slim margin, BTW (Ford, not Mick = 284 with 274 needed).
Campy only got in on his sixth try! Snider his 7th, Reese back door, Hodges never. Cooperstown was not so impressed with the boys of summer I guess.
Will there be more of this kind of strategic HOF voting in 2011, to get Bagwell and Biggio in together? Bagwell is clearly toast, while Biggio is clearly not. (Five years ago, we all expected it would be vice versa.)
That's only temporary, Eric. I had a chat about it with Jim yesterday and he also wants a more prominent spot for us, too.
Doesn't count, Eric. :-)
The writers simply passed on Berra in 1971. He was the top vote-getter in the election, but 270 votes were necessary and he only got 242.
Once again, indicating the lack of context when comparing catchers to other position players by some.
Interestingly, Campanella's son, who went to Harvard in the 1960s, grew up to be something of a black militant intellectual, much closer to Robinson's perspective than his own father's.
Also interestingly, Robinson and Campanella were always very close friends despite being about as polar opposites as two people can get.
I've always felt that both ways (Campanella's and Robinson's) were needed in the long run. I assume there were quite a few people who looked at African-Americans differently with the Campy approach, while the Robinson approach was needed for the others.
Interestingly, Campanella's son, who went to Harvard in the 1960s, grew up to be something of a black militant intellectual, much closer to Robinson's perspective than his own father's.
Not surprising, but still interesting, Eric.
Actually, Dontrelle Willis is about the perfect comp for Campanella, personality-wise. Friendly, loves everybody and everybody loves him, never has an unkind or critical word about anything, does his best to please the media, and just seems to be a genuinely warm, happy, intensely nonconfrontational person.
That's a great comp, Eric.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but Campanella was a man who collected toy trains and tropical fish; Robinson was a man who kept company with writers and thinkers. While Robinson raised money for black causes by speaking at NAACP events, Campanella was selling booze at a Harlem liquor store and letting the slum tenement in which the store was housed fall into disrepair. Once, when Robinson got into an argument with an umpire, Campanella chided him: “Come on, Jackie, don’t be like that. Let’s not take any chances. It’s nice up here.” Sportswriter Milton Gross thought Campy had “the ideal personality for the furtherance of integration in baseball. Campy was meek without being humble... he was conscious of his color without being obsessive.” In 1957, when racial unrest broke out near the Dodgers’ Florida training camp, Campanella said, “I don’t like that stuff, not one bit. But you can’t make a man see things your way by banging him over the noggin with a stick.”
“Of all the Negro players the Dodgers have had, Campanella has been the easiest to handle and get along with,” Dodgers farm system official Mel Jones said in 1952. “He has an easy-going nature which immediately makes him liked by every man on the ball club. I don’t mean to infer that Roy is not aggressive. But he has learned to accept certain things, and to adjust to the various insults which his race is subjected to by some people. Those things don’t bother him the way they do Robinson. Jackie probably never will adjust to such things. His pride won’t permit it.”
Campanella was Booker T. Washington to Robinson’s W.E.B. DuBois. Or, as Robinson himself supposedly once said, “There’s a little bit of 'Tom' in Roy.”
“I’m a colored man,” Campanella said in 1957. “I know there are things I can do and things I can’t do without stirring up some people. But a few years ago there were many more things I couldn’t do than I can today. I’m willing to wait. All this came by waiting. A man got to do things the way he sees them. No other way.”
I've looked this up and based on the voting results it seems like they changed the voting rules sometime in the mid/late 1950s. Previously it was fairly common for guys to get a handful of votes before they'd been retired for 5 years, and then explode with 40-60% or whatever after 5 years had passed. It was like the guideline was in place, but not strictly enforced. This came to an end shortly after DiMaggio got elected 3 years after retiring. IIRC, Phil Rizzuto of all people was the last guy to get an official pre-five year vote (it came to him before he stopped playing IIRC). Robinson & Feller benefitted from being the first guys to retired once they'd started strictly enforcing the five year rule. Again, this is all conjecture based on voting results - I've never looked at their rules nor how they were enforced.
Theoretically, Buck Ewing was also inducted in his first year of eligibility (which was the year the HOF opened).
