This is just a brief list of the things the game’s protectors and magnates have guaranteed would never, ever, happen to the great traditions and sanctity of our private world:

1. Overhand pitching

2. Integration

3. Videotape replay

4. Night games

5. Batting helmets

6. A players’ union

7. The American League

8. The banning of the spitball

9. Farming out players to the minors

10. Universal radio broadcasts. Well, okay, radio, but no television. All right, television, but never cable.

Video replay did not celebrate its first anniversary late this season; it celebrated its tenth. In October 13, 1998, third base ump John Shulock threatened to eject me and my six-inch NBC monitor from the reporter’s well next to the visitors’ dugout at Yankee Stadium for Game Six of the ALCS, because he thought some of the Indians players might have been able to see a replay of a call Ted Hendry didn’t do a very good job on at second. Seven months later, on May 31, 1999, the venerable ump Frank Pulli decided he couldn’t decide whether Cliff Floyd’s blast in Florida was a home run or not. So he went over to a tv cameraman and asked if they’d show him some replays. Pulli decided that per the grounds rules, Floyd’s blast had been incorrectly called a homer and was in fact a double, and he so ruled. The National League got mad at him. 

Replay was fully and suddenly introduced in 2008 – by this year it played a vital role in the regular season and the World Series. Now the GM’s have demurred. Within eighteen months there will be a video replay rulebook issued to every ump and manager and included in every media guide. You watch.

Everybody except me seems to have a vote in one of the 87 committees that may elect some managers, umpires, and executives, to Cooperstown next month. I’m in favor of putting in all deserving candidates and I really don’t care if we put it to voice vote at Dodger Stadium one night, just so long as we honor the deserving.

So here is a yes/no on each of the candidates, without getting into the woods of who’s doing the voting or how:

Manager – Charlie Grimm: No. Longevity, not results.

Manager – Whitey Herzog: Yes. 

Manager – Davey Johnson: No, but close.

Manager – Tom Kelly: Yes. Rebuilt that franchise.

Manager – Billy Martin: a controversial Yes. There’s an amazing stat on him: he only had nine full seasons of managing. Eight of those nine teams finished first or second. 

Manager – Gene Mauch: I’m sorry, no. Presided over two of the worst collapses in history.

Manager – Danny Murtaugh: You know what? Yes. Two World’s Championships, and in his last stint (1970-75) he won the second of them, and a division in four of the other five years.

Manager – Steve O’Neill: No. See Grimm.

Umpire – Doug Harvey: Yes. 

Umpire – Hank O’Day: No. There are about a dozen deserving umps. Not him. Whoever you think was right in the Merkle game, his ruling was wrong. It was either a New York win or a forfeit, not a tie.

Executive – Gene Autry: No. Bringing the A.L. to Southern California would’ve been done 20 years before he did it, had it not been for Pearl Harbor.

Executive – Sam Breadon: Yes. Saved the Cardinals from bankruptcy or moving in the ’20s, built a dynasty with Branch Rickey.

Executive – John Fetzer: No.

Executive – Bob Howsam: No. The Frank Robinson trade gets you into Cooperstown?

Executive – Ewing Kauffman: No. An elegant, dedicated man.

Executive – John McHale: No.

Executive – Marvin Miller: Yes. For good or for ill, his impact for changing the game was comparable to Babe Ruth.

Executive – Jacob Ruppert: Yes. The Yankees were a joke before him.

Executive – Bill White: Yes. Could qualify in this role, or as a player, or as an announcer. Get him in there!