HoHoKam Park in Mesa, Arizona, will be the site of the 2nd Annual Fergie & Friends celebrity baseball game. The Wednesday, March 25, 2009 event includes a sports memorabilia and card show as well as autograph sessions.

The gates will open at 5:00 PM; the game will start at 7:00 PM.

Currently the website shows the following invitees:  Fergie Jenkins, Billy Williams, Meadowlark Lemon, George Foster, Bert Campanaris, Lee Smith, J. R. Richards, Vida Blue, Randy Hundley, Bob Dernier, and Jody Davis.

General admission tickets are $10.  See the Fergie & Friends website for more information.

Ferguson Jenkins broke into the majors with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1965 but was traded to the Chicago Cubs in 1966.  The right-hander compiled a career 284-226 record along with a 3.34 ERA and 3192 strikeouts.  The three-time All-Star won the Cy Young Award in 1971.

A native of Ontario, Jenkins was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 1987 and into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1991.

The Southern League Jacksonville Suns, Double-A affiliate of the Florida Marlins, will host the Marlins’ Pacific Coast League Triple-A affiliate New Orleans Zephyrs in the inaugural Dixie Classic exhibition baseball game.

The contest begins at 7:05 PM on Thursday, April 2, 2009, at the Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville.

“For years I’ve tried to come up with a plan for a postseason Dixie Series like the one they had when I was a kid,” Suns President Peter Bragan, Jr. said in a press release. “The opportunity to have New Orleans against Jacksonville is going to be a wonderful start.”

The original Dixie Series was a best-of-seven post-season playoff between the Double-A-level Southern League and Texas League from 1920 to 1958 (plus 1967).

Nomar Garciaparra has not yet signed with a baseball club for the upcoming 2009 season, but he and his wife, Mia Hamm, will take to the soccer pitch this Saturday near Los Angeles.

The second annual Mia Hamm & Nomar Garciaparra Celebrity Soccer Challenge will kick off at 1:00 PM PST at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California, on Saturday, 17 January 2009.  Tickets are $20.

The match will benefit the Childrens Hospital Los Angeles and the Mia Hamm Foundation.  The mission of the Mia Hamm Foundation is to:

1) raise funds and awareness for marrow and cord blood transplant patients and their families, and 2) promote and help develop more opportunities for young women in sports.

Last year’s celebrities included Elizabeth Shue, Andy Samberg, Seth Meyers, and Tony Hawk.  Hamm’s team beat Garciaparra’s by a score 13-12.

For more information, visit the website.

As everyone who rooted for the New York Yankees in the 1970s knows, there would have been no great rivalry with the Boston Red Sox had the name Jim Rice been missing from the lineup.

While some in baseball are arguing that Rice’s career statistics are borderline (and below), there can be little disputing his integral contribution to the Red Sox of the 1970s and 1980s.

Beyond the statistics, one also has to take a player’s “level of dominance” during a particular area. I would wager that Rice’s name would have ranked lowest on the list of batters which Yankee pitchers in the 1970s would have liked to have faced.

Here is a video of his 200th home run at Fenway Park on June 13th, 1998 – his second of the game and hit appropriately enough against the Yankees. Turn the sound down if you don’t want to listen to Joe Morgan.

This is a discussion on how I would vote if in fact I was a member of the esteemed community of The Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA).  Just a reminder about voting eligibility:

The BBWAA is again authorized to elect players active in 1989 or later, but not after 2003; the ballot, announced on December 1, 2008, includes candidates from the 2008 ballot who received at least 5% of the vote but were not elected, along with selected players, chosen by a screening committee, whose last appearance was in 2003. All 10-year members of the BBWAA are eligible to vote; ballots must be returned by December 31.

Voters are instructed to cast votes for up to 10 candidates; any candidate who receives votes on at least 75% of the ballots will be honored with induction to the Hall. Results of the 2009 election by the BBWAA will be announced on January 12. The ballot consists of 23 players, the lowest number ever. Those candidates who receive less than 5% of the vote will not appear on future BBWAA ballots, but may eventually be considered by the Veterans Committee

I wanted a bit of a methodology, so instead of solely relying on my fading memories and prejudices, I used the Keltner list to avoid any such failings.   This list was devised by Sabremetician, Bill James, to help discredit an HOF campaign to get a rather pedestrian third baseman, named Ken Keltner, voted into the HOF.  The questions are pretty simple, but direct.  Here they are:

1. Was he ever regarded as the best player in baseball? Did anybody, while he was active, ever suggest that he was the best player in baseball?
2. Was he the best player on his team?
3. Was he the best player in baseball at his position? Was he the best player in the league at his position?
4. Did he have an impact on a number of pennant races?
5. Was he a good enough player that he could continue to play regularly after passing his prime?
6. Is he the very best player in baseball history who is not in the Hall of Fame?
7. Are most players who have comparable career statistics in the Hall of Fame?
8. Do the player’s numbers meet Hall of Fame standards?
9. Is there any evidence to suggest that the player was significantly better or worse than is suggested by his statistics?
10. Is he the best player at his position who is eligible for the Hall of Fame but not in?
11. How many MVP-type seasons did he have? Did he ever win an MVP award? If not, how many times was he close?
12. How many All-Star-type seasons did he have? How many All-Star games did he play in? Did most of the other players who played in this many go to the Hall of Fame?
13. If this man were the best player on his team, would it be likely that the team could win the pennant?
14. What impact did the player have on baseball history? Was he responsible for any rule changes? Did he introduce any new equipment? Did he change the game in any way?
15. Did the player uphold the standards of sportsmanship and character that the Hall of Fame, in its written guidelines, instructs us to consider?

For my vote I threw out two questions:  Is he the very best player in baseball history who is not in the Hall of Fame? That’s because none of the names on the list are Pete Rose or Shoeless Joe Jackson.  And If this man were the best player on his team, would it be likely that the team could win the pennant? That’s because baseball is a team sport and this is an individual honor.  Since it’s my vote, it’s my rules.

Here’s my list with the totals filled in.

(*First year of eligibility.  Jim Rice and Tommy John are in their 15th and final year of eligibility.)

That’s the scoring.

You’ll notice that I didn’t vote for Tommy John and Bert Blyleven.  I believe that these pitchers were good and even very good briefly.  They were never considered the best pitchers in the league or even on their own team.  I put them in the Don Sutton category.  And no, just because Sutton’s in doesn’t mean these guys should be.

Why not Lee Smith?  Lee was always a feared closer.  But he was used mostly in save situations and I’m not convinced that Lee is the same caliber as the relievers already in.

Dale Murphy reminds me of Roger Maris.  A couple of great seasons, a few goods.  A really nice, memorable career, but not Hall of Fame material.

Did they even mean to put Dan Pleasac and Jesse Orosco on the ballot?  Both of them are the same type – lefty specialist who was brought in in the late innings to pitch to one batter.  Please.

Now here is my vote in order and my justification.