Gillick Elected to HOF, Steinbrenner not.

[Bob]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/sports/baseball/07hall.html?src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Fsports%2Fbaseball%2Findex.jsonp

ORLANDO, Fla. — When Pat Gillick left the Yankees’ front office in 1976 to build the expansion Toronto Blue Jays, George Steinbrenner was upset. He did not like a new American League East rival poaching his scouting director.

Pat Gillick was general manager of Toronto when the Blue Jays won the 1993 World Series in six games over the Philadelphia Phillies.

Bats

“He wasn’t pretty happy when I left,” Gillick said in a telephone interview last week. “He wanted me to stay. But I thought about the opportunity to go up with an expansion club, and you don’t get that too often.”

Gillick and Steinbrenner did just fine apart. Both went on to careers filled with championships, and both appeared on the veterans committee’s Hall of Fame ballot for the first time this year. But only Gillick was elected.

Gillick, the former general manager of the Blue Jays, the Baltimore Orioles, the Seattle Mariners and the Philadelphia Phillies, was named on 13 of 16 ballots, with 12 needed for election. Steinbrenner, who owned the Yankees from 1973 until his death on July 13, was named on fewer than eight ballots.

Marvin Miller, the former executive director of the players’ association, missed election by one vote. Miller, 93, was on the ballot for the fifth time and received 11 votes. The former Cincinnati Reds shortstop Dave Concepcion received eight votes.

None of the other players on the ballot received much support. They were Vida Blue, Steve Garvey, Ron Guidry, Tommy John, Al Oliver, Ted Simmons and Rusty Staub. The closest any of those players came to election through the Baseball Writers’ Association of America was Garvey’s high total of 41.6 percent; a candidate needs 75 percent to be elected.

This was the first vote by the latest incarnation of the veterans committee, which considers nonplayers and those who were not elected by the writers. Candidates are now grouped into eras, and this time the 16-member panel considered candidates from the so-called Expansion Era, defined as 1973 to the present.

The voters included eight Hall of Famers — Johnny Bench, Whitey Herzog, Eddie Murray, Jim Palmer, Tony Perez, Frank Robinson, Ryne Sandberg and Ozzie Smith — and eight others: the executives Bill Giles, David Glass, Andy MacPhail and Jerry Reinsdorf; and the writers Bob Elliott, Tim Kurkjian, Ross Newhan and Tom Verducci.

Gillick, 73, is a senior adviser to the Phillies, whom he guided to the World Series title in 2008. He also won World Series in 1992 and 1993 with Toronto.

“I can’t tell you what an honor this is,” Gillick said. “And really, it’s on behalf of all the people I’ve worked with over the years. That’s who I feel strongest for. The owners, the scouts, the managers and players, they all share in this award.”

[Blackout]

put Maris in first