MMP Astro Fan Character #1: Señor Mustachio

January 27, 2018

Señor Mustachio
The # 1 Astros Character Fan
At
Minute Maid Park

 

Sometimes it’s better to know a lot about a subject before you write about them. Other times it’s better to know as little about them as possible – for the sake of their reality not getting in the way of what you want to believe about them. It’s an easy prescription to follow. Just think of it as the last approach you hopefully would want to take on the road to falling in love and getting married. – Then go find your most often seen ball park present and unforgettable Astros fan character at Minute Maid Park once the 2018 season starts. If it comes up anyone other than the fellow we think of as Señor Mustachio, we shall be greatly surprised. We don’t really know his name. That’s just how we think of him. And our apologies go out to this gentle smiling fan, who may prefer to be publicly identified otherwise. The trouble is – when you make a big gaudy constant impression upon others by your departure-from-the-norm appearance – and you have no agent promoting you for some kind of financial gain – the public will – as we have done here – make up their own names for you.

All I say for you is that our impression is benevolent, admirable, and supportive of what your presence brings to our big league ball park. The old Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets field once had Hilda the Bell Girl, among others, to daily affirm the home presence of their guys, we have Señor Mustachio standing in the arches behind the Crawford Boxes for what seems like every home game.

You’ve been there in that large western straw hat, wearing that great elongated mustache and an Astros rainbow jersey since the days of Carlos Lee. In fact, that’s what a lot of us thought from the start – that you were there for Carlos Lee, but that you would be gone by the time his Astros days were done, but we were wrong.

Carlos Lee retired years ago, but you are still here. And thank you for that level of constancy.

Prior to 2017, I was beginning to think of you as Don Quixote, the tilter at windmills, the dreamer of impossible dreams – the man who always reached sky high with his expectations, but always wound up watching them fall around him as the rain of stormy disappointment.

Then came 2017. And you and the Astros proved that neither our ball club, our city, or you – our unknown friend – were destined to the limitations facing Don Quixote in perpetuity.

Please keep up the good work, Senor! And keep coming to every game. For all we know, you may be the conduit channel the baseball gods are using to pump all this winner’s energy into the bats of players like Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa, George Springer, Marwin Gonzalez, Yuli Gurriel, and Alex Bregman.

Thank you too, Destiny, for fan support heroes like Señor Mustachio. They are important to our baseball community – even when we don’t know their legal names or personal histories. In fact, if the truth could be known, we might find that many others attend Astros games with the same relentless regularity over time as Señor Mustachio. – They just don’t stand out in the crowd as he does.

But they all count. Every single one.

 

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle

 

 

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SABR Forever. – Let It Be.

January 26, 2018

 

Times change, but sometimes the identity of an historic organization like SABR holds true over 45 years of accomplishment, even if that result is due to accident.

Because of SABR, the written, pictorial, and statistical histories of the game’s teams, players, and spread – throughout the world – would not be what it is today – and on a not-even-close basis. It’s even fair to speculate too that the “saber-metrics” that have evolved as the foundation for the kinds of analytic aspects of World Series championship building (see Houston Astros (2013-2017) are also a major force in the expansion of interest in American Baseball on an international level that is now way beyond anything anyone dreamed possible back in the 1971 start of SABR.

Our current SABR website expresses our organizational identity and extant purpose this way on January 26, 2018:

“The founding of the Society for American Baseball Research on August 10, 1971, at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, marked the beginning of a new era. For the first time, an organization would exist to foster the study of baseball as a significant American social and athletic institution; to establish an accurate account of baseball through the years; and, most important, to facilitate the dissemination of baseball research information around the country.”

The bold type embossing of American Baseball and the final word country are our doing for this column. The first, American Baseball, needs to stay the same – in both our name and promoted honest outlook. Our game is American Baseball, whether its being played in Fenway Park, Havana, Cuba, Tokyo, Japan, or Rome, Italy. We are not talking cricket here – nor are we embracing any international faction’s attempts to alter the fundamental rules by which we play our American game on an international basis. On the other hand, as SABR, we definitely NEED to expand our outlook on where the game is being played and reported or even supported by SABR on an international level.

In the SABR website quote, the word “country”  is dated. The phrase “American Baseball” is forever.

Long Live SABR!

 

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Tech Problem Alert! A couple of days ago, I was trying to grab a number off my cell so I could call it from some other phone. In my haste, I apparently pushed another button on my phone at the same time.

