Tuesday, January 09, 2007

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!!!