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Miller Oversight a Hall of Fame Shame

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Miller Oversight a Hall of Fame Shame This is a 2007 column by Jordan Kobritz, a former attorney, CPA, and owner of the Class AAA Maine Guides and Class A Daytona Cubs. He currently teaches Sport Management and Sport Law at Eastern New Mexico University and the Business of Sports at the University of Wyoming. He can be reached at [email protected] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Welcome to the new NASCAR. No, this has nothing to do with stock cars turning left at speeds of 200 miles per hour. I’m referring to Major League Baseball. When the results of this year’s balloting for the Baseball Hall of Fame were announced, the surprise was…no surprise. For the third time in the past five years, former head of the players’ union Marvin Miller was shut out of the Hall. If Miller had been elected, the shock would have rivaled an announcement by the Hall that Pete Rose would join him. That’s because baseball decided to emulate NASCAR. The Daytona Beach, Florida sanctioning body for all-things stock car, wholly owned by the billionaire France family, is well known for changing the rules of the sport as frequently as the Hendrick team wins races. Which is to say, often. Even, it seems, during the running of a race. The Baseball Hall of Fame did likewise earlier this year after voting by a prior veterans committee yielded no one with the requisite 75% needed for enshrinement. In that election, Miller received 63% of the vote - up from 44% on his first go ‘round - from a committee of 80 people, the majority of whom were former players. In an effort to elect someone – anyone - a new veterans committee was constituted. But it’s no stretch to think the make-up of the new committee was designed to guarantee that Miller would not be elected. The new committee included only two former players – both of whom pre-dated the free agent era in baseball – and seven current or former baseball executives among the 12 voters. Not coincidentally, Miller received only three votes from the current panel, although which ones voted for him was a closely guarded secret. If a committee consisting of a majority of former players – most of who benefited handsomely from Miller’s work as executive director of the players union – couldn’t understand Miller’s impact on their financial well being, there was no reason to expect baseball executives, who bore the brunt of Miler’s hard ball negotiating tactics, to kiss and make up with their former adversary. The irony is that former commissioner Bowie Kuhn, who as the owners’ representative at the bargaining table was no match for the intelligent, articulate and quick-witted Miller, was elected to the Hall. The same Bowie Kuhn who received only 17% of the vote from the prior veterans committee. Picture this: Kuhn, whose litany of crimes against the game could fill a briefcase, is deified. Miller, who forever changed the game and made the players - not to mention the owners - rich beyond comprehension, is left to purchase a ticket to the Hall, just like you and I. As the ever gracious and ultimate realist Miller told the AP after being informed of his non-election “You really could have done this in advance…I think it was rigged, but not to keep me out. It was rigged to bring some of these [others] in.” That may be the first time Miller failed to recognize the pettiness and insecurity of baseball executives. Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, himself a former owner who was on the losing end of every battle with Miller, chimed in with his usual less-than-sincere statement. “I was surprised that Marvin Miller did not receive the required support, given his important impact on the game.” Sure, Bud. And you had no idea that players were using performance-enhancing drugs until Congress held hearings on the subject. If Selig wants to demonstrate true leadership, he will urge the Hall to recognize Miller in some fashion while the nonagenarian is still alive, the same way he did for Negro League great and life-long baseball ambassador Buck O’Neil when he was passed over for enshrinement last year. The bottom line is that the Baseball Hall of Fame, once considered the premier sports Hall, has become the Hall of Shame. If Hall members and administrators aren’t embarrassed over the Miller slight – and there’s no indication that they are - they should be. Hall voters will have another opportunity to right a wrong in two years, when the veterans committee will reconvene. Until then, unfortunately, NASCAR will have more credibility than MLB. .
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