HANDICAPPING THE HALL

 

               Baseball’s HITS (Heads In The Sand) era, stretching from about 1990 to 2005, when it finally got around to penalizing players found to use performance-enhancing steroid drugs, may be over, but the malady lingers on. Not only does steroid use continue in the game (albeit at a reduced rate) but the issue pops up again every year at this time, when voters ponder candidates for its Hall of Fame.

               Indeed, steroid use will be the main theme of the 2022 voting, with BARRY BONDS and ROGER CLEMENS up for their tenth and final year on the sportswriters’ ballot and ALEX RODRIGUEZ and DAVID ORTIZ leading the list of new nominees.

Slugger Bonds and pitcher Clemens were the best at what they did during long playing careers that ended in 2007, but multiple and sometimes sworn testimony to their guilt as users has turned their cases into an annual referendum on the subject, with each so far failing to meet the 75% majority needed for election. Running as a kind of entry, their ballot count has climbed from about 36% in 2013 to just over 60% last year, but it’s been on a 60% plateau for the last several years and a jump to 75 this time seems unlikely.

 If the two again fall short they will be transferred to one of the veterans’ committees the Hall maintains for candidates that may merit further review. The standards of those groups are lower than those of the writers, and in the 1973 movie “Sleepers,” set in the distant future, the Woody Allen character said tobacco was found to be a health food, so who knows what may lie ahead.

ARod and Ortiz both were tarred with the steroids brush, but mostly ARod. He’s been a kind of poster boy for PEDS, busted in tests not once but twice. The first in 2004, spanning the 2001-03 seasons in which he hit 156 of his 696 career home runs, carried no penalty because there was none at the time. The second resulted in a suspension for the entire 2014 season, the longest such action before or since.

 He screamed bloody murder after that last one, spraying denials and threatening to sue everyone in sight. He even organized a “fan protest” picketing of Commissioner Bud Selig’s office on his behalf, a move that caused chuckles. With time he fessed up and now enjoys a prosperous retirement. Don’t feel sorry for him because he’s an ESPN baseball analyst, Jennifer Lopez is or was his girlfriend and he’s worth a reported $400 million. But don’t expect to see his plaque in Cooperstown any time soon.

Ortiz reportedly was named in a 2003 document fingering some 100 major leaguers as users, but that supposedly secret doc has been disputed. He’s denied it and, loath to tar their stars, baseball execs have supported him in that. His baseball stats, including 541 career homers and 1,768 runs batted in, support his candidacy. So does a rosy public image as the good-natured “Big Papi” who brought joy to his Boston Red Sox constituency. He’ll be elected, it says here.

There are 13 first-timers on the 2022 ballot, and just a few besides ARod and Ortiz rate prolonged scrutiny.  These include a couple of former Philadelphia Phillies, JIMMY ROLLINS and RYAN HOWARD. Shortstop Rollins played for 17 seasons (2000-2016). He accumulated a notable 2,455 hits, and was the 2007 National League Most Valuable Player, but by me he fit into the very-good-but-not-great category most of the time. Big first-baseman Howard was the 2006 MVP with a monster year (58 home runs, 149 RBIs), but while he was a star in the early half of a 13-year career (2004-2016) he tailed off badly after suffering a torn Achilles tendon in a 2011 playoff game.

TIM LINCECUM stands out in memory as a frail-looking young man with an exaggerated delivery, but while the San Francisco Giants’ pitcher wowed ‘em for several seasons (2008-2011) his time at the top didn’t add up to the Hall. I expect that he, Rollins and Howard will get enough votes to stay on the ballot in future years, but not enough for quick election.

The other newcomers are MARK TEIXEIRA, A.J. PIERZYNSKI, JAKE PEAVY, JONATHAN PAPELBON, JOE NATHAN, JUSTIN MORNEAU, CARL CRAWFORD and PRINCE FIELDER.

Among the 15 holdovers none is more interesting than CURT SCHILLING. The 20-season-veteran pitcher, in his 10^th and last year on the ballot, polled 71% the last time around, and nobody who’s gotten that close didn’t get elected the next time. Schilling, however, has been anything but curt in his off-field utterances. He’s been a regular on right-wing media and in Trumpian style has blasted the press collectively and individually, hardly endearing himself to this particular electorate.

After last year’s voting Schilling said he wanted off the ballot. “The writers hate my politics,” he declared. I wondered if that included the nearly three quarters who wanted him in and, anyway, he doesn’t get to make that call. I don’t agree with his politics but admired his pitching (216 wins and 3,116 strikeouts, 15^th all-time) and voted for him several times when I could. My guess is that he’ll succeed this time. I can’t wait to hear his acceptance speech, if he chooses to make one.

SCOTT ROLEN, the former third baseman in his fifth year on the ballot, polled 53% last year and probably will come up short again. Ditto for OMAR VIZQUEL  and GARY SHEFFIELD, who narrowly trailed Rolen in 2021.

