Joe Torre, union rip exclusion of Marvin Miller from Hall of Fame
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla.--The absurdity continues.
Even in death, Marvin Miller cannot get elected to the Hall of Fame. The leader who built the Major League Baseball Players Assn. into the powerhouse of sports unions was rejected again Monday, when a committee selected three managers -- Joe Torre, Bobby Cox and Tony La Russa -- for the Hall of Fame.
Miller, who died last year, has been denied by all seven committees that have considered him. In 2011, he got 11 votes from a 16-man committee, with 12 required for election. This time, he got “six or fewer” votes, as did the other eight candidates who were not elected. The Hall of Fame does not release the individual vote totals for candidates receiving less than a majority of votes.
Torre was astounded by the result about Miller, less so by New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner not getting into the Hall of Fame.
“He will,” Torre said. “Marvin Miller should be in. He made an impact on the game.”
The committee consisted of 16 Hall of Famers, major league executives, journalists and baseball historians.
Tony Clark, the executive director of the MLBPA, and Donald Fehr, who succeeded Miller as MLBPA leader, blasted the committee vote in separate statements.
Clark: “Words cannot adequately describe the level of disappointment and disbelief I felt when learning that once again the Hall of Fame has chosen to ignore Marvin Miller and his unparalleled contributions to the growth and prosperity of Major League Baseball. Over the past fifty years, no individual has come close to matching Marvin’s impact on the sport. ... Despite the election results, Marvin’s legacy remains intact, and will only grow stronger, while the credibility of the Hall of Fame continues to suffer.”
Fehr: “In the first half of the 20th Century, no single person was more important to Baseball than was Jackie Robinson. In the second half of the 20th Century, that recognition unquestionably belongs to Marvin Miller. ... Marvin should have been elected to the Hall many years ago. It is a sad and sorry state of affairs that he has not been, and continues to reflect poorly on the very organization that has as its purpose recognizing and celebrating Baseball’s best.”
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