Well,
that surprised pretty much no one.
Welcome to the pantheon, Cal
and Tony.
98.5% and 97.6% respectively. Methinks that’s as close to unanimous as anyone’s
ever gonna get from this point on. (Well, maybe.)
Better
luck next year — or
never — Big
Mac.
And in the mean time, we’ll keep pulling
for you, Jim
Ed. So will Dick
Bresciani. And this guy.
A slight slippage, but still almost
two thirds of voters want you in. Too bad you need three quarters.
Next year. I can feel it.
Just one thing I’m curious about: who
the hell were the three guys who voted for Dante Bichette?
Aw fuckit. So what if the big man didn’t make it into
the Hall. He was the Atlantic League
Player of the Month for August 2004 — go
Nashua Pride! — and they’ll never be able to take that away from him.
Anyway, over at Sons of Sam Horn,
they’ve got another interesting debate going: Is Curt Schilling a
Hall of Famer?
It’s an interesting question. I say
yes. Eventually.
But this coming season (and
post-season?) will obviously have a lot to say about how that question resolves
itself.
Speaking of good-natured debate, I’ve
signed on with several other bloggers for a new project, spearheaded by Brian
Martin over at Friendly Fenway
to help compile a list a comprehensive list of the 100 Greatest
Red Sox Players. Brian wants as many bloggers and fans to contribute as
possible, so if you’re game to pitch in, send him an e-mail.
It’s an interesting project. Just coming
up with my own top 20 was hard enough (I reshuffled and second-guessed myself
about a bazillion times) and I suspect coming up with numbers 80 to 100 will be a lot harder.
Here’s my upper echelon, based on
criteria both empirical and emotional.
1. Ted Williams
2. Carl Yastrzemski
3. Cy Young
4. Dwight Evans
5. Bobby Doerr
6. Jim Rice
7. Carlton
Fisk
8. Roger Clemens
9. Pedro Martinez
10. Wade Boggs
11. Jimmy Foxx
12. Smokey Joe Wood
13. Manny Ramirez
14. Luis Tiant
15. Rico Petrocelli
16. David Ortiz
17. Mel Parnell
18. Dom DiMaggio
19. Tim Wakefield
20. Bob Stanley
Obviously, this is a subjective and quite
possibly contentious project. So we welcome your input. Who are your picks for
the bottom four fifths of this illustrious list?
Etc.
Hot Stove Cool Music was a blast the
other night. The best one yet. It was very wise to add some new names to the
lineup card, and Eli “Paperboy” Reed,
the Downbeat 5, the Figgs, 4Peace,
and the Pernice Brothers did not
disappoint.
One minor bummer: I guess all the players had gone to Saturday
night’s mini concert instead. On Sunday it was Lenny DiNardo and Lenny DiNardo
only.
Not that that’s necessarily a bad
thing. We’ve
long been fans of Lenny D around these parts (perhaps more for his
impeccable rock snob cred than for his lefty junkball). And indeed, as he took
the stage with Peter Gammons — who looks and sounds GREAT — the commish
confirmed that in his many decades covering this beautiful sport, he’d never
met anyone who knew as much about music as DiNardo.
But
is he gonna pitch this year?
If the baseball discussion was a bit
simplistic — Why did we get rid of Loretta? Who says Lugo is better than A-Gon? Waaaaah! — the music
was doozy all night, the covers coming fast and loose. Theo plugged in for a
ripping take on Neil Young’s “Powderfinger.” Gammons powered his way through
Zevon’s “Model Citizen” and Richard Thompson’s newly-relevant “Feel So Good (I'm Going To Break
Somebody's Heart Tonight).”
And the all-star finale, where
Epstein and Gammons were joined by DiNardo, Joe Pernice, Bill Janovitz, Mike
Gent, JJ Rassler and host of others for a scintillating stab at the English
Beat’s “Save it For Later” followed by Maxine Nightingale’s “Right Back Where We
Started From” (belted out by the Downbeat 5’s punk-pulchritudinous Jen
D’Angora), was a dynamite way to send us back out into the not-quite-cold, to
bide our time for six weeks until pitchers and catchers report.
Finally, while we’re on the subject
of rock and roll and halls of fame, I would like to encourage you to support OTD’s
initiative to get Gary Cherone the immortality he deserves. (Those dudes
at the R&RHOF are real jerkfaces, no?)
There’s a hole in his heart that can
only be filled by you! E-mail early and often!!!