Early last week, it was announced that Major Richard "Dick" Winters had passed away on January 2. Major Winters is best known for his role in the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army during World War II. "Easy Company", his comrades-in-arms during the war, would later be celebrated for their pivotal role in the war in book and movie form as the "Band of Brothers". Winters would go on to lead Easy Company (and beyond) before the war was over.

I bring this up mainly because I admired the man who grew up in small town Pennsylvania during the Depression and who went on to successfully and honorably lead his troops through such offensives as the Normandy Invasion, Operation Market Garden, and the Battle of the Bulge. I felt it was important to acknowledge the death of such a distinguished man.

And it's not like Winters or the Band of Brothers have nothing to do with baseball. This was Depression-era America, after all. Baseball may never have been more ingrained in the culture of the nation than at that time. Major Winters even acknowledged it in his memoirs, Beyond Band of Brothers: The War Memoirs of Major Dick Winters:

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The 1980s and 1990s were an interesting time for a lot of things. Television sitcoms, for example, ranged from the brilliant in The Cosby Show and Cheers and the like, to the, um, not so brilliant in Saved by the Bell and Small Wonder. It was also the decade of D.A.R.E. and the war on drugs, with everything from diet pills to cocaine in the spotlight.

These two worlds intersected on a regular basis with the television staple, the "very special episode". Some shows that dealt with harder fare might be able to tackle the cocaine or heroin angle, but the primetime sitcom had to do the lighter stuff. And, with a family setting in nearly every '80s sitcom, that lighter fare was almost inevitably the diet pill (or caffeine pill). An elementary school-aged child growing up would be bombarded with this anti-diet pill message, seeing it in practically every one of his favorite shows at least once.

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Two quick notices, one about a league you've heard of before and one announcing a new, exciting league to follow (featuring some names much more interesting than my own)...

At the beginning of the month, I let everyone know about the battle for the postseason that my 1977 Dodgers team was waging over at Play That Funky Baseball. Only one game behind WHYGAVS' 1977 Pirates, the Dodgers hoped to take it to Pittsburgh and spring into first place.

If you had been watching the standings, or tuning into the live Tweetcast of the game, you would've seen the Dodgers blow a huge chance late in the game and go on to lose the game. In the aftermath of the blown opportunity, the Dodgers quickly fell out of contention, even with Pittsburgh's best player sidelined. The Pirates will now be hosting the Kansas City Royals in the 1977 World Series. It may just be the most positive news Royals and Pirates fans have heard in 15 years!

As for the announcement: starting last week (and, yes, I am a terrible person for not having mentioned it earlier), I am now the proud manager of the 2008 Brewers in another Seamheads Strat-O-Matic league! And, once again, I am the least of the managers involved - which is great for me, but not so much so for them.

My 2008 Brewers - chosen because, in this league, the Brewers were placed in the NL, and, really, there's only one good Brewers team since they switched to the Senior Circuit - will be facing off in the Central against Jerry Crasnick's 1990 Reds, Morgan Ensberg's 2005 Astros, and Bob Costas' 2004 Cardinals. Other managers you might recognize include Roy Firestone's 1970 Orioles, Dirk Hayhurst & Keith Olbermann's 1992 Blue Jays, John Hart's 1995 Indians (both in Strat and in real life!), Rany Jazayerli's 1977 Royals, Tim Cowlishaw's 2009 Rangers, Eric Karabell's 1977 Phillies, and Curt Schilling's 2001 Diamondbacks. You can see the full, impressive roster of managers over at Seamheads.

For some reason, the start of this Strat season has been sped up considerably. We are already 50+ games into the season and, currently, I sit one game under .500 and five games behind Crasnick's Reds. Hopefully, having a full season of CC Sabathia and his god-like performance will get me caught up soon enough.