As a result, my phone deleted 10 years of collected phone number at one time. I cannot call you without first finding your number – and – as I am quickly learning, many of you are not listed.

If you don’t mind, please e-mail me your phone number at houston.buff37@gmail.com.

Don’t phone it to me because it will not be recorded here by name.

Thanks.

How many times do we need the same lesson? Our new communication technology is both heaven and hell – with both being served up like scrambled eggs on the same plate.

 

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle

 

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2018 BBWAA Hall of Fame Voting Results

January 25, 2018

 

Hall of Fame voting results

Receiving the necessary 75 percent of votes, Chipper Jones, Vladimir Guerrero, Jim Thome and Trevor Hoffman were announced as the Baseball Hall of Fame’s Class of 2018. Here are the results from the 422 ballots cast. Iit will make for a big summer induction party as these four men will join with pitcher Jack Morris and shortstop Alan Trammell, selected by today’s equivalent of the Veterans’ Committee for the full class of six new player members going into the Land of Cooperstown Mythology this coming July.

We were not surprised – and we were also pleased – to see first-timers Chipper Jones and Jim Thome going in as first ballot picks with their high rates of choice. We were also very happy to see the great hitter and competitor, Vladimir Guerrero, going into the Hall as the first offensive inductee from the Dominican Republic. If your club played against him, Vlad was always one of those guys you wished were in your dugout, especially in close important games that he so often took away with drives over the wall, off the wall, or down the line.

I wasn’t real happy with one of the non-former-player talking heads at the MLB Channel who dismissively threw away future chances for Billy Wagner getting the HOF nod, but I was very pleased to see Trevor Hoffman and his 601 saves get the call for greatness over time. As an Astros fan, who didn’t hate to see Hoffman of the Padres coming into an Astros-one-run-down game in the 9th?

Looks like Edgar Martinez now stands in line at 70.4% for next year’s sympathy pull into the Hall as the first really dedicated high achiever among the early DH players. He will either go in next time alone or wait to get pulled in with David “Big Pappy” Ortiz when that man makes the ballot. We’re betting on next year.

It will take a support campaign to boost pitcher Mike Mussina over that 11.5% deficit he faces, but I can’t see that happening. If Mussina had 300 wins, he’d be in by now, and I can’t see these voters coming up with a reason for dismissing that his 270 total  was not enough. Mussina wasn’t Sandy Koufax.

Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds are floating in the high 50% area, but it’s hard to see what could bounce that up another 18%., barring the sudden appearance of a steroids amnesia outbreak and all the convictions that already have been taken by most fans on most accused players, except these two guys. My guess? We get to wait and see how the BBWAA and veteran judges view the world once their ranks are loaded with voters born no earlier than 2001.

Name Votes Pct.
Chipper Jones 410 97.2%
Vladimir Guerrero 392 92.9%
Jim Thome 379 89.8%
Trevor Hoffman 337 79.9%
Edgar Martinez 297 70.4%
Mike Mussina 268 63.5%
Roger Clemens 242 57.3%
Barry Bonds 238 56.4%
Curt Schilling 216 51.2%
Omar Vizquel 156 37.0%
Larry Walker 144 34.1%
Fred McGriff 98 23.2%
Manny Ramirez 93 22.0%
Jeff Kent 61 14.5%
Gary Sheffield 47 11.1%
Billy Wagner 47 11.1%
Scott Rolen 43 10.2%
Sammy Sosa 33 7.8%
Andruw Jones 31 7.3%
Jamie Moyer 10 2.4%
Johann Santana 10 2.4%
Johnny Damon 8 1.9%
Hideki Matsui 4 0.9%
Chris Carpenter 2 0.5%
Kerry Wood 2 0.5%
Livan Hernandez 1 0.2%
Carlos Lee 1 0.2%
Orlando Hudson 0 0
Aubrey Huff 0 0
Jason Isringhausen 0 0
Brad Lidge 0 0
Kevin Millwood 0 0
Carlos Zambrano 0 0

(Voting Chart, Courtesy of ESPN, o1/24/2018)

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle

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Bill Brown’s Astro Champs Book a Must Read

January 24, 2018

HOUSTON’S TEAM
HOUSTON’S TITLE
2017 World Champion Astros
By Bill Brown

 

I just read it. You need to do so too. In the end, the book even comes close to best describing itself when it calls the 2017 Houston Astros season result for what it was – what it is – and what it always will be for so many of us:

“Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot.”

