Hall of Fame blogging

Congratulations to Goose Gossage, who will be inducted this July into the Hall of Fame. Let the Cooperstown postings begin! I voted for him, Mark McGwire (as I did last year) and Lee Smith, as anyone who read this article on MLB.com (or looked at the completed ballot on my office bulletin board) could see. Jim Rice fell 16 votes short of election, and I notice that a significant bloc of that was from our MLB.com voting contingent. Barry Bloom, Carrie Muskat, Marty Noble, Jim Street, T.R. Sullivan and my own vote meant six, so if those change next year and everything else remains the same, that would put him just 10 away. As I told a Red Sox fan who emailed me this morning to ask why I didn’t vote for Rice, I will make a case for why a former player belongs in the pantheon of the legends with the likes of Babe Ruth, Ted Williams and Ty Cobb, but I will not make a case for why someone doesn’t belong. Let’s just say, though, that I disagree with my colleague Michael Bauman, who said, "Rice clearly meets a central criterion for election: He was dominant in his era." I watched that era and just don’t agree with the word "clearly" in that statement. I don’t think borderline belongs on a wall with the Splendid Splinter. That’s all. Have at it!

Updated 12:42 a.m. Wednesday: I saw my friend Kenny Rosenthal of FOX  said he thinks Rice will get in next year because writers who voted against him this time will swing that way. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe next year there will be a huge swing vote toward Big Mac. There’s no way to tell. I do know that lobbyist emails to me won’t matter.

Welcome to our friend David Mickey Evans, the director of the iconic baseball movie "The Sandlot." He directed the recent movie "The Final Season," which will be out soon on DVD and was a knockout film IMHO, telling the true story of the little Norway High School baseball team in Iowa. To me, it was the baseball equivalent of "Hoosiers," which I loved (as a native Hoosier myself). Now DME has an MLBlog, and it’s your chance to leave comments to a bigtime movie director.

One other trend you will be noticing. More and more clubs are using MLBlogs to communicate directly with their fans, filtering out the media. Another new one launches anytime now, and we’re just waiting for the first post from another. Scott Reifert of the White Sox was the first to do it.