Looking forward to next no-doubter
COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — Picked-up pieces while fondly remembering not-solong-ago days when Red Sox and Patriots owners seemed to care more about winning than making money . . .
■ Fred McGriff and Scott Rolen will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday.
These are good dudes with impressive résumés, but theirs are not names that come to mind when fans talk about baseball immortality. Rolen is a career .281 hitter who had only one top-10 MVP season in a 17-year career and went hitless in the 2004 World Series against the Red Sox. He was voted in by the BBWAA in his sixth appearance on the ballot. McGriff was overlooked in 10 tries with the writers, never cracking 40 percent of the ballots (75 percent is required) before gaining admission via the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee.
McGriff and Rolen were very good players but not first-round slam dunks of recent vintage such as Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Jim Thome, Chipper Jones, Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, Greg Maddux, and John Smoltz.
After years of withholding votes for players because of incomplete résumés or steroid stench, this longtime BBWAA member looks forward to upcoming ballots with guys who might qualify for first-ballot consideration and potentially glam up future induction ceremonies.
Next year, it’ll be easy to vote for Adrian Beltre and Joe Mauer. Beltre — a nerd-favorite WAR warrior who spent a nice summer with the Red Sox in 2010 — played 21 seasons, hit 477 homers, and played more games at third base than anyone other than Brooks Robinson. And he did it all without wearing a protective cup. Mauer was a catcher who won an MVP and three batting titles, and finished in the top 10 in MVP balloting four times.
In 2025, we get to vote for Ichiro Suzuki, who should be unanimous. The man came to us late but made 10 All-Star Games and won
10 Gold Gloves, amassing 3,089 hits. He had 200 or more hits in each of his first 10 big league seasons, and that’s after 1,278 hits in Japan. Ichiro was MVP in 2001, had 262 hits in 2004, and he’ll walk on the Cooperstown stage with CC Sabathia, who won 251 games and a Cy Young in his 19 seasons.
In 2027, it will be a pleasure to vote for Buster Posey, a seventime All Star who was an MVP and won three World Series. A year later, we’ll say hello to obvious Hall of Famers Yadier Molina and Albert Pujols.
There will be others, of course. Locals Dustin Pedroia (2025 ballot) and Jon Lester (2027) will get long looks. With the steroid era (hello, Messrs. Clemens and Bonds) in the rearview mirror, it will be nice to return to the fun debate of debating baseball credentials.
■ Quiz: Name the five batters Carl Hubbell struck out in succession in the 1934 All-Star Game. Now, name the five batters Pedro Martinez fanned in his two-inning, MVP All-Star stint in 1999 (answers below).
■ Last year, Bill Belichick turned his offense and young quarterback over to Matt Patricia and Joe Judge and said, “If it doesn’t work, blame me.” It didn’t and we did.
Now the Hoodie has eschewed the services of wideout DeAndre Hopkins, getting outspent by the Tennessee Titans after bringing Hopkins to Foxborough in June. This means we’ll be watching Hopkins closely and comparing his numbers with those of all New England wide receivers. Prepare for a lot of Lobel-esque, “Why can’t we get players like that?” if Hopkins goes All-Pro in Nashville.
And let’s not let Party Doctor Bob Kraft off the hook if the Patriots fail because they failed to spend. The needy owner talks a good game but hasn’t backed it up with deep-pocket spending.
Kraft seems more interested in his stadium’s new scoreboard and the new lighthouse, which evidently offers a view of the Eiffel Tower if you stand on 10 copies of Jeff Benedict’s “The Dynasty.”
■ Kraft wants enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame more than anything and is still galled that Jerry Jones is already in.
Next Thursday, Kraft undoubtedly will be named one of 12 finalists as a coach/contributor for the Class of 2024. He was one of 12 finalists last year, but lost to Don Coryell. Kraft’s competition for the ’24 award includes Tom Coughlin, Bucko Kilroy, Bud Adams, Roone Arledge, Art Modell, Art Rooney Jr., Marty Schottenheimer, Mike Shanahan, and my personal favorite, Clark Shaughnessy.
■ Nice of FSG to unveil its five- to eight-year Fenway Corners plan to build on every available piece of land around the ballpark. The proposed monstrosity that would sit behind the Green Monster looks bigger than the new Terminal E at Logan. Designed by James Cameron, perhaps? Increasingly, it feels like the Red Sox are merely a side hustle in the FSG acquirement/real estate company.
■ When New York Post sports reporter Howie Kussoy sat down to interview Mets outfielder Tommy Pham, the former Red Sox pulled out his cellphone and recorded the interview right along with Kussoy. I’ve had this happen only once. When I interviewed Larry Lucchino and Tom Werner for a book I wrote with Terry Francona, the Sox officials brought Dr. Charles Steinberg so they’d have their own recording of the session. Dueling recordings. It felt like the Nixon White House.