Didn't they have a 19th century ballot in 1936 that elected no one?
diee - DId you ever look up who left Ruth & Cobb off their ballots?
Campanella, for better or worse, always, always went out of his way to avoid conflict and please the establishment. In that way he was very unlike DiMaggio; perhaps like Gehrig but with a lot more personality. He told everyone what they wanted to hear, particularly reporters, who loved him for it. Stepin Fetchit might be going a little bit too far; Campanella never did anything to dehumanize himself. But neither did he try to do anything to change the establishment or the world around him.
How'd this compare to Ernie Banks?
outoforder,
Your presumption about the rule change is in fact correct -- the five-year wait was instituted in 1954, with an exception made for candidates who had already received 100+ votes in a previous election. Still, it took eight years after that for them to elect anybody in their first year of eligibility -- Jackie and Feller.
I never looked up any ballots other than tracking Robinson's and Satchel Paige's elections. Paige, FWIW, received a handful of votes each year from the late 1950s through his election in 1972, although those votes were never tabulated because he was officially ineligible for the HOF. To my knowledge, those Paige votes have never been recorded or documented anywhere other than my hard drive. Stan Isaacs of Newsday voted for Paige every year.
I do think the Banks-Campanella comparison is a pretty good one.
Just curious. Thanks.
How did my 1962 consensus score compare to my 1961 consensus score in terms of how far from the consensus I was?
Thanks!
The ballots are extremely simple, just a mimeographed sheet of paper with 11 blank lines, one for the voter's name and 10 for the players. No explanation, no voting instructions, no list of eligibles, no nothing. Of course, all that information might originally have been attached when the ballots were mailed, but not by the time I got to look at them.
Of course, I didn't bother to look at any post-1972 ballots, so all this has likely changed.
I did find it amusing that Willard Mullin had a vote.
How many used crayons?
I did find it amusing that Willard Mullin had a vote.
Amusing is not the word that comes to mind, Eric. :-0
In part, I'm trying to explain away the failure to elect players like Arky Vaughan, who seem so outstanding in retrospect, when contrasted to elected players like Rabbit Maranville. This would seem to provide at least part of the story.
You may want to adjust that analogy, Eric, as Robinson's politics were about a light-year to the right of DuBois's. It's not that the analogy is bad qua analogy, just that it gets confusing because the real DuBois was very much alive and politically active during Robinson's career.
Amusing is not the word that comes to mind, Eric.
In fact, Willard Mullin probably contributed a lot more to the enjoyment of baseball in his time than about half (or more) of the players on that above list.
You may want to adjust that analogy, Eric, as Robinson's politics were about a light-year to the right of DuBois's. It's not that the analogy is bad qua analogy, just that it gets confusing because the real DuBois was very much alive and politically active during Robinson's career.
Since DuBois was literally a Communist during Robinson's entire playing career, that doesn't really reveal that much about Robinson's political beliefs. He was a Republican who voted that way because of the Dixiecrat domination of the Democratic Congress, but he bolted the GOP several times in presidential races. He was a completely independent man who always called em as he saw them, beholden to no one.
In terms of politics, Campanella was a typical apolitical baseball player.
Yeah, I'm aware of Robinson's politics, and Dubois's, and Washington's. It wasn't meant so much as a political policy analogy, more like comparing and contrasting the way they went about achieving their goals -- Robinson and DuBois were both brash, militant fellows who wanted equality and wanted it now, dammit. Campy and Booker T., well, not so much.
Robinson was a Republican for a number of reasons, which we've discussed at length on these boards before. Basically, it amounted to (1) He didn't like Kennedy, (2) He liked Rockefeller a lot, considered him a close friend, (3) He felt it was a slap in the face to integration that the political parties were themselves so rigidly segregated, and (4) He was very much of the pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps, if-I-made-it-then-anyone-can mentality.
Although Robinson usually supported Republicans, he considered himself an independent and did campaign for Humphrey in 1968.
FWIW, Jackie's politics were anathema even within his own family; Rachel, Sharon and David were all what you would call yellow dog Democrats. Must have made for some great dinner table conversations.