“Houston’s Team, Houston’s Title: 2017 World Championship Astros” by former 30 season broadcaster Bill Brown is that kind of exposition of the most powerful moment in the Houston club’s franchise history. He takes us through the historical particulars of each game the Astros played against the Red Sox, Yankees, and Dodgers on their way to Houston’s first World Series title, along a trail of observations, insights, and emotional reactions from some who have been so close to the quest from 1962 until now. How Bill had the time to gather in the quality he needed and get this book into print in this short a space of time is almost a book lesson in itself. And, as if that weren’t enough, the profiling Brownie did on Jose Altuve as a developing Hall of Fame candidate, along with the additional work he did on the profiles of other key Astros were off the chart deep support to the subject at hand.

The moments Bill Brown’s book captures are powerful, poignant, joyful, and deep.

“I was sitting there with Judy, and Gurriel caught the ball for the final out,” said Larry Dierker. He worked for the Astros for 44 years. “I burst out laughing. I never ever could have guessed that would be my reaction. I laughed for about 30 seconds. I thought about it the next day and wondered why I laughed. I thought it’s because of the Dodgers.

“That Hollywood stuff, and you’re always looking up at them. They keep taking pictures of stars in the stands and mentioning what time the parade is going to be. And I thought, ‘Sorry Tommy. Sorry Hollywood. We’re taking this one.’ “ (pages 118-119)

Top it off with additional class. – The forward is by another of our valuable, but recently retired broadcasting greats. – Greg Lucas, another baseball writer of note, wrote the introduction to this 248-page paperback joy package delight for all members of the Astro Nation baseball community. Brown and Lucas share another baseball dignity in common. They are both inducted members of the Texas Baseball Hall of Fame.

The book is also a labor of love. All profits from the book’s sale are destined for charities supported by the Houston Astros.

“Houston’s Team” by Bill Brown is available for $15.00, plus sales tax and shipping, by Internet order from Amazon.com.

 

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle

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The Ballad of The Minnesota Miracle

January 23, 2018

Case Keenum
Never Give Up on This Guy!

 

 

The Ballad of The Minnesota Miracle

By Bill McCurdy

 

The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Vikings team that day;

the score found them down by two, with ten seconds left to play;

and then Case Keenum took the ball, and heaved it down the field;

and Stefon Diggs ran after it, as sanity surrealled.

 

Struggling fans were done and gone, departed in despair;

the rest clung hard to a last slim hope – for joy to fill the air;

as Diggs veered toward the right sideline, two Saints upon his tail,

the ball came down from heaven – by Case Keenum Special Mail.

 

What started at the Vikes’ 39 – was caught at the Saints’ 33;

No Saints made the tackle, and Diggs just waltzed home free.

The game was won by the miracle spun, and the joy went on for a week;

Then a Green Grinch next in Philly – slapped the brief joy flat-out silly,

And now we’re flashed back fast to why – losing’s the reason fans do cry.

 

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;

the band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,

and somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;

but there is no joy in Minneville — mighty Case K has struck out.

 

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle

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1961: County Voters Approve “Plush” Stadium

January 22, 2018

Harris County voters didn’t know they were approving $22 million dollars in tax bonds for the construction of something called an “Astrodome” back on February 1, 1961 because that name didn’t come around until shortly before the brand new place’s usable completion in 1965. We just thought we were getting a “plush” new stadium with an often talked about, but never before done on this scale – stadium with a roof – and one with air conditioning that would protect big league baseball in our town from the not-s0-nice aspects of our Houston summer “rains-too-often-and-shines-too-hot-and humid” climate.

“Plush” was a word we understood back in February of 1961. “Astrodome” would be the final class of a three-part speed course we would get from Professor Roy Hofheinz during spring training prior to the 1965 NL season. Remember, 1965 was not only the first season the team would be playing in the brand new posh stadium. It was also the time in which Prof/Judge Hofheinz changed the name of the Houston club from Colt. 45s to “Astros” as he simultaneously gave the new Harris County Domed Stadium it’s more rhythmic historical unofficial name – The Astrodome.

When we learned what an “Astro” supposedly is, some of us wondered why we needed a change of team names. After all, in their first three NL seasons, the Colt .45s already were doing a fairly credible job of falling to earth each time like a bunch of gravity-controlled space rocks. Did we really want to further encourage that behavior in a beautiful new stadium with a damageable roof?

