Bart: “Look at me! I’m Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!”
Milhouse: “Well, I’m Esteban Yan of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays!”
Yes, it *has *been that long.
Cardinals fill their last roster spot (RH-hitting backup middle infielder) with Mark Ellis on a 1-year deal.
Is it time to start playing games yet?
If the Blue Jays sign Esteban Yan this will be the best pop-culture-referencing post in SDMB history.
I wouldn’t rule it out at this point.
Fun fact I just found out; Yan only batted twice in his entire MLB career. In his first at bat he hit a home run. In his second, he singled. So maybe the Jays will bring him back as an outfielder.
The Ohka story has me wondering who will be the last Montreal Expo in the majors. He wouldn’t even be the only one on the Jays, assuming Maicer Izturis is coming back. Scott Downs and maybe Orlando Cabrera and even Livan Hernandez figure to play somewhere next year, too.
Correction: Upon further review, Orlando Cabrera is retired, and Brendan Harris, Endy Chavez, Jamey Carroll, Luis Ayala, and Juan Rivera are not. That’s only from looking at the 2004 roster. More than I thought.
I’ll bet on Izturis due to age.
Endy Chavez is still around, although a free agent. And Jamey Carroll says he’s not planning to retire.
I’d agree Izturis is the best bet, though. He’s only 32. He played very badly in 2013 but is likely a better player than that and has a contract through 2015 so will make the team next year.
He certainly added to the prosperity of baseball players.
But if that’s a key criterion for Hall of Fame election, then prominent agents should get voted in too.
Think of the kiddies begging their parents to see the Scott Boras exhibit. “Work hard son, and you too can skim off 5% of billions of dollars in contracts.” :dubious:
I have to admit I find the Miller argument a bit lacking.
I am fully supportive of the players when it comes to their disputes with MLB, at least 98% of the time, anyway. They were right to take their proper share of the spoils, and Miller helped them do that.
I don’t really understand, though, how that helped anyone but the players. The benefits to the FANS of baseball, who to my mind are the ultimate arbiters of what really matters, just aren’t very clear to me. I can see why some other categories of people are included, like broadcasters - who, obviously, help the fans’ enjoyment of the game. Maybe even umps, who help the game move along correctly. But I don’t know what Marvin Miller did that helped me, as a fan. I’m sure he was a brilliant businessman and labor lawyer, but it’s the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, not the National Labor Relations Hall of Fame and Museum.
He may be old and fat, but Bartolo Colon probably had the best year of any ex-Expo and he just signed a 2-year deal.
(To add to the list, Scott Downs was still playing in 2013 but is a free agent.)
How can a team sign a pitcher over 40 to anything more than a game-by-game contract? Those guys can fall apart at any moment, and usually do.
As to what Marvin Miller did for fans, just look at what free agency allows teams to do - they have the ability to fill roster holes and become more competitive without having to depend on the slow way of scouting and development, and finding trade matchups with other teams. The fact that big-market teams are still at an advantage reflects MLB’s failure to implement serious revenue-sharing and salary caps, unlike the other sports, but has nothing to do with the work Miller did. But however you look at it, he was the prime mover in a fundamental development in the business of the game.
Any museum that doesn’t attempt to chronicle the full history of its object of focus, and highlight the individuals who had the largest impacts on that history (for good or for bad), is doing a terrible job at its mission.
He did a very professional job for my Dodgers. I always admired him, I think he consistently plays right to the limit of his abilities.
By that criterion Arnold Rothstein should be elected to the Hall.
Other than getting a handful of people banned from baseball, what major impact on the sport do you think he had? The 1919 Series was certainly noteworthy, but I wouldn’t consider it any sort of watershed moment in the sport. Free agency certainly was.
The Black Sox scandal led directly to the establishment of the office of Commissioner of Baseball under Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis and tighter regulation of the sport.
Gambling had been a long running problem up until that point though. Creation of the Commissioner’s office is certainly important, but I think it’s a stretch to highlight Rothstein as the genesis of that. Marvin Miller is far more comparable to Landis than he is to Rothstein in this example.
The Black Sox scandal was certainly the immediate impetus for establishment of the Commissioner’s Office, and Rothstein was the key figure in the scandal.
But I was mostly riffing on your statement that the “the individuals who had the largest impacts on that history (for good or for bad)” (my emphasis) deserve to be in the Hall.
In any case, “chronicling history the history of baseball” doesn’t necessarily require electing someone to the Hall itself. The Hall of Fame includes exhibits besides the memorial plaques. There’s one on women in baseball, even though there are no women in the Hall.
Colibri:
Effa Manley is in the Hall.
Elvis, I want to congratulate you. You have just become the first person to put forth an argument for Marvin Miller’s Hall-worthiness that I consider to have serious merit.
With Choo signing with the Rangers, the AL West is going to be fun to watch all year. My bold prediction is that the Angels finish in last place, behind the rebuilding Astros. I don’t think Pujols or Hamilton will bounce back and those two contracts are going to be a huge burden on them.