■ Nazzan Zanetello, the Red Sox’ second pick in the 2023 MLB Draft, played shortstop for Christian Brothers College High School in Missouri. Christian Brothers’ pitching coach is former Sox hurler Al Nipper, who started Game 4 of the 1986 World Series against the Mets at Fenway Park. Darryl Strawberry homered off Nipper in Boston’s Game 7 loss at Shea, and Nipper didn’t forget the sight of Strawberry stylin’ around the bases. Nipper plunked Strawberry the first time they faced one another in spring training, 1987, prompting a rare, Grapefruit League benches-clearing episode.
■ Any player who mentions the Massachusetts millionaires tax as a reason not to play for a Boston team is not a player I want playing for the Celtics, Red Sox, Bruins, or Patriots. How much is enough? This means you, Grant Williams.
■ The Yankees dropped into sole possession of last place Tuesday. They haven’t been last after 95 games in any season since 1990. Compare that with the Red Sox, who have finished last five times in 11 seasons and have a chance to land at the bottom for the third time in four seasons.
■ Yankees third baseman Josh Donaldson may be done for the year (maybe forever) with a torn calf muscle. The former American League MVP finished his season batting .142 in 33 games. He had only 15 hits, 10 of them homers! Donaldson finishes with an OPB of .225 and 15 RBIs.
■ The estimable Steve Serby of the New York Post this past week wrote, “Considering the omnipresent eye of social media, and the Super Bowl and playoff droughts, this will be the most anticipated season in Jets history.”
■ Speaking of the Post, let me second the emotion of baseball scribe Joel Sherman, who thinks it’s folly for the Players Association to ask MLB to extend the pitch clock for the playoffs. No, thank you. Figure it out, fellas. Players almost killed the game with their slow pace of play and it should never be allowed again.
■ The arrogance and elitism of the New York Times was on full display when the paper announced it was disbanding its sports department with a plan to “focus on how sports intersect with money, power, culture, politics, and society at large.” What a crock. How about focusing on the Mets, Jets, Knicks, and Rangers? How about sports and fun? The Times published a thoughtful letter from a reader who noted that the Times’s new mission of sports coverage “cannot replace the daily glory of the grinding seasons unfolding.”
■ Wade Boggs has joined Don Zimmer in the Tampa Bay Rays Hall of Fame. The third honoree will be Carl Crawford (gulp) in August. Crawford was indeed a great player for the Rays — before he landed in Boston. In the words of one Red Sox official, “When Crawford played against us, we hated him. He was always stealing bases, hitting homers, beating us. Then when he played for us . . . we hated him.” For a whole new raft of reasons.
■ Our American Women’s World Cup team is more popular than ever, but it should not be forgotten that Kristine Lilly is the greatest female soccer player in American history.
■ Has anybody heard a more unnecessary idea than the NBA’s plan to play an in-season tournament next season? Would love to have heard Red’s opinion on this one.
■ Could disgraced West Virginia men’s basketball coach Bob Huggins be any more pathetic? “Huggy Bear” is now trying to say he didn’t resign and that he wants his old job back despite multiple fireable offenses and one of the lowest graduation rates in NCAA lore. Joe Mazzulla played for Huggins at West Virginia. I wonder what he thinks of how far his former coach has fallen.
■ Former Bruins goalie coach Joe Bertagna is wrapping up 50 years of summer goalie camps Friday Aug. 4 at the Burlington Ice Palace. Bertagna estimates that 12,000 netminders have participated in the sessions, and he is inviting former attendees and coaches to join him from 3-4 p.m. for a group photo and celebration.
■ RIP Eddie Bressoud, who died July 11 at the age of 91. Between Don Buddin and Rico Petrocelli, he was an All-Star Red Sox shortstop in 1964. A good piece of some bad teams of my youth.
■ Joe Quintanilla, a longtime beep baseball player (baseball for the blind) who has completed eight marathons and put on more than two dozen events for blind athletes, will throw out the first pitch at Disability Pride Night Wednesday at Fenway.
■ There’s not much to say that hasn’t already been said about Providence Journal sports scribe Bill Reynolds, who died July 13 at the age of 78. A star shooter at Brown, he became a terrific story teller/sportswriter. Go back and read “Fall River Dreams,” which stands forever as New England high school basketball’s “Friday Night Lights.”
■ Quiz answers: Hubbell — Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons, Joe Cronin; Martinez — Barry Larkin, Larry Walker, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Jeff Bagwell. Eight of the 10 batters are in the Hall of Fame, and McGwire and Sosa would be if not for PEDs.