Well, it all worked out, didn’t it? OK, it did take us an extra 52 years to finally win our first World Series, but we we’ve got it. And we’re never going to give it back. And things look good for us winning a few more, even doing a back-to-back capture here in 2018.

We did get used to thinking of our first ground-breaking covered stadium as “The Astrodome” pretty fast. And we also started coming up with several seasons in which our “Astros” played a whole lot better than we might have ever expected from a team named after falling space rocks. Those weren’t the problem.

The problem was – somewhere in the 1990s – probably around the time that we let Bud Adams of the old NFL Oilers coerce the County and the Astros into taking down the big scoreboard for the sake of putting in more empty seats – we stopped thinking of the Astrodome as “plush” – and that led former Astros owner Drayton McLane into wanting to move the baseball club.

Maybe things would have come to this point, anyway. By the time the Oilers left Houston for Tennessee in the mid-1990s, the Astrodome was still the first of its kind, as it always will be, but it was no longer the shiny penny, cutting-edge all features sports venue in America.

So, baseball went downtown to the beautiful new Union Station site in 2000. Nothing wrong with that, except for one major neglect. – We left the Dome to stand there as an ongoing maintenance cost problem, as easily as we might have an abandoned a piece of junk.

NFL football returned to Houston in 2002. They built a “plush” new stadium (now called NRG) no more than 300 feet from the abandoned Astrodome.

Over time – since 2000 – our active preservationists have joined hands and minds with progressive county and city leaders to come up with a re-purposing plan that will preserve the Astrodome for what it really is – a world class and internationally famous architectural initiative that Houston must save in perpetuity as a matter of cultural ethos.

So much for plush.

In 1965, the Astrodome’s value was far greater than “plush”. That’s still true in 2018.

And thank you, Darrell Pittman, for sending this clipping to The Pecan Park Eagle.

 

 

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle

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Fifty Years Ago Today: UH 71-UCLA 69

January 21, 2018

Elvin “The Big E” Hayes and UH Alum Bill McCurdy
At a social function in 2008.
Both were in the Astrodome 50 years ago tonight as participants in the UH 71-69 basketball win over UCLA. The Big E was there as the star of the game. Bill was there as only one of the 52,693 fans that helped put College Basketball on the big league sports map.

 

Big E, Cougars Whip UCLA

52,693 See UH Prevail, 71-69

By Bob Green

Associated Press Sports Writer

(As reported in the Brownwood (TX) Bulletin, Page 8a, Sunday, Jan. 21,1968)

Houston (AP) – Houston’s inspired Cougars, led by All-American Elvin Hayes, stunned UCLA Saturday night 71-69 and ended forever the Bruins’ myth of invincibility in college basketball.

A howling happy crowd of 52,693 in the Astrodome – an all-time record – saw Hayes, Houston’s Big E, toss in 39 points and help put the defensive clamp on UCLA’s Lew Alcindor.

Appropriately enough, it was Hayes’ two free throws with 28 seconds left that broke a 69-69 tie and snapped UCLA’s 47-game winning streak, second longest of all time.

The Cougars, ranked No. 2 in the nation going into their climactic showdown with the top-ranked Bruins, turned UCLA’s own weapons on them – a super performance by a super-star and a tenacious defense.

Houston, sparked by Hayes’ 29 first half points, established a 46-43 margin at intermission and spent the second half fighting off challenge after challenge by the cold-shooting Bruins.

When it was over, the delirious Houston fans and cheerleaders stormed onto the court, hoisted their heroes to their shoulders and began a rhythmic chant,”We’re No. 1. We’re No.1.”

If they are, they can thank their poise, which never broke in the face of the famous UCLA press defense.

Houston established a 13-12 lead with 13:45 to in the first half on a basket by George Reynolds. The Cougars didn’t trail again, although (they were) tied three times.

The last came when Lucious Allen, high scorer for the Bruins with 25 points, dropped in two free throws with 44 seconds to go. The Cougars brough the ball down court and when Hayes was fouled by Jim Nielson they went ahead for good.

UCLA had one more chance, but blew it on an uncharacteristic mix up in signals in which the Bruins Mike Warren tipped the ball out of bounds. Houston took over with 12 seconds left and ran out the clock.