That leaves Ortiz and Schilling as the sole likely  sportswriters’ electees when the votes are counted next month, but they’ll have plenty of company at the induction. That’s because two of the Hall’s several veterans’ committees elected a total of six old-timers to membership, including GIL HODGES and MINNIE MINOSO. The committees offer a side door to the Hall that, in my view, is overused. I’ll do a blog on that one day.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A PROVIDENTIAL TIE

 

       There’s a new college-football Game of the Century every few years, and some years there are more than one, but for me there will ever be one, even though it was played in the last century. That was the Army-Notre Dame game at Yankee Stadium in New York on November 9, 1946, which makes this year its 75^th, or diamond, anniversary. A more-precious commemoration couldn’t be found.

       The game was contested in the glow of the victorious end of World War II at a time when college football ranked with baseball and horse racing as our nation’s premier sporting entities. The world was smaller then, so its highlights stood out in greater relief than they do now. To say the nation stood still while the contest played out might be an overstatement, but not much of one.

       The game’s objective qualifications for G of-the C honors are substantial. The U.S. Military Academy was at the crest of its war-years football glory, carrying a 25-game winning streak and ranked No. 1 nationally, the place where it ended the 1943 and ’44 seasons. The Fighting Irish also were unbeaten and ranked No. 2, although many thought they deserved the top spot. They looked like a dynasty in the making, which is what they turned out to be.

       Army’s coach was Earl “Red” Blaik and Notre Dame’s was Frank Leahy, both Hall of Fame bound. Backfield stars Felix “Doc” Blanchard and Glenn Davis, “Mr. Inside” and “Mr. Outside” respectively, led the Cadets while returning war vets quarterback Johnny Lujack and tackle George Connors led the Irish. The game featured four actual or eventual Heisman Trophy winners (Davis in 1944, Blanchard in ’45, Lujack in ’46, and Notre Dame end Leon Hart in ’49), something that never happened before or since.

       My personal reason for enshrining the game was less, uh, catholic.  I was eight years old at the time, living around the corner from Our Lady of Lourdes church in Chicago’s Ravenswood section, the only Jewish kid in a mostly Catholic neighborhood. Some of my pals, and most of my nonpals, were vocal Notre Dame fans, and in the weeks preceding the game their bleatings became too much for me. I’d never seen adults play football except in movie newsreels, and wouldn’t have known “Doc” Blanchard if he’d stuck a tongue depressor in my mouth, but in an effort to silence them I made a number of bets that Army would win. A lot of bets, actually.

       If the gesture made me feel good, the feeling was fleeting. It quickly became apparent to me that one of two things would happen: I’d lose the bets and suffer the consequences of being unable to pay because my net worth amounted to, maybe, 35 cents, or I’d win and be obliged to try to collect, a process that probably would yield more bruises than cash. November 9 loomed as doomsday, for sure.

       Those were radio days, and I tuned in to the contest on our home Emerson. I groaned whenever Notre Dame threatened to score and reacted similarly to each Army thrust. Back and forth the two sides heaved in a grinding, error-filled (10-turnover) defensive battle, and my stomach heaved with them. Against all odds, the outcome was a 0-0 tie. Everybody said that suited nobody, but everybody was wrong because it suited me fine, providentially so.

       The anniversary caused me to do some research on the game, and some of the results seem worth mentioning. College teams back then played nine-game schedules, while those of today play regular seasons of 12 games and up to three more in playoffs or bowls. Mighty Army’s line, tackle to tackle, averaged 194 pounds a man while Notre Dame’s averaged 214, both about 100 pounds a man less than current editions.

       Players often went both ways then, and some of the game’s most important plays were defensive ones by players better known for their offensive skills. Arnold Tucker, Army’s quarterback, intercepted three passes as a defensive back and Lujack, functioning similarly, made a game-saving tackle on Blanchard.

       The tie permitted Army to keep its No. 1 ranking for the week, but while it played out its season without a loss it beat a weak Navy team by just 21-18 in their finale. Notre Dame finished stronger, thrashing Northwestern, Tulane and Southern California by a combined score of 94-6 and, as they do today, the displays enabled them to top the year-end Associated Press poll, which was considered definitive at the time.  Notre Dame would win 21 straight games after the Army tie and except for a 1948 tie with Southern Cal would go unbeaten into 1950. Its players who were freshmen for the Army game would finish their college careers with a record of 36-0-2.

       While I didn’t exactly root against Notre Dame in the Big Game, my childhood experiences rarely left me unhappy when the school lost in sports.  Nonetheless, my time as a sportswriter tempered that stance, as it did other such blanket aversions. Terry Brennan, a star of the ‘46 Irish team and later ND’s head football coach, retired to Chicago’s LaSalle Street financial district, and I came to like him quite a bit while interviewing him for a column.

        I did several pieces on Gerry Faust, the Notre Dame coach from 1981 through 1985, and kept in touch with him as I did with few other column subjects. Promoted from the high-school ranks to high-pressure ND, he didn’t shine in South Bend (his record there was 30-26-1), but he’s a fine guy and I wished him well in everything he did.

       And when the NCAA in 1996 instituted overtimes to eliminate football ties, I sighed on behalf of foolish little boys everywhere.