Put Marvin Miller In The Baseball Hall Of Fame

Sweetness And Light

by Frank Deford

National Public Radio (NPR)

December 1, 2010

http://www.npr.org/2010/12/01/131702095/put-marvin-miller-in-the-baseball-hall-of-fame

As a general rule, I try to take a wide berth of Hall of
Fame arguments - especially in baseball, where what is
always called the "shrine," matters more passionately to the
cognoscenti.

The fans who champion some old hero are ardent and
unrelenting in their support of their guy. They're armed
with arcane statistics. They won't take so much as "maybe"
for an answer. I've even had admirers of Pete Browning, the
so-called Old Gladiator whose major league career ended in
1894, hound me. And I don't even have a vote.

But I must suspend that policy today, to plead with the 16
former players and officials and journalists who are on the
special old-timers committee that is considering the
candidacy of Marvin Miller, the original players'
association chief.

Surely, there must be, among the committee, the necessary
dozen men, tried and true, who can vote this week to escort
Miller out of the vestibule and into the hallowed rooms
where the plaques of the other immortals stare out from the
walls.

It is a travesty that Miller has already been denied
admission in four previous elections. We are not talking
here about some fringe candidate, like The Old Gladiator or
Tommy John or Billy Martin. Miller is arguably the most
significant figure in 20th century baseball - certainly no
less important to the national pastime than was Jackie
Robinson or Branch Rickey or Babe Ruth.

For that matter, because Miller outsmarted the entire
establishment, giving baseball players free agency and
abolishing the illegal reserve clause, he not only turned
the business of baseball on its ear but effectively
overhauled all professional sports in the United States. Who
has done more? Who?

Had there been no Marvin Miller, Derek Jeter, who is now in
emotional disarray because the Yankees only offered him a
measly $15 million a year until he is a diamond fossil,
would probably be looking at an, oh, $400,000 take-it-or-
leave it one-season offer.

Miller changed everything. To be sure, later, he made one
gigantic mistake, arguing that his union minions should not
have their bodies invaded by steroid testing, but all that
he accomplished before that for good puts that one gross
misjudgment in shadow.

It is all the more insulting that Bowie Kuhn, the
commissioner whom Miller undressed at every turn, has
already been safely domiciled for all eternity in
Cooperstown. This is like voting Goliath into the Biblical
Hall of Fame and keeping out David. This is like putting
Jefferson Davis in the Presidents' Hall of Fame and voting
down Abe Lincoln four times.

Marvin Miller is a widower, 93 years old. To deny him
election is implausible. Not to elect him while yet he lives
is cruel. To twist the old Groucho Marx line: For those
already in the Hall of Fame, I would not want to be in any
shrine that wouldn't let Marvin Miller in.

==========

Learn more about this baseball hero in the Marvin Miller
Papers:

Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives

http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/tamwag/miller.html

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