All Hail Marvin Miller!

As regular B&E readers well know, I loves me some baseball. And even though today the Mets found themselves alone atop the National League East for the first time since April 19th (Let's Go, Mets!), I'm going to give a little shout-out instead to a fella that many people haven't heard of: Marvin Miller.

This weekend, the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, will be inducting Goose Gossage, the legendary reliever, and everyone will celebrate by eating goose meat deep-fried in goose fat, with a side of French fried goose skin. They'll sleep with their goose down comforters. And maybe they'll goose the bottoms that walk by, for good measure.

So what does all this have to do with Marvin Miller? Nothing, except that he won't be getting inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Marvin Miller probably had more influence on the game of baseball than just about anyone. OK, so Jackie Robinson was a pretty big fucking deal, too, and maybe more influential. But Marvin Miller is right up there with Jackie Robinson, and I say that to praise Marvin.

For without Marvin, there'd be no baseball players' union, no collective bargaining, no free agency, no pensions for ballplayers, no thorns in the sides of all those greedy bastard owners. Like what he did or hate it (and yes, I like it), the man had a powerful influence on Major League Baseball.

So how come he ain't in the Hall? Well, he was almost elected in by the veteran's committee in 2007, receiving 63% of the vote (or 12% short of the required 75%). He was on the ballot again in 2008, and he received only 25%. What happened between 2007 and 2008? Did it become public that he had nothing to do with any of those things after all?

Not exactly, no.

You see, the Hall of Fame board changed the rules. Instead of a group of about 80 former players, executives, and sportswriters voting, the Hall created a committee of twelve to select from among the baseball executives. On that committee sit several of Marvin's enemies, including a few current and former owners who did serious labor battle with Marvin over the years. Shockingly, Marvin got only three votes.

Someone who got ten votes, enough to get elected to the Hall, was Bowie Kuhn, former commissioner of Major League Baseball. Kuhn's famous mostly for having a relatively long tenure as commissioner, and because that term was from 1969 to 1984, he dealt with a lot of baseball labor issues, going head-to-head--and almost always losing--to Marvin Miller.

Sort of how the lack of Emmy Awards for HBO's The Wire says more about the irrelevancy of the Emmy Award than the quality of The Wire, the Hall of Fame embarrasses itself by keeping Marvin Miller out.

For a longer report on the Marvin Miller/Hall of Fame absurdity, read this lovely Nation article, from which I pull this kernel about one of my all-time favorite players:

When he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1999, legendary pitcher Nolan Ryan devoted part of his speech to paying tribute to Miller. Ryan reminded the audience that when he broke into the major leagues in 1966, he had to spend the winter months working at a gas station from 3 pm to 9 pm, while [his] wife worked at a local bookstore, to make ends meet.

Thanks to Marvin Miller, that's something that's stopped, which is an enormous relief, because what would we do if Alex Rodriguez had to pump gas instead of running off to hang out and do god-knows-what with Madonna.

Oh, wait...

Seriously, though... Go Marvin!