The off-season can oftentimes feel long and cold. If you ever get that way, I recommend taking a peak at some high-quality and fun fake baseball either over at Play That Funky Baseball or the Seamheads Strat-O-Matic 50th Anniversary League. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Last week over at the Sweetspot, Rob Neyer proposed something new for players like Omar Vizquel, who are special or unique, but not exactly Hall of Fame-worthy:

The writers desperately want to do something for Vizquel, and they just can't think of anything except the Hall of Fame. Roger Maris had two great seasons, a few good ones, and in 1988 43 percent of the Hall of Fame voters voted for him. Essentially, Maris got the same support in his last year on the ballot that Jeff Bagwell just got in his first year. Don Larsen had zero great seasons, a few decent ones, and one year 53 Hall of Fame voters voted for him. Today, roughly half the Hall of Fame voters fervently believe that Jack Morris belongs in the Hall of Fame ... even though Morris, with the exception of one brief moment in 1991, was never considered a great pitcher by many of these same voters.
...
What I am proposing is a Wing of the Amazing, for players who really don't belong in the Hall of Fame because they weren't good enough, but did some things that do deserve to be celebrated.

Rob goes on to list some criteria for the Wing, including "no one-game wonders" (like Larsen), "no freak shows" (like Eddie Gaedel), and, most importantly, no Hall of Fame-worthy players who were somehow overlooked for their due honor, like Bobby Grich, Ron Santo, or Lou Whitaker.

I really like the idea. The Hall of Fame should be about celebrating the game (among other things), and "amazing" or "bizarrely unique" players like Vizquel or Jamie Moyer are certainly worth celebrating, even if they aren't quite deserving to be inducted into the Hall-proper. The problem I have with the concept, though, is that last criterion.

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There's been a whole lot of talk about the Hall of Fame in the past few weeks (some might even say too much). With the election of Bert Blyleven and Roberto Alomar, there's been a lot to talk about. But the story that has really dominated much of the conversation is the support that Jeff Bagwell's candidacy received. For a player who had one of the greatest careers at his position ever, and for someone whose only steroid-related crime that we know of is that he was a hardcore weightlifter, the 42% of the vote that he received is shockingly small. Looking at Mark McGwire's support throughout the years - debuting at around 25% and hovering there year-in and year-out - it's hard to even know what will happen to Bagwell in future years.

Which makes those of us who care about the Hall of Fame and the history that it represents sad. If Jeff Bagwell - someone with no credible steroid controversy whatsoever - can't get into the Hall, what's going to happen in a few years when some of the greatest players of all time (and who have legitimate steroid concerns) are up for election? Are the writers who vote for induction about to make the Hall an institution that forgoes history's greatest players as a punishment for using weight-lifting drugs? 

Joe Tetreault, a friend of the blog who blogs over at Tetreault Vision & The Biz of Baseball and who offers some good conversation on Twitter as @JoeTetreault, has an interesting take on this that I'd like to share. He's of the opinion that this slide that we're seeing from the Hall of Fame is nothing new and has, in fact, been gaining momentum. Read on for his thoughts, and let us know what you think in the comments. 

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"People will say I'm an idealist. I hope so."
-A. Bartlett Giamatti on Expelling Pete Rose from Baseball

In 1989, amid a clamor in popular culture for a review of the case against Joe Jackson on the seventieth anniversary of the 1919 Black Sox, the idealist MLB Commissioner Bart Giamatti consigned another man to the same fate as Jackson as he condemned the all-time hits leader to permanent exclusion from the game of baseball. Evidence showed Rose wagered on baseball. More so, Rose wagered on games involving the team for whom he played and managed, the Cincinnati Reds.

The Hall of Fame voted in February of 1991 to deny a vote to any individuals who were placed on the permanently excluded list, effectively barring both Rose and Jackson from future consideration for admittance to the Hall of Fame. No act greater defines the narrowing of our Hall of Fame from an inclusive museum dedicated to baseball’s rich history to an increasingly irrelevant collection of players and memorabilia.

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This is a bit longer than I intended. Click here if you're looking for a link to today's Hardball Times article on Trevor Hoffman and "Hells Bells".

In case you missed it yesterday, it was announced that Trevor Hoffman would be officially retiring from baseball some time this afternoon. After enjoying his career from afar - seriously, how could you not love a closer who got it done with a changeup?! - and marveling at his "Hells Bells" entrance, I got to be an up-close and personal fan of his for two years when he joined the Brewers. And even though he was nowhere near the pitcher he was in 1998, his changeup - and that entrance - were still a sight to behold.

His 2010 season didn't work out at all how he or the Brewers or Brewers fans were hoping, but that does nothing to diminish him in my eyes. That's just a fact of life when you're dealing with 42-year-old, soft-tossing closers. It was a little strange to see him walking out to "Dancing Queen" though.

