Happy Holiday Season

Just wanted to add my belated Happy Thanksgiving and I hope everyone around the Sphere is having a great start to the holiday season. Not posting that actively here right now because of the break, preparing for a Dec. 1 move to Upper West Side, trying to get in shape, revising a book manuscript unrelated to sports, MLB work, and pontificating whether to vote for anyone besides Ripken and Gwynn with my upcoming Hall of Fame ballot. Ripken gave me my greatest sports thrill the night of 2,131. Gwynn once gave me an hour to sit with him and Stan Musial around a table and just talk hitting for a magazine cover story. Those are obvious first-ballot locks. But there is a notable someone else on the ballot who gave me my second-greatest thrill in sports, the night I took my oldest son to see Mark McGwire break another once-unbreakable record at old Busch Stadium. I never could have imagined not voting for him in his first year on the ballot, given how he helped "bring the game back" along with Ripken toward the end of a millennium. Haven’t decided yet and am not going to be a lemming voter, as it’s a responsibility I respect. Here’s to your team giving you lots to blog about in a positive way, and I wish health and happiness to everyone here.

Mark