It’s August 21, 1990, a Tuesday, but you don’t know that because you do not ascribe to any sort of calendar or temporal reality. You are an insentient thing, square plastic and deceptively plush, with a rectangular core that grounds you securely into the dirt
usually
you sit there, softly nestled into position by capable hands. Every so often there is a thump, a thunk, the scrape of metal across your top. You experience the impact, in that it happens to you, unto you, but you do not feel it. The roaring
sounds of the crowd, the intimate crunch grind cashunk of impact, they exist around you but not to you. Object meets object, disrupts objects. And still you sit, square and waiting, there and
then
hands scrabble at your sides, jerking this way and that, stubby fingers seeking traction. You feel a precipitous sliding, the disruption of dirt, a light “pop!” as you’re separated from your space. There’s wind above and below and on all sides, and you’re not shaped to tumble through the air so instead you spin gracelessly, at odds with what you were meant to do, until you reunite, artlessly, with the ground. You list to one side, underbelly exposed, at their mercy.
(Lou Piniella, 18-year big leaguer, longtime manager and beloved former Mariners skipper, is one of eight finalists to appear on the Contemporary Era ballot for the National Baseball Hall of Fame Class of 2027. He is the winningest manager in Seattle baseball history, leading the team from 1993 through 2002, some of the franchise’s most illustrious years. Only three managers had better records between 1990 and 2009, and they’re all already enshrined in Cooperstown. It is Piniella’s fourth time appearing on an Eras Committee (formerly known as the Veterans Committee) ballot; in 2018 and 2023, he fell one vote shy both times. He appears alongside Sandy Alderson, Dusty Baker, Bruce Bochy, Joe Maddon, Brian Sabean, Ted Turner and Bill White. You know Lou’s great, I know Lou’s great, let’s just get to the point already, eh voters?
Sweet Lou will need 12 of the 16 votes in order to earn induction. The 16 electorates have not been announced yet, but the results of the vote will be announced December 6.)
