(from press release)

Light up the night with Tony La Russa’s Animal Rescue Foundation (ARF) at two spectacular benefit evenings this weekend. Join host Tony La Russa at Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek, Calif., at Prodigies for Pets, Friday, January 8, 2010 at 7:30 PM, and Stars to the Rescue XIX, Saturday, January 9, 2010 at 7:00 PM.

Talented young artists and finalists from ARF’s youth talent search perform alongside the Doobie Brothers’ Marc Russo at Prodigies for Pets, donating their performances to support ARF’s lifesaving programs. Individual tickets are $25. Call 925.943.SHOW to purchase.

Title Sponsor Purina ONE presents Stars to the Rescue XIX. Stars will feature Jon Anderson of Yes, rising country singer David Nail, The Phantom of the Opera’s Tim Martin Gleason, and stand-up comic Chas Elstner, among others. Tickets are priced at $250, $100 and $50, and can be purchased by calling 925-943-SHOW.

Sponsorship opportunities for these events are available. For information, please contact Development Director Bobbe Bartlett at 925.296.3149.
ARF saves the lives of loving dogs and cats who have run out of time at public shelters, giving another chance at life to animals who otherwise would have been killed. ARF provides the care and attention they need, including spay or neuter surgery, until a new home of their own can be found.

ARF’s People Connect programs strengthen the human animal bond for the elderly, residents of assisted living centers, high school students, grade school students, and young children through programs that are national models of excellence. ARF programs allow people to experience the unconditional love and acceptance of dogs and cats. People rescuing animals. . .animals rescuing people. . .®.

Another clown who should be kicked out of the BBWAA is NY Mets homer and MLB.com writer, Marty Noble.

Using his ballot to punish people for on and off the field transgressions is reprehensible.  Here’s what he said about his ballot from MLB.com:

Marty Noble: Barry Larkin and Dave Parker

Alomar will probably be elected, and based on performance through most of his 17 seasons, he ought to be. But he will go without my vote this year. I don’t like to use the ballot in this manner, but the best second baseman since Joe Morgan — and probably the best ever — doesn’t deserve my vote for at least one year because of two spitting instances. We’re all aware of the one involving John Hirschbeck. I don’t care that Hirschbeck forgave Alomar for spitting at him; I haven’t. It was unacceptable behavior. And during his 222-game tour with the Mets, Alomar repeatedly spit in the face of the game by playing with conspicuous apathy. His father and brother didn’t deserve that, nor did the game. Larkin was a gentleman, an MVP and a genuine offensive force who played the most important defensive position at a high level. He was an easy choice. Parker remains the the best player I ever have covered. He beat opponents every way possible, running over them, if necessary. And he was better at keeping a clubhouse loose than any player I’ve experienced. I hadn’t voted for him until now because of his involvement in the 1985 cocaine mess in Pittsburgh. But I had supported the Hall candidacy of Keith Hernandez, the second-best player I ever covered, despite his involvement with cocaine. That inconsistency had to be rectified. I can forgive their flaws more readily than I can forgive Alomar’s. Wait till next year.

Noble is a long time NY Mets sycophant writer who happens to be now employed by MLB.com.  He can’t forgive Alomar his two unforgettable seasons in NY at the end of his career?  He has punished Dave Parker all these years for past transgressions and admits it?  What is his major malfunction?  About Alomar at the very least, he should speak to his colleague, Peter Gammons, who actually knows something about the baseball world outside the NY Mets-opolitan area.

Here’s what Peter Gammons, a HOF’er himself, had to say about Alomar, on MLB.com:

Alomar
No-brainer — one of the six to eight best second basemen who ever played. Twelve All-Star teams, 10 Gold Gloves, one of the best instinctive defenders and baserunners of his generation. Could hit 1-2-3 in the order, and in the 14 years from 1988-2001 was a dominant player: second in hits and runs, third in doubles, fourth in triples and games started, fifth in steals. He was a premier defender who for his career is in the top 80 in runs, hits, doubles, total bases, times on base and steals.

Gammons, as is most often the case is right.  Alomar in the HOF is a no-brainer.  Noble is wrong and his nobility in this is the ultimate in tilting at windmills.

Noble probably would have left Ty Cobb (racist and spike sharpened dirty player), Babe Ruth (beer guzzler, fathered child out of wedlock) and Mickey Mantle (alcoholic speed freak and carouser) off his high on the horse ballot.  And he definitely would not have voted for Willie Mays because of his lackluster last season with the Mets.

