Commencing The Baseball Digest Flashback Project
August 1976
So, let’s reach into the grab bag and see what comes out. This week’s initial selection in my Baseball Digest flashback is the August 1976 issue, featuring Randy Jones on the cover in the midst of what would prove to be a Cy Young Award winning season for the lefty with a perfect 1970’s perm.
I’ll delve into this further in the coming weeks, but Baseball Digest was a perfect magazine in so many ways. It wasn’t always easy to find a lot of baseball info outside of your hometown team those days, so the mag always provided a valuable fountain of news, notes, and stats from around the league. It still exists as a print publication to this day. I haven’t picked up an issue since I stopped getting it regularly sometime in the mid 80’s, but in a time in which so many legacy publications have either limited themselves to digital only or have completely ceased operations, it warms my heart to know that it’s still out there.
On a personal note, reading this magazine was one of the factors that really ignited my interest in the Hall Of Fame, as Hall discussions were a frequent feature in the magazine. An article in this issue is a good case in point. In 1976 I had never heard of Addie Joss; the article here made a very persuasive case for his inclusion. He had been left out at the time due to the fact that he had only played in 9 seasons. He died from meningitis at the age of 31. I’m not sure specifically how much this particle had to do with it, but the Hall waived the 10-year requirement in his case and Joss was elected as part of the Class of 1978.
One thing that will probably be a bit sobering as I go through these old issues is the brutal reality of the march of time. The thought of a professional athlete dying from meningitis seems like something that would have happened in days of yore, and Joss’s death did occur in 1911, 65 years before this issue was published. But, do the math. If we rewind 65 years from today, that only brings us back to 1958. That doesn’t seem terribly long ago.
Another case in point; the article concerning baseball roommates. Among the people quoted in the article was Jimmy Reese who discussed his time rooming with Babe Ruth. Because he played so long ago I often forget that in my early days of baseball fandom there were still plenty of living people with first hand stories of having played with and against legends from that era. Which makes sense of course. The timeline from Babe Ruth to a magazine published in 1976 is roughly equivalent to someone today swapping tales of the Big Red Machine or the Swinging A’s.
I enjoyed seeing this brief blurb as well. One can argue whether or not teams are a bit too liberal when it comes to their policies regarding number retirements. Take a look at how small the list was at this point. As of 1976 there was a total of 37 retired numbers across the entire sport! BTW, since you can see the tease of some of my answers in that month’s baseball quiz you’re probably wondering how I did. I scored 79, which the magazine characterizes as “superior.” Darn it, I fell 1 point shy of “baseball expert.” In my defense, I was only 10 years old in 1976.
With each issue I’ll take a closer look at one of the magazine’s regular features. This time let’s tackle an easy one. They actually published updated team rosters each issue. That’s significant because the mag would go to the printers roughly a month before it would hit the newsstands. Yet, the rosters would generally not be terribly out of date. Roster churn in those days was significantly slower than it is now. In 2024 your average roster already looks a lot different on a Friday than it did on the previous Monday, which was clearly not the case in 1976. That’s one of my grouchy old man complaints; I really miss the days when teams would travel north at the end of spring training with the roster that they would intend to keep largely intact for the entire season.
And The Nominees Are…
The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame’s decision to release the 2024 ballot on the Saturday of Super Bowl Weekend was certainly a choice. Talk about a news dump. Remember, this is the first ballot since the Jann Wenner interview, so lots of people were particularly interested in the composition this time around. To be fair, current Hall Chairman John Sykes has been cognizant of the gender/race disparity & has been proactively attempting to improve the situation. Anyhoo, your finalists are as follows:
I will once again do an artist-by-artist breakdown over the coming weeks, so I won’t dig in too deeply just yet, but I do have a few general points to make. Most notably, as a sign of just how big the backlog is, I could very easily come up with a list of 15 different names just as strong as this one - if not stronger - , and so could you. Some continuing omissions still puzzle me. I’m disappointed about no Salt-N-Pepa, bummed over no B-52’s, and stunned over no OutKast. Looking at the actual group of 15 names, it’s… fine, I guess. I could probably make a defensible argument for 14 of them, but there are fewer than normal that would inspire me to do a gleeful Snoopy dance if they were to be elected.
A few more bullet points:
The eligibility clock for this year’s ballot begins in 1999. To make us all feel old, that means that next year there could be an artist on the ballot whose first recording was released in the 21st century. Oh boy.
On a related note, they so need to put the 70’s to bed. Sure, if a potential candidate comes from an underrepresented genre, that’s one thing. But there are more than enough standard rock bands already in, including more from that specific era adds little. White guys with guitars will always make up a large portion of the membership, which is fine. Just search for more modern artists to fill those slots.