Which, as it turns out, was not a good omen. The "Dancing Queen" night came on May 16, when Hoffman pitched the ninth inning of a Brewers loss to the Phillies in Milwaukee. The Brewers were already losing the game when he came in to pitch (on "1970s night"), so "Hells Bells" was not called for. It was a strange sight anyway. Two nights later, on May 18, he blew his fifth save of the season and was removed from the closer's role. He would not get another save until August 7.

At the time, I wrote about the origins of the "Hells Bells" entrance music. I did not know that the May 18 game would be the last time a Brewers fans heard the bells toll for almost three months, but it seemed appropriate to look into the origins of such a defining tradition:

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On tonight's premiere of Onion Sportsdome on Comedy Central - which I found mostly funny, though they tried a little too hard at times - we were teased with a story that had some relevance here. It wasn't exactly the city of St. Louis handing over all authority to Albert Pujols, but it was still pretty funny.

Apparently, the Milwaukee Brewers were repossessed in the middle of the night after being valued at only $45. Photographic proof is below.

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It's the end of the first week of the year, and it looks like we have a slightly new look here at Wezen-Ball. It's slick and updated and I'm pretty pleased with it (though there may be a kink or two still to work out).

And what better way to celebrate the new year, and this new look, than with some Video Fun Friday. This clip comes, in a way, with thanks to Netflix. "Kids In The Hall", one of the funniest sketch shows ever, is now available in its entirety on Netflix Instant. I was watching the first season the other night and I came across this scene. I couldn't not place it here.

As we watch this Scott Thompson softball version of Casey At the Bat - in one of Thompson's best recurring roles - it makes me wonder: how do you rank the KITH guys? I think, career-wise, I put Dave Foley ahead of everyone else ("Newsradio" is one of my favorite shows ever), with Kevin McDonald #2. For the show, though, I think it goes Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald, Dave Foley, Scott Thompson, and Mark McKinney. But they're all so close together, it's almost silly to ask (in a 100 point-system, McCulloch and Thompson would probably be separated by 1.3 points or something). So how would you rank the five "Kids in the Hall" guys? And, since I'm asking questions, what do you think of the new design?

Have a good weekend, everyone! 

The Brewers announced something really cool on Tuesday: for forty straight days this winter, the club would be giving out one prize a day to their season ticket holders. The initial announcement was only a tease, highlighting a few of the bigger prizes (run in the sausage race, slide down Bernie's slide, sign a major-league contract for a day), but it was enough to pique my interest.

The full details for the forty prizes were announced today. And, while they aren't all as spectacular as getting to slide down Bernie's slide, they're all pretty fantastic. You can see the full list of prizes here. They range from free tickets and food to some really amazing, once-in-a-lifetime-type experiences. I've briefly listed them below, with the more eye-popping prizes at the end.

(Click "Read More" to see the list.)

A couple of quick notes this morning before the Hall of Fame announcement comes (and, no, I was not responsible for the BBWAA.com hack - though I bet that admin password was pretty darn easy to guess. It was probably one of: baseball, bbwaa, aaron755, ruth714, winsrule, blylevensucks, TEHFEAR, werthersoriginals, youhadtobethere, or penis.):

• My latest article is up over at The Hardball Times. It's a reminder about the weird human element involved with Hall of Fame votes. The ballot may say "yes" or "no", but we all know there's about a million shades of gray in there too.
• I did a podcast last night with Bill and The Common Man from the Platoon Advantage last night. It's embedded below, or you can go over here to listen and/or download it. We talk a lot of Hall of Fame, including why Palmeiro and Walker should be in and how a baseball card picture is keep Trammell out of the Hall. It was fun. Give it a listen.
• And, finally, since this is the day that Bert Blyleven should finally get that call he's been hoping for for over 20 years now (though I would be remiss if I didn't point out, again, that Bert's 74.2% last year was identical to the percentage Jim Bunning received in 1988, and he wasn't elected in the following year. More about that here.), I thought it'd be fun to share a Blyleven story I found while looking at old ballots.
  
  In 2003, New York Daily News writer Bill Madden finally changed his mind and began voting for Blyleven after being reminded of just how important strikeouts, shutouts and innings pitched are. When explaining his choice, though, he felt it necessary to explain just how much of a jerk Blyleven was to the media in his playing days. From the article:

(Click "Read More" to read the story and listen to the podcast.)