It’s time to make sure that people like Noble and Mariotti, prime examples of the typical BBWAA blowhards, are not allowed to use the vote as their own personal vendettas against the players who deserve to be in the Hall.  Starting with Mariotti and Noble, the BBWAA ought to say, “You’re outta here!”

The following tables show the “year of eligibility” when a Major League baseball player was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

The columns are:  ordinal year of eligibility, player name, election year, total number of ballots, the minimum number of votes needed, the number voted for, the number not voted for, and the percentage of “yes” votes.

Apart from the inaugural group of five players from 1936, 39 of 102 (or ~38%) baseball players have been first-ballot Hall of Famers.  44 of 107 (~41%), if you count the inaugural class.

Players inducted due to special elections (e.g., Lou Gehrig and Roberto Clemente) are not included.  Committee on Baseball Veterans selections are also excluded.

Jay Mariotti, hypocrite former print writer, from Yahoo Sports and ESPN appeared for the umpteenth time on ESPN’s Around the Horn today and volunteered to be thrown out of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA), who vote for induction into the Hall of Fame.  Quoting from the January 5th Podcast from ESPN:

Now, the baseball gods can strike me down, Reali, but guess what? I didn’t vote for anybody in the baseball hall of fame this year. Ya know why?  To me…the first ballot is sacred. I think Roberto Alomar is an eventual Hall of Famer, not the first time. Edgar Martinez, designated hitter, eventually, but not the first time. Same goes for maybe Fred McGriff. As far as Blyleven and Dawson…if they haven’t gotten in for years and years I cannot vote them in now. Ripken, Rickey Henderson and Gwynn. They are true first ballot Hall of Famers, but I didn’t vote for anybody, throw me out of the Baseball Writers. I don’t care.

He is clearly a misguided soul, one who would not vote for the best designated hitter of all time and perhaps the best second baseman all time.  He must not have done any kind of evaluation at all.

Here’s what Mariotti said in a column from January of last year:

Where do 28 voters get off eliminating Rickey Henderson as a first-ballot Hall of Famer?

Maybe those 28 think that their first ballot vote is as sacred as Mariotti’s and left them off the ballot, just as he did for eventual (as he put it), Hall of Famers Roberto Alomar, Edgar Martinez and Fred McGriff.   He shouldn’t chastise members who leave people off the ballot and then do the same.  Unless, of course he’s OK with hypocrisy, which apparently he is.

As far as him taking a stand on Blyleven and Dawson and even Jim Rice, who was inducted this year in his fifteenth and final year, this is what he said last year:

And I checked Rice, who finally squeezed in with 76.4 percent of the vote in his 15th and final visit to the ballot….

I also voted for Andre Dawson and Bert Blyleven, who drew closer to 75 percent but still aren’t quite in.

So he changes his voting strategy from one year to another?  This is how BBWAA members should vote?  Dawson and Blyleven were good enough for him to vote for last year, but not this year?  What changed?  Their stats got worse for him?  They deserved his sacred vote one year but not the next?

I believe the Baseball Writers Association of America should take him up on his offer and kick him out.    He deserves it.

(from press release)

Nobel Peace Prize honoree Mother Teresa, legendary actress Katharine Hepburn, Negro Leagues Baseball and Cowboys of the Silver Screen are among the subjects headlining the 2010 stamp program, the U.S. Postal Service announced last week.

The Negro Leagues Baseball stamps, to be issued in June 2010, pay tribute to the all-black professional baseball leagues that operated from 1920 to about 1960. Drawing some of the most remarkable athletes ever to play the sport, including Satchel Page and Josh Gibson, the Negro leagues galvanized African-American communities across the country, challenged racist notions of athletic superiority, and ultimately sparked the integration of American sports.

The Negro Leagues Baseball stamps pay tribute to the all-black professional baseball leagues that operated from 1920 to about 1960. The two 44-cent stamps comprise one scene painted by Kadir Nelson.

In 1920, Andrew “Rube” Foster (1879–1930)—who began his baseball career as a pitcher—established the Negro National League, the first successful league of African-American teams. Nicknamed “Rube” after defeating major-league pitcher George Edward “Rube” Waddell in 1902, Foster is considered the “father” of Negro leagues baseball. He is featured on the stamp.