Kuhn Makes Hall; Miller Left Out

[BaltimoreTerp]

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3139417

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Former commissioner Bowie Kuhn was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the revamped Veterans Committee on Monday while his longtime adversary, players' union boss Marvin Miller, was left out for the second time this year.

Former Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley, managers Dick Williams and Billy Southworth and ex-Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss also were elected.

Manager Whitey Herzog and umpire Doug Harvey each missed induction by a single vote. Miller did not come close.

The Vets panel was changed after failing to elect anyone in three tries and replaced by one with a majority from baseball management -- the same group Miller once fought against for player benefits like free agency and salary arbitration.

"I think it was rigged, but not to keep me out. It was rigged to bring some of these in," Miller said by telephone after being informed of the results by The Associated Press. "It's not a pretty picture."

It's great that some of these guys are getting in, like O'Malley, Williams, Southworth, etc., but how can you leave Marvin Miller out of the Hall of Fame?

He has probably had the largest effect on professional sports of anyone since Harry Wright in 1869.

Crazy.

[Moose Milligan]

It's sad that Kuhn just passed away, didn't live long enough to celebrate his induction.

And it's a crime that Marvin Miller isn't in. Bterp nailed it, not only did he help change the face of baseball but pro sports. I dunno who's on the vets committee but chances are they should probably be thanking Marvin Miller up and down...

[TGO]

I think MacPhail is on the committee, if I'm not mistaken. Let me dig up the list.

EDIT: Yep.

Judging their careers will be Hall of Famers Monte Irvin and Harmon Killebrew; former executives Bobby Brown (American League) and John Harrington (Red Sox); current executives Jerry Bell (Twins), Bill DeWitt (Cardinals), Bill Giles (Phillies), David Glass (Royals) and Andy MacPhail (Orioles); and media members Paul Hagen of the Philadelphia Daily News, Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Hal McCoy of the Dayton Daily News.

[BaltimoreTerp]

Yeah, it said in the article that the committee changed from the former players to mostly executives.

So, it's an extremely fair system, absolutely

[DrungoHazewood]

What a crazy, inexplicable decision. Well, on second thought, this is just the Hall being the Hall. Once again they've revamped the voting procedures for the Vet's Committee because it was clear that the prior version wasn't working. And once again it looks like they came up with a "solution" that's easily misled and manipulated.

Kuhn's selection appears to be the confluence of the death effect and an attempt to spin the advent of free agency in the owner's favor. Could there be any stronger appearance of owner-bias than the election of a controversial (at best) commish who stood for the status quo, and the shunning of the labor leader who lead a revolutionary overhaul of the sport?

Some of the other picks were head-scratchers, too. Barney Dreyfuss? A relatively obscure owner from the 1800s and early 1900s? I guess he presided over the Pirates during one of their best eras, and got Forbes Field built, but he also was neck-deep in syndicate baseball - he owned both Louisville and Pittsburgh and merged the teams, leaving Louisville to rot then be contracted, when it was in his interest. And there's no way in heck these committee members picked Dreyfuss out of thin air and decided he was a great candidate. It's clear as day that someone was stumping for him.

Southworth and Williams were decent choices, but no better than shunned candidates Davey Johnson and Whitey Herzog. Sourthworth only managed 13 years, and his big successes came during WWII when most players were in Europe or the Pacific. Williams did manage some great A's teams, but I'll always remember him as the bitter old guy managing bad Mariners teams at the end of his career.

[Frobby]

Kuhn was a mediocre commissioner, while Miller was the key catalyst behind the labor movement in professional sports (not just baseball). It's a joke.

[TGO]

The fix was in! Viva la revolucion!

[DrungoHazewood]

The fix was in! Viva la revolucion!

When you're talking Veteran's Committee the fix is always in. Half the people the VC has ever selected were somebody's buddy back in the day.

The Hall is such a mishmash of ever changing standards, ill-conceived voting rules, annual Calvinballing of the rules, and competing agendas that it may one day reach a critical mass of insanity. At some point even the good ol' boys network that runs the place will realize that the bottom 30% of the enshrined could be replaced with 70 other people and the quality wouldn't change one iota. It might improve. Maybe that day they'll finally decide on some real reform.

Or maybe they plan it this way. Without controversy the Hall wouldn't get half the press.

[Boy Howdy]

Agree that Marvin Miller and Whitey Herzog shoulda made it, but I think umpire Doug Harvey ought to get in too.

How can you argue with the man that used to do those "You Make the Call" segments on This Week In Baseball and was so respected by players that they nicknamed him "God"?

[Migrant Redbird]

Agree that Marvin Miller and Whitey Herzog shoulda made it, but I think umpire Doug Harvey ought to get in too.