“Isn’t that Hayes great?” exulted Houston Coach Guy Lewis. “Almost every game he plays is great.”

“Houston played a tremendous game,” said John Wooden, coach of UCLA. “Well just have to start over again.”

 

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Thank you, Bob Green, for that beautiful job of sports writing coverage of an Astrodome event that was destined to grow in importance to the histories of both Houston Sports and College Basketball in general. Fifty years after the fact, your work speaks as eloquently today to younger people as it did in 1968 to those of us who were there then – younger people.

We are Houston. And we are strong for our history too. And to those writers, like you, who have reported our history honestly and well, we are both indebted and grateful.

 

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle

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Radio Games: Baseball’s Theater of the Mind

January 20, 2018

“The Shot Heard Round the World”
October 3,1951

 

For those of us who spent some to all of our childhoods in the radio era prior to television, all kinds of scripted dramatic or comedic programing – and live sports broadcasts – were the heart of what was once and forever known as the “theater of the mind”. Easier said: Radio supplied the worded descriptive facts – and our imaginations supplied the pictures and wonderment-filled moving action of everything we saw, wished for, and feared as mystery.

As a kid, I loved listening to a horror/mystery series called “Inner Sanctum”, a show that began each week with a few words of welcome from the creepy voice of host “Raymond”, who always invited us to push open the creaking door of that night’s show and then followed the invitation with a sardonic laugh as the squealing door of this old “sanctum” could be heard opening itself to that night’s initial plot engagement.

No television show ever – and no movie (including “The Exorcist”) either – has since come close to producing a visual horror that was worse than the ones that blossomed in the minds of children and some adults as a result of radio shows like “Inner Sanctum”.

And I dare say, listening to baseball radio broadcasts of the Houston Buff games called by Loel Passe (1950-61) – or the Mutual Game of the Day – or even the Gordon McClendon first retro game reenactments were just as powerful. Our minds could track heroic victory and Gothic collapse into failure in ways that aren’t available now on TV, even in today’s High Definition, multi-camera angle, variable speed motion coverage of practically all games shown.

The mind is faster than the eye – and far more fertile – when it is working alone.

I’ve often wondered how hard the 1951 Bobby Thomson homer was on Dodger radio fans – and all blind followers of Brooklyn, for that matter. All I confidently believe is that to have been worse then it was for sighted fans, or fans who may have watched it live or on TV. Maybe that’s why we best remember that day and time, October 3,1951, 3:52 PM as the moment of “Bobby Thomson’s Shot Heard Round the World.” Far more people heard of it soon after the fact. If they saw it at all in motion, it was that one-swing, rounding the bases, “Giants Win the Pennant” victory celebration that made its way to motion picture screens in the days and weeks that followed.

It seems to me that radio game broadcasters used to be a lot more descriptive of the players, the stadium, and the weather than they are today – and much less caught up in data reports beyond batting averages and home run counts, plus wins and losses of pitchers and their earned run averages. Today’s style is much less conducive to building in the theater of the mind. As a result, some people, people like me, are inclined to most often just leave a car radio game on Sirius Radio’s “Best of the 1940s” music channel until they (we) reach either our late seating at the ballpark or our personal study’s HD TV’s game coverage at home.

The times they are a changin’. – Sort of.

 

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle

 

 

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Eagle Summoned for Sea Serpent Mission

January 20, 2018

‘Hey, Maxwell! No one in our family has read the book – and the McCurdy ancestor it references never read any books – but we do still have this sketch of him holding the club we also still possess. – Do we still need to dispatch that Irish sea serpent?” ~ Regards, Bill.

 

Our SABR friend and Pecan Park Eagle writing contributor, Maxwell Kates, sent us the following information by e-mail late last night. It came from a book he just finished reading.

Maxwell reports verbatim on a passage about an unspecified place in Ireland from the last chapter of a book entitled “The World’s Most Travelled Man” about a man’s travels over the years to every country on earth:

“A local legend says that a man-eating sea serpent lives nearby and can only be slain by a man named McCurdy wearing clothing made of calf skin, wielding a club with three nails in it that have never been used to shoe a horse.”

Now he wants to know if we are up to the man-eating sea serpent “challenge”.

If there remains a sea serpent problem, all we can do is quote our answer as clearly as Curly of the Three Stooges once might have, for sure. – Are we willing to help?

“Why soitenly! – Let’s get on it!”

