OT: My All-Time Baseball Team

A few buddies and I were debating our "all-time" baseball team. This is going back to when we started watching (early 80s). Nobody we haven't gown up with is allowed:

C: Joe Mauer
1B: Albert Pujols
2B: Joe Morgan
SS: Alex Rodriguez
3B: Mike Schmidt
RF: Ichiro Suzuki (torn betwen him, Reggie Jackson, Vlad and Tony Gwynn)
CF: Ken Griffey Jr
LF: Ricky Henderson (toughest position with Bonds, Yaz, Manny)
DH: Frank Thomas

SP: Pedro, Clemens, Maddux, Randy Johson and Nolan Ryan (tough to leave off Carlton, Santana and Smoltz)

Closers: Rivera, Eckersly and Goose Gossage (another tough one with Sutter, Nathan, Hoffman)

OT: Tim Raines Should Be in the Baseball Hall of Fame

The Hall of Fame voters missed the boat by not electing Tim Raines today. Even more atrocious is the fact that he got less than 25 percent of the votes. Here is a good article making the case for Raines:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/hof09/columns/story?columnist=law_keith&id=3825493

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OT: George Vecsey's Baseball: A History of America's Favorite Game

One of my New Year Resolutions was to read one book per week. This week, I read George Vecsey's Baseball: A History of America's Favorite Game. I would highly recommend this book to anybody who is a sports or baseball fan. While it's not an in depth historical account of baseball's history, it is a fun, breezy, passionate look at some key events that shaped the game. Highlights included the games historical lineage, going back to Europe and Asia, the development of the game in the 1800s, racism and Jackie Robinson, the Negro League greats, Babe Ruth, free agency and Curt Flood, Pete Rose and other big scandals, and the current state of the game.

I found the chapters on race and the game the most moving. Here is one of my favorite passages:

Some Americans began talking openly about the injustice that blacks were dying for their country in service but were still shut out from organized baseball. "I can play in Mexico." Negro League pitcher Nate Moreland had been quoted as saying, "but I have to fight for America where I can't play.