OK, I admit I'm not totally objective and unbiased because he was once my teammate in the Cleveland Indians farm system, but I'm wondering why Tommy John isn't in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
If the baseball gods were truly just, he should have been there in Cooperstown Sunday with Cal Ripken and Tony Gwinn, who richly deserved the honor of joining baseball's immortals. Of the thousands of pitchers in baseball history, only 24 others have won more than the 288 games he did during his 22-year career in the big leagues.
After all, how many pitchers, or players of any position for that matter, appear on page one of the New York Times as John did the other day in an article about the historic elbow surgery named after him that has prolonged the careers of many pitchers, as it did for John, who won 20 games in three of the five seasons after he had the surgery.
I still stay in touch with John, who lives in Charlotte, N.C., and while he hasn't told me so, he must be frustrated by the fact that he has more wins than anybody who's not in the Hall of Fame. After all, he won more than 13 games 11 times from his first season with the Cleveland Indians in 1965 to 1987, when he went 29-24 for the New York Yankees. Yet he remained tenth on the 2007 balloting of the baseball writers Veterans Committee in the 2007 voting, falling behind the necessary 409 behind Goose Gossage (388), Jim Rice (346), Andre Dawson (309), Bert Blyleven (260), Lee Smith (217), Jack Morris (202) and Mark McGwire.
Amazingly, the crafty left hander won more games after his surgery than before it, 168 to be specific. Baltimore's Jim Palmer, who was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1990 -- and who also had elbow surgery in 1968 -- won 20 less games than John in a 19-year career with the Baltimore Orioles. Of course, he is the only pitcher to win world Series games in three decades.
Nevertheless, John, who threw 46 shutouts compared to Palmer's 53, must wonder why he hasn't yet received 75 percent of the vote of baseball sportswriters necessary to gain election to the Hall of Fame. He reached his highest vote total percentage of 29.61 in 2006, which is about the same as in his first year of eligibility in 1965.
John, who is in his 13th year of eligibility on the baseball writers' Hall of Fame ballot, stoically accepted his failure to game admission to baseball's hall of immortality. "I have no control over it," he told Major League Baseball's website. "I don't really worry about things I can't control. Let it fall where it may."
John has two more chances to officially become a member of Baseball's Hall of Fame. If he doesn't make it, I'll call it the Baseball Hall of Shame.