At the age of 13 I got a great job — ballboy for the Portland Beavers in the Triple-A Pacific Coast League.

As part of that job, I used to have to bring a few dozen new baseballs, still in the box, to the umpires’ room a couple of hours before the games. In the old days, the team clubhouses and umpires’ room were located in the Multnomah Athletic Club, beyond the right-field fence in what was then Multnomah Stadium. The umps’ room, in fact, was high up in the club — an elevator ride.

Anyway, I’d take the balls up there where the umpires could rub them down, then make sure during the game that the home-plate umpire had his pocketful of baseballs. Then, after the game, I’d usually run some soft drinks or beer up to their room.

I loved the job and got to know the umpires a little. They were a very nice bunch of guys. But one of them stood high above the rest. Doug Harvey was just starting his umpiring career then, but already had that gray hair. But even then, as a minor-league umpire, he had that combination of dignity and confidence that would earn him the nickname “God” in the major leagues.

One day, after bringing a few cold ones to the umpires’ room, Harvey asked me, a 13-year-old, to “give me five.” Sorry, at that age, in those days before high fives, low fives and everything in between, I had no idea what he was talking about. He assured me it meant to shake his hand.

I stuck out my hand and shook his, during which he passed me a five-dollar bill. Man, these guys didn’t make much money and seldom tipped me in those days.

Doug Harvey had given me a $5 tip. And to this day I haven’t been able to forget how much class the man had and how generous he was with a kid.

As well as being the best umpire I ever watched, by far. And Monday came word that he’d been named, finally, to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Congratulations, Mr. Harvey! You were in a class by yourself.

Tweet This Post

I’ve always been so proud of my lifelong friend, Tom Trebelhorn, who I’ve known since I was 14 years old. He’s always been a paragon of integrity and hard work. Out of Cleveland High and Portland State, he managed in the big leagues with Milwaukee and the Chicago Cubs and for many years has worked with minor-league players.

He’s in his second season in Salem, managing the Giants’ team there in the Northwest League. It’s pretty near the bottom rung of professional baseball.

Yesterday, during what proved to be a very memorable Hall of Fame induction speech, Rickey Henderson paid tribute to “Treb” — whom he has long credited with teaching him the fundamentals of base running:

In 1976, my first year in the minor league, my coach, Tom Trebelhorn, helped me develop my skill in base running and taught me to play the game hard. I had not perfected how to take a lead or how to slide. Tom asked me to come to practice early every day and work on my sliding and base running skill. I guess, Tom, that hard
work paid off for me, and I am very grateful.

Kudos to Rickey, who took classes at a junior college to help with the speech, for remembering a mentor from long ago. So many of these guys forget the people along the way who contributed to their success. I can’t imagine how much that must mean to Trebelhorn.

You work for decades with young kids and you’re lucky if many of them even get to the big leagues, let alone the Hall of Fame. Treb managed other Hall of Famers while in the big leagues, but when Rickey got to Trebelhorn way back in Modesto, Calif., in Class A ball, he was just another rough-around-the-edges kid who needed some instruction.

It’s kind of nice how it all worked out.

Tweet This Post

Joe Posnanski is an incredibly talented columnist and blogger and he makes his case for Murphy so effectively here that you wonder how anyone could ever argue with it. You have to wonder, too, if Joe wasn’t among that generation in this country who grew up with TBS and all those Braves games. If you were among that group that rooted for “America’s Team,” there was nobody like Murph.

But there has been relative silence for Murphy. I have never felt like I should be Dale Murphy’s Paul Revere, shouting his accomplishments as I ride from town to town. I see his flaws too clearly. He absolutely fell off the map after he turned 31 — he hit a miserable .234 the last 2,658 plate appearances of his career. He tried desperately to get to 400 home runs but, tellingly, ended up two homers short. He probably was not the best player in the National League either year that he won the MVP awards. And he, like Rice, relied heavily on a good hitters home park.

Still, Murphy does have a case, a real case. The trouble is, few make that case, and now that Jim Rice has been elected, well, I guess I should speak up. I have very little doubt in my mind that Dale Murphy was a better player than Jim Rice. And there’s also this: Remember what it says … Voting shall be based on:

1. The player’s record (statistical record, I’m sure)
2. Playing ability
3. Integrity
4. Sportsmanship
5. Character
6. Contribution to his team(s)

This is not to say that Jim Rice did not represent these qualities. But I’m not sure anyone of his era better represented those six things than Dale Murphy.

Please go to the link and read the whole thing, which is backed up by enough statistics it would take you days just to fact-check them. And I’m happy to see Joe extend the argument to character and integrity — two legitimate qualifications for the Hall where Dale at the very least ties for No. 1 of all time. Seriously — they’re keeping Pete Rose and Mark McGwire out of the Hall of Fame for character reasons, why shouldn’t the same criteria be an advantage for a guy like Murph?

Tweet This Post

It’s kind of cliche to think about a bunch of old ballplayers sitting around the hot stove, talking about the good old days — and how much better they all say they were after they’ve been retired for several years.

The problem for the baseball Hall of Fame, though, is that seems to be exactly what happens with HOF voters. Jim Rice? Yeah, right. This is a guy who, in 1998, could get only 42.5 percent of the vote and now he’s getting more than 70 percent. Nice going, Red Sox Nation — you finally got him in. But Tim Raines was a better all-around player.

But the player who is really getting under my skin nowdays is Andre Dawson, who had the good fortune to play in Chicago’s bandbox ballpark, where he could pile up some stats. Sorry, but I don’t remember too many people outside of Chicago or Montreal who thought the Hawk was a better player than Dale Murphy. But sorry, Murph, it just doesn’t look like you’re going to make it. I guess you should have popped some ‘roids.

And the longer Dawson is out of baseball, the better he seems to get. Hard for me to imagine he could be a Hall of Fame player. But then, the same with Jim Rice. Good player, but not that much better than Dewey Evans, if you ask me.

Tweet This Post

I mean, I’m SURE they are. On the cover of my sports section today was a list saying “Hall of Fame second basemen” — in response to the good news that local legend Joe Gordon finally made it to Cooperstown. Now I’m sure that somebody made up a special edition of that paper and slipped it into my paper box this morning.

There’s no way YOUR paper was like mine. I know that because there’s no way any paper would list Hall of Fame second basemen and not include Joe Morgan — the best of them all. Yeah — I know, mediocre commentator, great second baseman.

Anyway, somebody down there knows stuff like that drives me nuts and is intentionally trying to get under my skin. I caught you! Now I feel better.

Tweet This Post