Personally, I think Dick Young would be a good choice because he really pioneered modern baseball coverage in the fifties, and because he was a talented man of many contradictions. He got vicious, mean, and ignorant as he got older. He was a jerk but one that can't be ignored.

I don't know if he's a new vote for he of the knee-buckling yakker, but maybe, just maybe, this is Blyleven's year. Bert's been a favorite of mine since he pitched my Rotisserie team to the coveted Solly Hemus trophy back in '84.

I'm not sure which sportswriter I'd like to read about . . . maybe Bob Ryan? . . . but if you ask, "Which sportswriter would you not want to read a biography of?", that's an easy list.

Then again, maybe some of those guys would make for more interesting biographies.

Wasn't Dick also responsible for running Tom Seaver out of town?

One thing that's surprised me for years is that the move of the Dodgers and Giants received only one brief mention in Caro's massive book on Moses' life, The Power Broker. I was discussing this with friends a few years back at the national SABR convention and one of them told me that he'd been in touch with Caro about this. Apparently, there was an entire chapter devoted to the O'Malley-Moses brouhaha that was culled from the book before it went to press. My friend didn't know why the chapter was cut; certainly not the length, for what's another 20 pages in an already 1300 page volume. He asked Caro if he could get a look at that chapter, but was denied.

Balloting is now in progress for #8, and it's looking like a horse race between Miranda and Brackman, with Melancon and Marquez also making reasonable showings.

NOTE: They chose not to consider Joba a prospect.

That's who I'd read a book about ...

I remember when he presented a correlation between stock market performance and Super Bowl results (when the market is up the NFC wins) as an example of how statistics do not necessariliy teach us anything.

8 ,9 I believe that Young mentioned something about Mrs. Seaver being jealous of Mrs. Nolan Ryan. I don't remember the exact details.

11 Don't think a chapter on O'Malley vs Moses would've been appropriate. Not that there was any lack of confrontations in the book (the bus terminal in the Bx comes to mind), but a chapter on O'Malley butting heads with Moses really doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the book.

Or it could be that it would've presented O'Malley in a positive light...

I've always wondered if Flushing Meadows was offered to Stoneham (or any other site for that matter), or if he was set on moving the Giants to MN. Haven't heard anything to the contrary. I just find it odd that it seems that the Jints were the "forgotten" team in NY at the time.

16 "Game Called" is one of my favorite pieces of work.

Happy New Year.

From ESPN: Rep. Christopher Shays, a member of a congressional panel probing the use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs in baseball, said Thursday there is little to be gained by calling players to testify at hearings scheduled for next month.

Shays, instead, wants to focus on finding the best way to rid baseball of the taint of performance-enhancing drugs. Baseball's leadership, he said, deserves the brunt of the blame for ignoring the problem.

"Part of it is that major league baseball has been incredibly passive on this issue to the point of condoning it," he said. "And so, who do I think is mostly at fault? The commissioner, frankly, for tolerating it and for not having the guts to step up and say we need changes and if you don't agree with me, then find someone else to run this corrupt process."

He has a 56-76 career record with 75 saves and a 4.68 ERA in 631 Major League games (98 starts) over 13 seasons with the Minnesota Twins, Chicago Cubs, San Francisco Giants,
Baltimore Orioles and Colorado Rockies.

We couldn't get this from the farm?

If Shays wanted to make a difference, he'd realize that baseball is a business more than anything else now, and the revocation of its anti-trust exemption would be incentive to clean the game up quick. But that's just, yunnow, one of my unsupported crackpot suggestions usually best ignored (cough).

25 nam-myo-renge-kyo (repeat)... >;)

You guys are actually making me miss William and Mattpatt.
THINK ABOUT THAT A WHILE!!!!!

(and can somebody please translate for me what the hell Chyll is saying?)

WC and Red were best friends. Lived near one another in New Canaan, CT.

I have read Berkow's book. He struggled with leads. Like fishing. Never wrote a good baseball book. In fact, he may have passed on the Lombardi book for reasons other than he was too busy. This led to him recommending WC for the job and the rest is history. Revolutionized sports books and took football out of the closet. Beat Bouton by a few years.