Simba: The Roar Is Restored
The good thing about the temporary cessation of hostilities in the "Brylcreem's Head On A Pole By Christmas " campaign is that it frees Simmons up from lipreading Peddie's smoke signals for the gullible to do what he does best: know nothing about sports. And not just about hockey: ALL sports. Sunday's effort was a welcome return to form.
So here's Simmons' Sunday brainsqueeze, the short version: Listen to "Live From Wayne Gretzky's" to hear the last breaths of dying men...perhaps knowing that pitcher wins are a discredited stat, Steve big ups Doc Halladay by pointing out that Palmer and Gibson have all had lots more 8-loss seasons than Roy. Hell, Jesse Orosco only lost 10 games once in a 24-year career - the betting here is he's a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer... Speaking of Hall of Fame votes, be glad Steve doesn't have one. There are votes for Jack Morris and Jim Rice, but not the two most qualified guys on the ballot (Raines and Trammell)... he also gives us this: "Todd Stottlemyre is on the 2008 Hall of Fame baseball ballot. No further commentary is necessary." Steve: All players who have played ten major league seasons are eligible. You apparently don't know this. No further commentary necessary... Steve also pauses to wonder whether Sandy Koufax would be voted to the HOF today, with "only" 165 wins. Hell, that's only 44 more than Todd Stottlemyre! Judging Sandy Koufax by his win total is as misleading as judging Andrew Raycroft on his... And buried in the mix is a bit of irony that would do O. Henry proud: "Who am I to doubt my own newspaper, but somebody had to be doing some serious ballot stuffing if Danny Dichio was voted Toronto's most popular athlete by Sun readers, don't you think?" Risky business for "Canada's Most Read Sports Columnist" to start yanking back that particular curtain, don'tcha think?
So here's Simmons' Sunday brainsqueeze, the short version: Listen to "Live From Wayne Gretzky's" to hear the last breaths of dying men...perhaps knowing that pitcher wins are a discredited stat, Steve big ups Doc Halladay by pointing out that Palmer and Gibson have all had lots more 8-loss seasons than Roy. Hell, Jesse Orosco only lost 10 games once in a 24-year career - the betting here is he's a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer... Speaking of Hall of Fame votes, be glad Steve doesn't have one. There are votes for Jack Morris and Jim Rice, but not the two most qualified guys on the ballot (Raines and Trammell)... he also gives us this: "Todd Stottlemyre is on the 2008 Hall of Fame baseball ballot. No further commentary is necessary." Steve: All players who have played ten major league seasons are eligible. You apparently don't know this. No further commentary necessary... Steve also pauses to wonder whether Sandy Koufax would be voted to the HOF today, with "only" 165 wins. Hell, that's only 44 more than Todd Stottlemyre! Judging Sandy Koufax by his win total is as misleading as judging Andrew Raycroft on his... And buried in the mix is a bit of irony that would do O. Henry proud: "Who am I to doubt my own newspaper, but somebody had to be doing some serious ballot stuffing if Danny Dichio was voted Toronto's most popular athlete by Sun readers, don't you think?" Risky business for "Canada's Most Read Sports Columnist" to start yanking back that particular curtain, don'tcha think?
Uh-oh, I hope he didn't malign the good name of Danny Dichio because TFC fans will rain fire and brimstone on him.
It's like Cox and Simmons are going toe-to-toe for worst columnist in Toronto. Each day you guys mock one the other comes back swinging. Unreal.
I don't think you automatically make the list if you have 10 years experience. You make a short list, and then a committee decides, basically, if there's any chance that someone could vote for you. Was I the only one surprised that Stottlemyre retired 5 years ago? I would have thought it was a lot longer than that.
From Wiki:
Five years after retirement, any player with 10 years of major league experience who passes a screening committee (which removes from consideration players of clearly lesser qualification) is eligible to be elected by BBWAA members with 10 years' membership or more.
So in theory, you get a screening, but guys like Stottlemyre and Jim Deshaies get nominated every year. Simmons should know this. And 'no further comment necessary' is classic Simba code for "I'm too lazy to make a joke/comment here.
And yeah, it'd seemed like longer for me too.