Lee Lowenfish

I never get deeply involved in arguments about the Hall of Fame because the voting always comes down to a popularity contest.  Ted Simmons even admitted as much when he spoke publicly on Monday Dec 9 after his somewhat surprising election to baseball's Cooperstown shrine.

 
"I knew everybody on the [14-man veterans] committee and they knew me so I thought

I had a chance," he said on MLB TV.  It is actually more surprising that Simmons got less than 5% when he was first eligible on the regular ballot in the 1990s.  Because his vote total was so low, he was removed from the ballot until some veterans committees gave him extra chances.

 
Certainly Simmons's numbers are impressive:  21 seasons, 13 with Cardinals, 5 with Brewers (where he made his only World Series appearance in 1982), and 3 with Braves.

Lifetime stats:  248 HR, 483 doubles (indicating that he had significant power in the gaps), 1,389 RBI.

And for someone at times maligned for his defense, he threw out 34% of runners attempting to steal. On ESPN.com's list of best catchers in MLB history, he is tied for 10th place with Hall of Famer Gary Carter.  And everyone above them is enshrined in Cooperstown except for still-active Buster Posey of the Giants.

 
Ted Simmons will be one of the most original and intelligent members of the Hall of Fame. I had some memorable encounters with him in the 1980s.   

He liked my first book, co-authored with former major leaguer Tony Lupien,  "The Imperfect Diamond: The Story of Baseball's Reserve System and The Men Who Fought To Change It."  I was flattered when I learned that Simmons had told his Brewers teammate Paul Molitor to read it.

 
Simmons is part of my book because in 1972 he almost became Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally three years before impartial arbitrator Peter Seitz ruled they were free agents because they had not signed their contracts in 1975 and thus the reserve or renewal clause was no longer valid.   

 
Simmons did sign a rare two-year contract in the middle of the 1972 season, becoming probably the first player in MLB history to start a season without signing a contract. 

The dispute was about money, not a principle, Simmons refreshingly told future Hall of Fame sportswriter Bob Broeg in an incisive June 1973 "Baseball Digest" article.

The piece was called "Losing Drives Me Crazy" and Ted declared, "Everyone strives to win, but it's 10,000 times easier to lose."  He also cited the wisdom of one of the great Cardinal minor league instructors George Kissell: "When things go wrong, check your own closet first."

 
Congrats again to Ted Simmons, the onetime University of Michigan speech major who never played for the Wolverines because he started his MLB career as a teenager. Not surprisingly, Simmons said that he is honored to go into Cooperstown with players union leader Marvin Miller who he served vigorously and effectively as a player rep.

 
A CLOSING NOTE ON THE MLB-MILB IMPASSE

As of this post goes up at the winter solstice of Dec. 21, the dispute continues between MLB and the officials of Minor League Baseball.  The majors are proposing the elimination of 42 minor league teams including some entire rookie leagues.

If the snafu is not straightened out, there will likely be law suits from some of the municipalities who have invested millions in improved facilities. As J. J. Cooper suggested in the Dec. 14 "Baseball America" post on line, MLB's master plan may well be that by the 2021 season, a whole new landscape will be in place with MLB controlling the teams in almost every lower league. 

 
Compromise has never been MLB's strong suit, but as someone who loves baseball on the lower levels, I sure hope some reconcilation happens early in the new year. For a body that endlessly intones the phrase "growing the game," cutting forty-plus teams seems very odd.

Coincidentally, I recently re-read a wonderful 1991 book, David Lamb, "STOLEN SEASON: A Journey Through America and Baseball's Minor Leagues." It is a lovely paean to the importance of a special American institution.  The book may be technically out of print, but I think an internet search can find a copy or I sure hope public libraries have it.

The late David Lamb was a foreign correspondent for the "LA Times" who needed a break from covering the wars in the Middle East.  The opening sentence of the book drew me in immediately:  "This baseball journey was born in the rubble of Beirut while some maniacs were blowing away my hotel with tanks, chunk by chunk."

 
So at the age of 49 Lamb decided to re-connect with his baseball-loving youth when he was such an ardent Boston and Milwaukee Braves fan that he wrote for their fan publications.  The Wisconsin team liked his work so much that he was invited to spend a week covering the team as a fully-credentialed teenager. 

 
Lamb's wife endorsed his mid-life crisis trip as long as he didn't come home chewing tobacco.  Hilarious and prescient insights like this one fill the book. He captures the joy of seeing baseball in small towns and meeting the local characters that make the game so unique.

 
Names of future major leaguers dot the pages of the book such as infielder Ron Washington who wound up managing the Texas Rangers to a World Series and told Lamb that every AB is an opportunity. We discover that the double play combination in Stockton California was Charlie Montoyo (now Blue Jays manager) and Pat Listach, who made The Show with the Brewers.

 
Lamb's visits to the Milwaukee heroes of his youth are revealing - among them: frank Eddie Mathews, thoughtful Warren Spahn, analytical Del Crandall, utility man Chuck Tanner who found far greater success as a MLB manager, and Bob "Hurricane" Hazle, the unheralded minor leaguer who rallied the Braves to their 1957 pennant but only received a 2/3 World Series-winners' share.  Now just "a backwoods whiskey salesman," he's more philosophical than embittered about life. 

I wish the prestigious Random House publisher had included an index and that Bill Bruton's and minor league flame-thrower Steve Dalkowski's name had been spelled correctly. But STOLEN SEASON is a most worthy read.  

