The 2008 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot was released last week but the results of that voting, done by the Baseball Writers Association of America, won't be announced until early next year. While the next month will see much debate about the credentials of Mark McGwire, Goose Gossage and Jim Rice, there was nary a peep about the slate of candidates considered by the Veterans Committee in advance of today's announcement of five Hall of Famers. If there was perhaps they would have avoided the monumental error they made by electing former commissioner Bowie Kuhn but not Marvin Miller. The process used for electing veterans was changed this year from the full group of living members of the Hall to three panels, one for former players, one for managers and umpires and one for executives and pioneers. Kuhn was elected by the latter group.
Miller, who got three of 12 votes from the management panel (seven current or former management execs, two former players and three writers), wasn't thrilled by the results.
"It's demeaning, the whole thing, and I don't mean just to me. It's demeaning to the Hall and demeaning to the people in it."It's demeaning because it ignores half the story of why Kuhn matters to the game of baseball. That half is Miller's and deserves telling at baseball's most hallowed ground. Instead the panel tried to rewrite history by leaving Miller on the sidelines.
Free agency was the most significant thing that happened in the game of baseball after the Dodgers and Giants moved to California. It defined the game we know today and the two men at the center of the battle can't be mentioned without mentioning their adversary. They doggedly debated free agency for most of the early '70s before the decision by an arbitrator in 1975 which overturned the reserve clause and ushered in the free agency era.
Kuhn called it a "disaster" for baseball teams and players but the opposite has been proven over the last thirty years. Baseball's revenues couldn't be higher and players couldn't have benefited more from Miller's work on their behalf.
Each man was waging a battle they were hired to fight and each one did so to the greatest extent of their powers. Baseball would be a much different game without their efforts and it isn't because Miller won that I think he deserves to be in Cooperstown as much as Kuhn, it's because of the fact that they were the centerpieces of such a monumental moment in the history of the game.
Free agency was, by far, the most significant thing to happen during Kuhn's tenure. It is impossible to think of another reason why he would be elected to Cooperstown. But you can't tell that story without Miller, no matter what today's vote tries to say. It's a shame and a disservice to baseball that the electors chose to only recognize one half of the story.
Speaking of the Dodgers move, Walter O'Malley was also elected to the Hall today. His name may be mud to a generation or two of Brooklynites but his 35 years as owner saw his team open two doors baseball needed to grow. That move to California and the integration of the game both came on O'Malley's watch, more than enough to earn him enshrinement.
Another owner, Barney Dreyfuss, was also elected. Dreyfuss owned the Pirates at the turn of the century and helped organize the first World Series in 1903. That series helped quiet the feud between the American and National Leagues, something we can all agree has worked out quite well for the game.
Two managers will also be inducted this summer. Dick Williams and Billy Southworth each won two World Series. Williams won his with the '72 and '73 Oakland A's and also took the 1967 Red Sox and 1984 Padres to the Fall Classic. Southworth won in '42 and '44 with the St. Louis Cardinals and took the 1948 Boston Braves to the Series as well. Whitey Herzog fell just short of enshrinement as did longtime umpire Doug Harvey.
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