Baseball Hall Of Fame

Phil Collier, who has covered baseball the past 37 years for the San Diego Union, will be inducted in 1991 into the writers' wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Collier, who celebrates his 65th birthday today, was unanimously voted by the Baseball Writers of America Association as recipient of the J.G. Taylor Spink Award for long and meritorious service. "It's like a dream," Collier said. "You hope something like that can happen, but it's nothing you could ever expect.

Barry Larkin has been elected to baseball's Hall of Fame, it was announced Monday, while tainted sluggers Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro fell far short of the votes required for induction. Larkin played 19 seasons, all with his hometown Cincinnati Reds. A 12-time All-Star, he won the National League's most-valuable-player award in 1995 and a year later became the first shortstop with 30 home runs and 30 stolen bases in a season. Larkin received 495 votes and was named on 86% of the ballots -- a 24.3% jump from his 2011 numbers.

Pete Rose, former manager of the Cincinnati Reds, said today he is in no hurry to apply for reinstatement but is eager to get into baseball's Hall of Fame. "I'm not worried about getting back in baseball in a non-playing role," Rose said. "I'm anticipating the Hall of Fame. You don't need to be reinstated to go to the Hall of Fame." Rose, who last played in 1986, will be eligible for election by the baseball writers after the 1991 season. Rose was banned from baseball for life Aug.

Jim Thome and the Hall of Fame. If you think the two don't go together, you're not alone. But you're also wrong. Not that he would hold that against you because Thome — with apologies to the Angels' Torii Hunter — is perhaps the nicest and most sincere man in baseball. And has been for 21 seasons. Walk through a ballpark with Thome before the gates open and you'll see him greet the security guards and ushers by name. Sit near the dugout during games and you'll hear him call out to the season-ticket holders.

Fun-loving Bill Veeck, the maverick owner who infuriated the bosses of baseball but delighted the fans, was elected to the Hall of Fame Tuesday by the veterans committee. Also named was power-hitting second baseman Tony Lazzeri, an integral member of Murderers' Row, the New York Yankee team that dominated baseball in the 1920s and '30s. Veeck and Lazzeri were selected from among 30 nominees who had survived a screening process.

Their names are going to be popping up like the earth over mole tunnels . . . John Bench, Rod Carew, Steve Carlton, Dave Kingman, Graig Nettles, Phil Niekro, Jim Palmer, Pete Rose, Tom Seaver, Don Sutton, Carl Yastrzemski. They have one thing in common. They will be appearing on the baseball Hall of Fame ballot at various times in the next decade.

Joe Falls, 76, a longtime sportswriter for the Detroit News and a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, died Wednesday of heart failure. Falls covered 50 World Series, 20 Kentucky Derbys, 15 Super Bowls, 20 Masters and U.S. Open golf tournaments and 25 Indy 500s. He began his journalism career in 1945, as a copy boy in the New York office of Associated Press. He transferred to the Detroit bureau in 1953 and joined the Detroit Times in 1956.

Induction ceremonies at the Baseball Hall of Fame will be held Aug. 3, Hall of Fame director Howard C. Talbot, Jr., announced. The world champion Kansas City Royals and Texas Rangers will play in the annual Hall of Fame game at Doubleday Field the following afternoon. For the Royals, it will mark their first appearance in Cooperstown.

Si Burick, sports editor of the Dayton Daily News for 58 years and a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, died late Wednesday after a massive stroke. He was 77. Burick won this year's Red Smith Award, in recognition by his peers of a career that took him from the 1929 Kentucky Derby to a tour of Japan with the Cincinnati Reds, to numerous Rose Bowls, Olympic Games and Wimbledon tournaments.

The last time Paul Molitor and Dennis Eckersley faced each other on a baseball field, Eckersley was a 43-year-old reliever with the Boston Red Sox, Molitor was a 42-year-old designated hitter with the Minnesota Twins, and Molitor came to bat with the bases loaded in the ninth inning of a tie game in September 1998. "I dropped a bunt toward third, Eck made an off-balance throw, I beat the play, and the run scored to end the game," Molitor recalled.

The Hall truthas a morality play Roger Clemens has a lot more to worry about than the Hall of Fame these days, what with his recent perjury indictment and all. But if the Rocket is found guilty of lying about his use of performance-enhancing drugs, it could make the balloting for the Hall class of 2013 a watershed moment in baseball history. Voters have made their disgust of the steroid era apparent in the case of Mark McGwire , who broke the season-single home run record and retired with 583 homers, then fifth on the all-time list.

Bert Blyleven did not get elected to the Hall of Fame on Wednesday. He wanted to thank a few people anyway. He thanked Harmon Killebrew and Brooks Robinson for their encouragement and support. He thanked Rich Lederer too. "That was pretty cool," Lederer said. Killebrew and Robinson are Hall of Fame members. Lederer is an investment advisor in Long Beach. "I'm very proud to say Rich has been in my corner," Blyleven told MLB Network. Andre Dawson was the only player elected Wednesday.

Manager Whitey Herzog and umpire Doug Harvey got the call Monday, elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee. Herzog and Harvey missed by one vote in their previous tries. This time, they easily drew enough support to reach Cooperstown, N.Y. "I don't think I would've had my heart broken if I'd missed by another vote or two. But I'm happy it's over," Herzog said at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. "It was just in the last few years when I was only missing by a few votes that I thought, maybe I do deserve it."

Jim Thome took his baseball and went home. He didn't want to. He had no choice. He was snowed in. He and his father would have to visit the Hall of Fame some other time, in better weather, for a special delivery. Baseball players are not responsible for historic preservation. Hit a milestone home run, sign the bat or ball, let the Hall of Fame worry about getting the artifact in hand. That would not do for Thome, not for a baseball that meant so very much to his family.

He was already 51 when he made the major leagues in 1965, but in breaking the color barrier for umpires, American League showman Emmett Ashford proved home plate was his stage, baseball his love. Umpires call them as they see them. And Ashford, until he retired at 56, one year past the recommended retirement age, did that with a flourish. If a fly ball sailed toward foul territory, the L.A. native would barrel down the baseline to make the call, sometimes speeding by the outfielders.

One issue the national Baseball Hall of Fame doesn't yet address is the Mexican American baseball experience, a subject that has received a great deal of academic attention in Southern California in the last few years.

Dennis Eckersley can still come up with the save in a tough spot. Flanked by 50 Hall of Famers, cheered by hundreds of fans, and staring out at his parents, Eckersley repeatedly fought back tears on Sunday and managed to complete his induction speech into the Baseball Hall of Fame. The cocky right-hander with the mustache and shaggy hair was humbled as never before. "It was brutal. I've never been through something like this.

The Hall of Fame directed its membership to serve as its court of appeal Monday, radically reforming its Veterans Committee and restoring Hall of Fame eligibility to more than 1,700 former players. The changes will not affect such consensus hall of famers as Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr., each virtually certain to be elected when first eligible in 2007.

When Juan Marichal came to this country to play baseball more than half a century ago, he remembers being a lonely, frightened teenager. "It was a very difficult time," he said Friday. "When you come [to] a country where you didn't know the language, you didn't know the culture . . . it's tough, especially at that age." At the time, only one Dominican player had reached the major leagues -- and he was discovered on a playground in New York City.

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. -- For more than two decades, Rich "Goose" Gossage unnerved batters as one of baseball's most menacing and dominating relief pitchers. On Sunday, it was his turn for the jitters. "This experience is overwhelming, over the top. I can't put in words what this means," Gossage told a decidedly pro-New York Yankees crowd during the National Baseball Hall of Fame ceremony that capped his 22-year career.