Interestingly enough, A Tribe Called Quest are the only artists from last year’s ballot to carry over to this one. Consider me surprised to see that neither Cyndi Lauper nor the White Stripes made the cut. That leads me to believe that neither did as well in the vote as I had thought.
On a related note, 10 of the 15 nominees are first-time selections, although none have been chosen as first time eligibles. Those 10 have had waits that range from a few years to a few decades. On the other side, even the returning nominees are relatively fresh. ATCQ are the most-nominated act from this group. This is their 3rd nomination, the other 4 are each returning for their second nomination. No perennial retreads this time around.
Has the nominating committee already closed the books on country? I was curious to see who they would nominate to follow in the footsteps of Dolly & Willie, and the answer is no one this time.
Depending on how the vote goes, it could be an interesting ceremony. I count at least 3 nominated artists who have expressed complete disdain for the Hall. Minds could always change, of course.
How does the demographic breakdown look? There are 5 nominated acts that are either female or female-led bands. (Sade’s nomination also includes the members of her band.) 8 of the 15 are either artists of color or bands that contain at least one such member.
The committee is slowly acknowledging the era they are honoring. There are 2 hip-hop acts as well as 2 others that have strong hip-hop connections.
In a change, participants in the fan vote can now select up to 7 artists as opposed to the traditional 5. I presume that means the other voters can do the same, which also implies that there will be a minimum of 7 inductees from this shortlist.
Debating season commences in 3, 2, 1…
A Fond Bon Voyage To The Klu-Bot
With spring training camps opening, expect to see another round of retirement announcements. The number of available job opportunities are quickly fading away. Eventually the game of musical chairs is going to end, and the remaining question for players still on the outside looking in is to see if it’s worth continuing to put the work in with the hopes that a phone call will still come.
Late last week Corey Kluber confirmed that he is calling it a career. He’s had a rough go of it the past few seasons; the combination of age and physical ailments has accelerated his decline. But he had a 5 year run in which he was among the very best pitchers in the game, winning 2 Cy Young Awards. He was also a memorable figure; his signature curveball was a devastating weapon, and his stoic, unflappable demeanor on the mound earned him that Klubot nickname.
His was a career worth celebrating, and the game will miss his presence. I’m not certain if you can say for sure that he’s leaving the sport on his own terms; I would suppose that he would continue to pitch if he physically could, but on the other hand it is ultimately his choice to step away - he is retiring before the sport itself tells him it’s time to go. He’s not the only once-great player nearing the finish line who will need to have the difficult conversation with himself within the next few weeks.
We also just heard that Jamaican sprinting great Shelly-Anne Fraser-Pryce will retire following the upcoming Paris Olympics. She burst onto the scene in the same 2008 Olympics that her country mate Usain Bolt dominated so. Whereas Bolt has long since retired, Fraser-Pryce has continued to compete at an elite level. In that time she has grown from a prodigy barely out of her teens still with a mouth full of braces to a respected veteran well known for her signature multi-colored hair. Along the way she has accumulated enough hardware to make herself a worthy GOAT contender. She has won 6 Olympic medals, 3 of them gold, as well as 10 world championship golds. Not too shabby.
Ummm… This Is Alarming
I’m trying my best to avoid getting too worried about the early polling for the presidential race. The results from poll to poll have been very volatile, so it’s difficult to try to gain a lot of insight from any individual result. It’s also a fact that for all of the talk about Joe Biden’s physical decline, I’m not sure how aware many people are of Donald Trump’s alarming cognitive decline. It’s so dishonest to accuse Biden of not having sufficient mental acuity when Trump sounds increasingly incoherent. The larger spotlight he will have as the campaign proceeds, the more apparent it will be to larger numbers of voters.
But I just can’t wrap my head around the support he still has. The people who are clearly in the thralls of the cult are one thing; there will never be any changing of those minds. What I don’t get are the number of swing voters who are sticking with him. I mean, by this point there is zero ambiguity as to who who is and what he intends to do if he’s placed back in power. People really want 4 more years of this? Sadly, it reveals some uncomfortable truths about his supporters.
I’ve long since lost the ability to think “THIS is what will finally turn the tide.” There have been any number of things that he has said since the escalator ride that would have destroyed the hopes of literally any other person, but he continues to prove that he probably could someone on 5th Avenue and get away with it. This weekend’s remarks at a rally were some of his worst yet. Saying that he would give Putin the green light to attack any one of our NATO allies? How can a reasonable person be OK with that? Will we ever reach a moment where people finally say “enough is enough?” Is there anyone in the GOP with a spine?
Closing Laughs
Hope all of you cleaned up in your box pools yesterday. I don’t watch football anymore, but I enjoy seeing how certain people make themselves miserable over Swift & Kelce, so I actually had a bit of a rooting interest this time. See everyone again on Wednesday.