It's the wrong HOF for Miller. He belongs in the HOI (Hall of Infamy) along with the Black Sox and the guy who first proposed the designated hitter.

I am not a fan of managers, executives, writers, or umpires even being in the HOF. I don't even think that relief pitchers belong -- for the most part. Now if Gagne had continued his amazing string for another 10-15 years, I might have been convinced....

I think that Southworth might deserve it more than Herzog or Johnson, but it's really impossible to evaluate managers aside from the very subjective criteria of "fame".

How many managers get a style of play named after them, like "Whitey-ball"? Not many, but then "Whitey-ball" was inspired by "Billy-ball", and Billy isn't in the HOF.

If managers could take teams like the 2003 and 2006 Marlins or the 2003 Royals and consistently get them to play well above the level of talent on the team, then I'd agree that they deserved HOF selection, but I've not seen any manager who could do that consistently. I think that maybe Davey Johnson did that most consistently with the 84 Mets, 94 Reds, and the 96 O's, but he wasn't adequately successful with the Dodgers.

Herzog gets a boost because he was also his own GM for a substantial portion of the time, so the players he had to work with were made available by his own efforts and not those of his GM. How do you differentiate between the contributions of Theo Epstein and Terry Francona, for example, in getting the 2 World Series titles? Francona may be a genius of a manager, but he wouldn't have even got there had it not been for the overpowering team assembled for him by Epstein.

I wonder about Dick Williams. Like Gene Mauch and Tony La Russa, he had a reputation for being a very savvy manager. Unlike Mauch, Williams and La Russa have also had some very talented teams to manager most of the time. How can you evaluate a manager's worthiness for the HOF unless you are able to compare his record with the degree of player talent he had to work with? Any other method of manager evaluation is merely a shallow review of the results or a mindless stampede down the path of conventional thinking.

And umpires? Umpires are supposed to be largely invisible, if they're doing their job properly. One could argue that any umpire who achieved a degree of fame should therefore be disqualified.

[olehippi]

The Hall is such a mishmash of ever changing standards, ill-conceived voting rules, annual Calvinballing of the rules, and competing agendas that it may one day reach a critical mass of insanity.

Great sentence that sums up modern day elections to the HOF quite well. Sadly, being voted in just doesn't have the same connotation it did in years gone by. I suspect that in a few years they'll have a special section in the Hall at Cooperstown named "The Steroid Era.....Power and Home Runs."

[Flip217]

...annual Calvinballing of the rules...

Classic! I'm sitting here at my desk, stewing over some pretty bad news I just got and wondering if I have to jump into the job-search pool again, and then I read that, and I'm grinning like an idiot!

I think I'll dig out the old C&H books tonight and re-live the glory days...

[RShack]

It's the wrong HOF for Miller. He belongs in the HOI (Hall of Infamy) along with the Black Sox and the guy who first proposed the designated hitter.

Holy cow. I think Miller was a special guy. He just helped balance out a hundred years of downright tyranny by the friggin' owners.

Plus, I think he tried to be more reasonable than Fehr. My impression is that Fehr's basic attitude is to just dig in and not give an inch, so that he won't appear to be softer than Miller. But I thought Miller had an open mind about working things out, but the owners weren't interested in working anything out, they just dug in about everything. At least that's my impression, but I don't know why it is. 'Could be wrong.

The guy who got into the wrong Hall is Kuhn. I think it should be the Hall of Doofusses for him...

[Moose Milligan]

It's the wrong HOF for Miller. He belongs in the HOI (Hall of Infamy) along with the Black Sox and the guy who first proposed the designated hitter.

Sour grapes from a Curt Flood fan?

[Migrant Redbird]

Sour grapes from a Curt Flood fan?

I'm still a Curt Flood fan. There were issues with him on the Cardinals which probably had nothing to do with the reserve clause. It was rumored that his injury to his throwing arm occurred in the clubhouse.

Although I share my last name with Marvin Miller and agree that the reserve clause should have been thrown out long before Flood challenged it, I don't believe the current process, with U.S. amateur players being controlled for up to 12 years by the team which drafted them (or received them in a trade) is that much better than the reserve clause. Only the elite players who reach the major leagues and whose careers last at least 6 years are able to enjoy free agency. I believe that U.S. players should have the same freedom as foreign players to choose which team they sign with, and I blame Marvin Miller in large part for that mess.

However, I was being a little facetious regarding Miller. He didn't quite damage baseball as much as the owners or the Black Sox scandal. I suppose that Miller has as much right to be honored as most of the non-players already in the HOF and a lot more than some like Bowie Kuhn.