I wouldn't be surprised if you have, too, Andy. You don't belong in the HOF or HoM, either. :-)
Okay, I understand now, Eric. That makes a little more sense. :-)
Well, I got Pillar of Fire in front of me right now and it actually gives the date for W. E. B. DuBois's application for membership in the Communist Party of the USA - 10/1/61. I'm pretty sure Robinson's career predates that. . . . Yeah, I'm being needlessly anal here.
Well, I got Pillar of Fire in front of me right now and it actually gives the date for W. E. B. DuBois's application for membership in the Communist Party of the USA - 10/1/61. I'm pretty sure Robinson's career predates that. . . . Yeah, I'm being needlessly anal here.
Not anal, just technical, but I do stand corrected, and should have remembered this. OTOH, DuBois contributed to Communist publications such as Masses and Mainstream at least as early as WWII, and never expressed any dissent from anything Stalin or any other non-"revisionist" Communist leader ever did after that.
Doesn't mean for a second that he wasn't one of the major figures of the 20th century in spite of this, just that it didn't take much to be well to the right of him during his last two decades, as Robinson was.
And OK, Willard Mullin doesn't belong in the HOM, just in whatever "wing," "branch" or "special section" of the HOF that other BBWAA members have been voted into. To end on a non-controversial note, let's just say he belongs in Cooperstown more than Mark McGwire.
(backs away slowly from that statement) :-)
Mullin should get the Ford Frick Award or whatever, though. I definitely would back that, Andy. He was a helluva lot more greater in his profession than some past recipients of writers' award, that's for sure.
Or just Campanella's Mr. Smiley to Robinson's Mr. Frowney.
:-D
They're in the museum section, Andy, but not in the Hall of Fame itself. It's the same confusion that makes Abbott & Costello as HOFers, too, since they have an exhibit in the museum section. Both sections are in the same buliding, but they have two separate functions.
IOW, Peter Gammons is not a HOFer. :-) The only writer that can claim that honor is Henry Chadwick (Ford Frick, as you know, wasn't honored for his scribe duties).
In this sense, I don't see anything particularly wrong with referring to Leonard Koppett or Fred Lieb as "HOF sportswriters," even if they're technically not "in" the Hall of Fame itself.
Koppett actually would state that he wasn't in the HOF, though his column always mentioned it at the bottom.
They boxed themselves into the one-guy-per-year pattern, when in reality there's nowhere near that many guys who deserve enshrinement.
When you think about it, the Ford Frick Award should really be the Red Barber Award or something like that.
Just wait till Hawk Harrelson, Bill Madden, Chris Berman, and Skip Bayless are "duly" honored.
A more ill-informed/unenlightened individual who derives his paycheck from espousing half-baked ideas I have never seen.
What does a guy like Baylees do to get hired?
Does he have photos of key ESPN executives with animals?
Who would consider watching more than a passing few minutes of such prattle?
He'll get in. Just wait and see, Eric. :-)
That is a problem. I would begin with ten writers (just for argument's sake, Spink, Lieb, Koppett, James (I know he's technically not a "writer," but nevertheless), Runyon, Heinz, Angell (see James comment), Sam Lacy, Wendell Smith, and Lester Rodney, and pray that it doesn't go too downhill from there. But I'm afraid that large masses of human beings are hardwired to reward long-lived mediocrity and timeclock-punching, especially when the ones being so rewarded are their lifelong friends.
I think it's a good idea.
Others might argue about your ten, Andy, but I don't see any Joe Falls here, so that's a plus already. :-)
Going over the honorees for the Spink and Frick Awards, my feeling is that the percentage of quality recipients is higher with the former than with the latter. Which makes sense since there have been more of the former than the latter.
I like it, too, Eric, as long as we don't get to the point that Kevin Costner and Billy Crystal are recipients. :-0
Me too: Dr. Chaleeko for the Hall!
I think it's a good idea.
I second the idea, though also with John's caveat.
And no Kevin Costner, or the wolf he rode in on.
Bernard Malmud
W.P. Kinsella
HOK Architects
Jim Beckett?
Does Marvin Miller qualify here?
Curt Flood?
The baseball card price guide guy who helped to take a children's hobby and hand it over to an industry of magnifying glass-wielding yuppies? That Jim Beckett?
Oh, there's an obvious one I forgot!
Max Patkin!!!!
Without a doubt, Eric.
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