I'm not a sentimental person but Phil Rizzuto was a part of my childhood and thinking about him takes me back; watching the Yankees struggle through the 80s as my dad complained about how awful Rizzuto was.

He wasn't much of an Xs and Os guy. Phil never tried to create fake drama or sell the game like a product. He was just a fan who happened to sit in the booth. He could have been sitting on your couch watching the game with you.

Unpretentious might be the word I'm looking for.

As the story goes, anyway, Rizzuto was handed the script for his part of this Meat Loaf track and asked to do the read. They never told him the context of it in the song. He did the read (beautifully!) and signed the usual release. When he finally heard the finished song, he was FURIOUS! He never intended to take part in anything about teenage sex. (Never mind the fact that the song is really kind of a sad and cautionary tale.)

In later years, though, he mellowed about it. Residuals from a Top 40 hit will do that. He was quoted, "Holy cow! I made a lotta money from that song!"

A true American original. The world is a little bit less fun without Scooter.

Hamermesh has said he's sure any bias is unconscious, but if that's so, how to explain QuesTec, the count or the size of the crowd affecting umpire behavior?

For QuesTec and the size of the crowd, it seems easy enough to explain -- when people are watching you work, you're more careful.

As for the count, the umpires have to realize that a 3-2 pitch is the most important pitch they're going to call on that at-bat. The ball comes at the batter, he doesn't take a swing, and an inch makes the difference between an out and a runner on first. If you're not concentrating just a little more on that pitch, then you don't know baseball.

And why would a white umpire give a break to white pitchers but not white batters, or catchers?

Because the catcher and the batter aren't facing the umpire.

Celebrities should be careful what cheesy TV commercials they do late in life. Poor Phil - being uninterested in sports, I only really know of him from Seinfeld and those horrible "Money Store" commercials he did.

"Hi! I'm Phil Rizzuto from the Money Store!"

What a shame.

and I use whatever stat or figure I can to prove what my bosses want.

That's the name of the game. No peer review?! It shouldn't warrant your time, King.

Possible stories for tomorrow: Barry Bonds ruining the world. Mike Vick upsetting white American sensibilities. Joba Chamberlain.

Was short, he was a hustler, and played on championship teams. I'd say David Eckstein better start preparing his hall of fame acceptance speech.

Just at a cursory glance, Rizzuto's MVP season of 1950 was a sham as well. Berra and Dimaggio of the same team appear more qualified. That was probably one of those times where the voters were pretending to see something that no one else could see in terms of chemistry/character/value to winning, or some other such hooey.....or maybe the sportwriters were simply echoing the nonsense coming from the sentimental and cross-eyed fans. It's hard to tell where this kind of chorus of stupidity starts. Are you telling me if the 1950 season could be played again and the Yankee manager could keep Dimaggio or Rizzuto but not both, he'd keep Rizzuto?

On the announcing front, the "Holy Cow" may not have a legal patent or trademark, but it appears Rizzuto was parroting Harry Caray. That's weak.

Not the Hall of Great.

Of Hooey

To administer some sort of senility or mental alertness test to the veteran committee members every couple years. To weed out the riff-raff.

King, you touched on the main flaw of the report here but don't seem to have absorbed the larger implication of it.

When the study mentions that they are "controlling for umpire, pitcher and batter," they are being disingenuous. I've read a summary of this study and the only thing you need to understand is this: the way they "controlled" the variable of the batter's race was not to account for it. They literally did not take this into account as a factor in the balls/strikes that were being called. So if the study is to be believed, they are saying that umpires have a built-in racial bias, just not against batters. Which means they don't have a racial bias at all - they are engaging in "pitcherism" or "batterism," depending on your point of view.

Let me state it even more clearly for you. The level of bias found was 1%. Meaning, on average, that 1 in 100 pitches was found to be called a strike (or ball) based on the racial characteristics of the umpire and pitcher. If, in fact, the study were able to eliminate all other causes of bias (race of the batter, "quality" of the pitcher; "quality" of the umpires; "quality" of the batter's knowledge of the strike zone; years of service for the pitcher; removal of all strikes called on appeal, etc.) then I might take it seriously. But my understanding is that they didn't remove any of these factors - they just assumed the impact of would be neutral and only measured balls/strikes called based on the race of the pitcher and umpire. Given this, I'm actually shocked that the "level of bias" wasn't higher, since it could be accounted for by anything ... or nothing. All of which brands this not as research, but as statistics used to provocatively advance a theory which cannot be proven.

And this is the larger point and why it ticks me off so much to see this kind of garbage published and publicized. Anyone who doesn't think that racism pervades all elements of society in some shape or form is living in a fantasyland. But the impact of racism is trivialized when a study that is so clearly flawed is promoted in this fashion. And for you to be a willing accomplice and then wash your hands of it by saying "I have no idea if those concerns are valid" is the height of irresponsibility. If you're going to traffic in racially provocative assertions, you better know ahead of time if there's anything to it.