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Joe Posnanski at Soul of Baseball discusses which current National League players he expects one day to see in the Hall of Fame. The entire piece is worth reading, but one incidental riff on the pettiness of some in his profession (Joe is a professional sportswriter) stood out to me:
Now I was really confused. Baseball Writers Association? What was that? I had a credential that seemed to allow me to sit there (I still have it). Nobody else was around. I was entirely baffled. And then I had an odd thought: Maybe I was already a Baseball Writers Association member and didn’t know it. I had signed up for several writers associations — I was a member of the golf writers association. I was a member of the Minor League Baseball Writers Association. Maybe this was the same thing. So I said something naive like, “I don’t know if I’m a member or not.”
At which point — yes, here comes the big finish — a sportswriter emerged from behind the security guard. I’m not going to name him because — hell, I should name him. But I won’t. He’s still around. Anyway, he held his BBWAA card in his palm and put it up to my face — the way detectives in movies do with their badges when they bust into a room. He shouted: “You need one of THESE to sit in the front row. One of THESE! Gotta have one of THESE!”
Hilarious. And somewhat comforting to know that these people exist in every line of work.
Anyway, this anecdote isn’t really the point of Joe’s article. He contemplates the HOF worthiness of several current players and weaves a nice tale in the process. I’ve probably done him a great disservice by quoting a part of the article that has nothing to do with anything, but I liked the anecdote and apparently that’s a high enough standard for me.
Read Joe’s entire article. I promise you won’t regret it.