The nails in Super X Power Great-Grandpa’s club were never used to shoe any horses, but we did use the club once to bang a bent spare tire rim back in line so we could change a flat tire on an old Ford Mustang on a lonely West Texas highway years ago. That action probably wouldn’t count as a real-horse shoe job and destroy the lethal power of the three-nailed club, but, regardless, we will not be stopped by any fear that may try to attach itself to an illogical uncertainty that all but oozes from an old Irish legend.

Watch your head, sea serpent. – Here comes a magical monster mental migraine to go with the concussive trauma that also soon shall befall you. Since we have learned that you also are a Dodger fan, we are bringing you a copy of the 2017 DVD of the World Series. You are free to watch it repetitively during your period of convalescence from our club-inspired go-away message.

And thanks again, Maxwell Kates, for some playful transmissions of thought. Let this column serve as our little publication foray into the world of Casual Friday.

 

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle

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Hall of Fame Picks TBA January 24th

January 19, 2018

 

Tis now the baseball part of winter season to be jolly, angry, relieved, or disappointed.

On January 24th, the BBWAA will announce their 2018 selections for induction into the Hall of Fame this summer and, as you may see from the choices that are probable, there is room for all the referenced emotional reactions to that outcome, plus a few others of less tempered exposition. All it takes,  after all, is for a candidate to gather 75% of the votes cast against standards that never have been established as the clearly objective guidelines for both performance and morality.

It may be a good idea to review the list of returning and new candidates here before proceeding deeper into your own thoughts in this matter,and how these impact your own choices for support or opposition. This link will take you to the least politicized presentation of the candidates – and that’s a good thing. Too much is getting in the way of clear decision-making and why should it not? When issues for choice are not clearly defined by objective standards, ambivalent reactions are to expected to “who gets in” and “who does not”:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/hof_2018.shtml

So Who Gets In This Time? Anything any of us say is still a guess, but the obvious bets among previous ballot candidates are Trevor Hoffman (74.0%) and Vladimir Guerrero (71.7%) from last year.

Among the new guys, and based upon both their impressive batting stats and character reputations, and in my book, Chipper Jones and Jim Thome appear to own an arguable edge over all others.  I tried to stay away from all candidates that did not have strong arguable points of objection. Then I remembered. When a HOF induction contest lacks the clarity of “three strikes and you’re out” – that there is no such pick.

Given the front-loading fact that the Modern Era Committee picked Alan Trammell and Jack Morris in December for this same 2018 induction class, this could be one of the biggest player induction classes we have seen in years.

Is There a Way to Objectify Performance and Character Standards into Some Kind of Measurable Format for Determining Induction? The problem leaks all over the place. Mike Mussina can’t get in because his 270 starter wins leave him 30 wins short of the magical 300 win mark. – Roger Clemens has 354 wins – way over the magic pitching stat number – but he’s one of those whose steroid use has placed him on the “deny his existence and ignore” list with BBWAA voters, factual going on for six years now. – And here’s why. – It’s not because of any changes that the HOF votes on performance for both Clemens and Barry Bonds are now on the rise. It’s because more of the older writers who opposed the steroid boys are now either dead or retired – and the new, younger voters don’t seem to be as bothered as much by what happened as their predecessors were. The newer voters may also be aware that nothing new in the courts has transpired over time to clarify on a case-by-case proven basis what happened with each steroid-smeared player from that era.

Even a Couple of Black Sox Found Sympathy Over Time. Baseball’s two most famous gambling scandals belong to eight members of the 1919 Chicago Black Sox and much later, to Pete Rose. Over time, their own passing – and the passing of all those who condemned them – especially Commissioner Landis who condemned them, a couple of the old condemned Sox, Shoeless Joe Jackson and Buck Weaver, have been restored by writers into the “innocent condemned men” category. In Jackson’s case, it is pretty much into the special “innocent condemned Hall of Famer” category that Clemens and Bonds now occupy for very different reasons. Again, the passage of time and changes in the culture have contributed to a softening of attitude, but not toward the deeds themselves. It’s something sown into our American Spirit from early on. – Anything that denies, shortcuts, or replaces individual due process will be revisited. Even if it takes a later generation to see the need and to approach resolution with greater dispassion.

Maybe it’s time we had a broader dialogue going – beyond the select company of writers who do most of the voting now – and start searching for a better, clearer way of inducting people into the Hall of Fame.

 

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle

 

 

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