 
Keep the faith, dear readers, in both baseball and the USA though both are certainly going through difficult times these days.  And always remember:  Take it easy but take it.

This is an unsettling time for pro baseball as well as the USA as a whole. The Houston Astros, losers to the Washington Nats in a thrilling World Series, are being investigated for systematic sign-stealing over the past and prior years.

The Astros also had to fire a rising star in their front office Brandon Taubman for his actions in harassing women reporters who had written about Houston's decision to trade for closer Roberto Asuna while he was serving a suspension for domestic abuse.

 
The powers-that-be in MLB also want to contract 42 minor league teams by 2021, shorten the amateur draft to 20 rounds, and postpone the draft until August. They evidently think that a "Dream League" of undrafted players can be established to serve as a substitute for the terminated farm clubs.

 
With all the uncertainly in baseball at a time of declining attendance and interminably long games, I find it always stimulating to be in the company of scouts.  So on November 16th I traveled to Baltimore for the 49th annual dinner of MASA, the Mid-Atlantic Scouts Association. 

The event was held at [Rick] Dempsey's restaurant in Camden Yards and I'm happy to report that it was no "rubber chicken" affair.  Kudos to the Delaware North catering group for an exceptionally fine buffet dinner that preceded the evening's award presentations.

 
MASA's president is veteran Blue Jays scout Tom Burns, a former high school coach at Bishop McDevitt in Harrisburg, Pa. In his opening remarks, Burns noted that four players from the Mid-Atlantic region will receive 2019 World Series championship rings from the Nats.   Their triumph has been widely hailed by veteran baseball people because the Nats are led by GM Mike Rizzo, himself a former scout and son of former scout Phil Rizzo.

 
** 1. First baseman Ryan Zimmerman is from Virginia Beach, VA and University of Virginia. Zimmerman is the longest tenured Nat, playing on its first team in 2005 after the Expos moved from Montreal. He was signed by MASA's secretary Alex Smith, now scouting for Brewers.

 
(BTW One of my all-time favorite player development stories is that Zimmerman, Mark Reynolds, David Wright and the Upton brothers, BJ and Justin, all played for the same youth team, and all started as high school shortstops.)   

 
** 2. Lefty reliever Sean Doolittle - one of the baseball players most concerned about issues of social justice - went to high school in Medford, NJ, then played at the U. of Virginia a little after Zimmerman.  The son of an Air Force veteran and distantly related to the heroic World War II flyer Jimmy Doolittle, Sean's return from injury solidified the Nats' previously maligned bullpen.

 
**3. Daniel Hudson, who closed Game 7 of the Series for the victorious Nats, is also from Virginia Beach and went to Old Dominion in Norfolk VA, alma mater of Game 7 loser Justin Verlander.  His return to effectiveness after TWO Tommy John operations was another heart-warming aspect of the Nats' nearly-miraculous come-from-behind victories in FIVE post-season games.

 
** 4. Reserve first baseman Matt Adams went to high school in Philipsburg, PA, and was a 23rd round draft pick of the Cardinals out of Slippery Rock U. north of Pittsburgh. 

Though none of these players attended the dinner, two other active players were given awards and came to receive them. Lou Trivino was cited for "Outstanding Achievement". The Oakland A's reliever went to Upper Bucks [County] Christian HS and Slippery Rock.

Pitcher Jack Kochanowitz won the Amateur Player of the Year award.  The third round pick of the California Angels went to Hamilton HS in Bryn Mawr, Pa. and started his pro career this past summer.

 
The award is given in memory of Nick Adenhart, the Angels pitcher who went to Williamsport HS in Maryland and turned down a baseball scholarship to the University of North Carolina to turn pro.  On the night that Nick won his first game in the majors in Anaheim in early April 2009, he was killed by a drunk driver.

 
Veteran DC broadcaster Phil Wood, the dinner's witty MC, recalled some wise advice he received from Dick Bosman, who he introduced to receive a "Career Achievement" award.
"Get out of the press box and sit with the scouts and you'll learn something," said Bosman.

Bosman is the former pitcher with the second Washington Senators/Texas Rangers, Indians, and A's and the recently-retired minor league coordinator for the Tampa Bay Rays. In 1974 he threw a no-hitter for Cleveland against Oakland.  The following year he replaced Catfish Hunter in the A's rotation (as Hunter on a techicality became a free agent and signed with the Yankees). 

He went 11-4 in 1975 and 4-2 in part of 1976.  But unfortunately, Bosman's work as a player rep in the pivotal first decade of the Players Association curtailed his active career.  More on Bosman's life and career can be found in his informative book DICK BOSMAN ON PITCHING with Ted Leavengood, published by Rowman and Littlefield.

 
MASA awards also went to Stuart Smothers, back with the Yankees though he won the honor "Crosschecker of the Year" for work for the Phillies.  Smothers provided the vivid detail that growing up in south central LA he would rush home from school to catch Dale Murphy's at-bats on the Braves' superstation TBS.

 
Scout of the Year was Paul Murphy now with the Dodgers after stints with the Orioles and Phillies. MASA also welcomed into its Hall of Fame Shawn Pender and Paul Faulk, both of whom have served the Reds.

 
Well, in this time of uncertainly and unease, it is time to wish one and all a Happy Thanksgiving.  Andas always, please remember to "Take it easy but take it!"