Baseball

Congrats to The Nats! Formerly The Montreal Expos! Always fun to watch a team win the World Series for the first time or after a nearly century long drought(Looking at you Cubs and Red Sox).

Tiant and Evans get Hall of Fame support from Boston fans, but have gone unappreciated by those with the keys to Cooperstown. Here in Red Sox Nation, we know that Luis was every bit as good, or better than contemporaries Don Drysdale and Catfish Hunter. Those two sailed into Cooperstown, but Luis never got the gold-plated pass needed for induction. El Tiante was bounced from the writer’s ballot, moved to the Veteran’s Committee and subsequently came up short again and again. Crazy. Who else would you want in a “must-win” game?
And now it is Dewey’s turn to wait and wonder. It was announced last week that Evans is one of 10 candidates who will be considered when the Modern Baseball Era Committee convenes in San Diego in December at baseball’s annual Winter Meetings. Evans is on a ballot alongside estimable candidates Steve Garvey, Tommy John, Don Mattingly, Thurman Munson, Dale Murphy, Dave Parker, Ted Simmons, Lou Whitaker, and former labor boss Marvin Miller.
“I’m not sure what to think right now, but it’s nice,’’ Evans said when I reached him via phone over the weekend.
Evans played 20 big league seasons, 19 for the Red Sox, hitting 385 homers and winning eight Gold Gloves. During the 1980s, Evans led the majors in extra-base hits and ranked second to Rickey Henderson in getting on base. He hit more homers than any American League players in the 1980s. He has more career hits than Joe DiMaggio and more homers than Jim Rice. Despite all that, he lasted only three years on the BBWAA ballot, failing to get the required five percent of votes cast when he fell off in 1999.
“It was disappointing,’’ he acknowledged. “I wondered why. There were a lot of things going on at that time. There were guys hitting 60, 70 home runs. So 400 home runs was not the criteria anymore. It was 550. But I always thought you should be judged in your era, your generation.’’
No player improves in retirement, but some get surges of consideration after they drop from the writer’s ballot. This happened to Evans last winter when outfielder/designated hitter Harold Baines was voted into the Hall by the Today’s Game Era Committee.
Wait, what? Harold Baines? Nice hitter. Good guy. But a one-dimensional player who was clearly not as good as Dwight Evans. It turned out to be a Richard Daley-esque, back-channel, Cook County bag job orchestrated by Baines’s former White Sox bosses, Jerry Reinsdorf and Tony LaRussa, who were part of the 16-voter committee.
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The fallout was swift. Baines was a good player and a swell guy, but not considered Hall-worthy outside of the 312 area code.
Dwight Evans’s phone started ringing. Everybody knows he was better than Baines.
“I was happy for Harold,’’ Evans remembered. “But I had a lot of questions from other people asking, ‘What about you?’ It was nice to hear that after being out of the game for 27, 28 years. It was nice that people were talking about me in that manner.’’
A year later, Evans gets his shot with a new 16-man committee, which will meet and vote on the 10 candidates Dec. 8. Committee members have not been identified and this is intentional. The Hall discourages outside lobbying on this issue.
In most years, a veteran’s committee panel will include a combination of eight or nine Hall of Fame members, four or five baseball executives, and two or three media representatives. Voters can vote for no more than four candidates. A candidate must appear on at least 12 ballots to earn induction.
In order to be elected, Evans will need someone in the room to champion his cause. He would be best served if someone from Boston (John Harrington, Peter Gammons, Dennis Eckersley, Jim Rice) is a member of the new 16-person committee.
The wait can be stressful. Lovable Luis Tiant’s had his heart broken a couple of times by this process.
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“I wasn’t thinking about it until you called me,’’ Evans said. “It would be great. If certain guys get in, I think I’m right there. There’s a lot of new stats that we didn’t have. Now they have stats on how many runs did you stop from scoring. I wish they had that when I played. I look at my numbers and extra-base hits and home runs and I always thought they were right on the edge and I always thought that my defensive ability would put me through. I really don’t like talking like this to be honest with you. It’s something that speaks for itself. I don’t really think I have to speak to it or speak about it.’’
Fair enough.
Dwight Evans gave us his game at Fenway in right field for 19 summers. We know what we saw.

Thanks. I had sort of heard that about Bochy.

I missed Tiant's era, but I remember him as being my dad's favorite, so I'm sorry I didn't get to see him play.

And Los Angeles feels duped, but there is nothing they can do about it.

YIKES!!! As a Bostonian living in CA I am disgusted and embarrassed! This reminds me of Pete Rose and all his nonsense! Will CORA manage again or get kicked out of baseball? 😡😡😡😡

Now the Mets head coach has stepped down. He was just hired there a couple months ago.

RedSox season opener was last night. I watched the opening ceremonies and the first few innings. Depressing. Really creepy. Opening ceremonies included introducing all the players and managers. Crowd cheered for every one of them. Cheered loudier when the opening lineup was announced. Except of course the seats were completely empty. Most wore masks during the opening ceremonies even though it was outside. Only one mask wearer pulled down the mask when it was his turn to be introduced, and nowhere near anyone else. The play-by-play announcers are usually in one of the highrise stalls overlooking the field. This season they are miles away with major distance between the three of them. One has dealt with several bouts of cancer so it's good for him, but so unlike what we're all used to.

Only 60 games. 59 to go. There are different rules this year. Like an extra 6 teams (all the second place division finishers) in the playoffs.

I think I'm more likely to listen to the radio broadcast this year.  Less creepy.

The RedSox are doing the photo cutouts as a fundraiser.  $500 per seat in the Green Monster, proceeds going to the Red Sox Foundation.  But if your cutout is hit you'll win free tickets for next year.  Makes sense, those cutouts are going to be smashed up.