Who are the '13 Spink award finalists?

"Better writer" is not really the criteria. Angell writes essays, and does them infrequently. That's a lot different than covering baseball on a daily basis.

Some guys who have gotten the award are pedestrian writers at best, but they broke news and covered a team on a daily basis, with all the challenges that entails. Angell doesn't track down trade rumors, he doesn't get 2 a.m. tips that the shortstop has been arrested in a bar fight, and I doubt he's ever had to deal with the contempt that can develop over the familiarity of 162 games and spring training. When he sits down to write his pitch-by-pitch account of the previous World Series a month later, it's not like he's trying to beat the guy from GQ.

I mentioned Kahn because he was a daily beat writer in a highly competitive situation, and he wrote one of the classic baseball books.

 

A few years ago, Bil Dwyre basically gave Kahn freedom to write stuff for the L.A. Times, write whatever he wanted. One of his pieces basically blamed Al Campanis for the death of Kahn's son, who died of a drug overdose.
The story was, Kahn's son was playing for a second-rate junior college baseball team. Kahn asked Campanis to have his son scouted and then arranged a meeting for his son to discuss his prospects of being a professional player.
As Kahn wrote, Campanis told his son that because of his name and who his father was, he probably would get a chance to play in the minors. But, honestly, he would be better off finishing his education and finding a different career path.
Supposedly, the distraught son had his baseball dreams shattered and OD'd. And Kahn, in print, blamed Campanis for his death.
Hall of Fame? Maybe the asshole Hall of Fame.

 

Kahn has a well-deserved reputation for being difficult.

But I won't dismiss what he did as a baseball writer and author based on something stupid and baseless he wrote as a 75+ year old man grieving for a son who committed suicide.

Speaking of assholes, the Spink winner a couple of years ago was Bill Conlin. Putting aside the significant issue of child abuse allegations that would surface later, a lot of people -- including co-workers -- found Conlin to be impossibly abrasive.

 

And, btw, if the Times published that, I put a lot of the blame on them...

 

And I think if you only limit the award to beat writers- who admittedly have more difficult reporting jobs that Roger Angell- excludes a lot of extremely talented people.

Which leads to the question if the Hall of Fame is an end of the career award for someone on the beat for a long time. Or is it an award that is given to someone who really produces an outstanding body of work. Intially it was given to recepients who did not make their reputation on a beat. Early on the award was given to Ring Lardner and Damon Runyon, who I don't think were voted in because of they broke a lot of stories about managers being fired.

To use another example, magazine guys do not seem to win the award. I think Ron Fimrite would be a guy deserving of the award based on all the baseball stories he did at SI for about 20 years.

And I don't have a problem with Kahn getting in. I don't think anything he ever did at a newspaper qualifies him. But I think Boys of Summer is a powerful trump card. I used Angell as an example because he has did it really well for a half century.

I just think as a Hall of Fame baseball should recognize all types of journalism, not just daily beat reporting.

 

It's not a Hall of Fame award.

It's a BBWAA award.

 

Phil Pepe is an excellent nomination, Casty!

 

To further that, technically, none of the recipients are Hall of Famers. Same goes for the broadcast award.

They are just award winners, which are displayed in the Scribes and Mikemen exhibit in the Hall.

 

I know all this.

But I find it ironic that the BBWA, a group that collectively worries that the prestige of the Hall will be cheapened if Dale Murphy is voted in, has turned the most prestigious honor of their craft into pretty much a length of service award. If the BBWA applied the same criteria to players as they do writers Jamie Moyer would be a first round inductee.

 

Can't argue that. Some of the choices also reek of the cronyism that used to be part of the former Veterans Committee.

 

Without a doubt my main man Phil Pepe has been overlooked. Hagen should get it next year.