Veterans Committee

Baseball's veterans committee kept the door to the Hall of Fame closed for the second straight time, leaving Gil Hodges and Ron Santo on the outside and raising doubts about whether anyone can gain election. Hodges and Santo fell eight votes shy of the necessary 75 percent, with each appearing on 52 ballots (65 percent) in totals announced yesterday. Tony Oliva (45) and Jim Kaat (43) were the only other players chosen on more than half the 80 ballots. The revamped committee, which includes all living members of the Hall, does not meet again until 2007.

Daily News columnist and former Phillies star Richie Ashburn is among a group of candidates who will be considered for enshrinement to Baseball's Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee. Also among those to be considered as possible inductees are former Yankees shortstop Phil Rizzuto, Boston second baseman Bobby Doerr and former National League umpire Al Barlick. The 18-member committee - six Hall of Famers, six baseball writers and six current or former baseball executives - votes on executives, umpires, managers and players whose eligibility in the annual baseball writers' election has expired.

Theoretically, one of these years, it will be tough for the baseball Hall of Fame to find a Phillie to induct. But today, the Phillies could well run their Hall of Fame election streak to three years - if the Veterans Committee, as anticipated, selects Jim Bunning as its annual inductee. Bunning, Nellie Fox, Gil Hodges, Dom DiMaggio and Roger Maris are regarded as the players likely to get the most consideration today. Bunning, who missed being elected by just three votes in 1988 in balloting by the Baseball Writers Association of America, is believed to be the favorite.

The redesigned Veterans Committee failed to elect anyone to the Baseball Hall of Fame yesterday. Gil Hodges, former Brooklyn Dodgers first baseman and New York Mets manager, came closest, falling 11 shy with 50 votes. Sixty-one of 81 votes were needed for election on the players' ballot, and 60 of 79 were needed on the "composite" ballot, which included managers, executives and umpires. "Maybe not so many people fell through the cracks as some people think," said Joe Morgan, the Hall of Fame second baseman.

On Aug. 3, it may be tough to find a soul on the streets of Norristown, Pa. - because everybody will be camped out in Cooperstown, N.Y., watching their favorite son enter the Baseball Hall of Fame. That, of course, is Tommy Lasorda, who yesterday was elected to the Hall by the Veterans Committee, just seven months after he retired from 20 illustrious seasons of managing the Los Angeles Dodgers. Lasorda, 69, will become the 14th man to enter the Hall as a manager - and only the second to be elected the year after he retired.

His long wait in baseball purgatory is over. His fans can stop decrying the injustice. Yesterday, Richie Ashburn, the former Phillies Whiz Kid, was elected to the Hall of Fame. As soon as he got the news, Ashburn called his 90-year-old mother, Genevieve Ashburn, in Tilden, Neb. "Your son's made the Hall of Fame," he said. She cried. Her 67-year-old son did not. Ashburn, the gentle-voiced Nebraskan who has been an amiable and well- respected figure in Philadelphia's baseball life since 1948, received the game's ultimate honor from the Hall of Fame's 17-member Veterans Committee.

In the parade of inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame, Philadelphia has been more than amply represented. Now, the area might be favored once again. Three former players with ties to the Philadelphia area are being considered for induction into the baseball shrine. First baseman Mickey Vernon and two former Phillies, pitcher Bucky Walters and outfielder Sherry Magee, are among 10 former major-league players on the Veterans Committee ballot. The ballot includes only players who began their big-league careers before 1943 and who played in the majors for at least 10 years.

Is the time right for the hard-liners on the revamped Veterans Committee to finally admit someone to the Hall of Fame? It certainly feels that way. Results of the biennial election will be released Tuesday, and there seems to be a good chance that someone will join Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn on induction day in Cooperstown on July 29. Ron Santo and Gil Hodges both came up just eight votes shy of election two years ago and one or both...

Once again, Baseball Hall of Fame voters have served up a heavy dose of injustice. This month, in the latest example of the hall's consistently incomprehensible voting, Marcus Hook native Mickey Vernon was denied admission. Vernon, who died in September, was one of 10 players on the ballot whose major-league careers began before 1943. To make matters worse, for the fourth consecutive year, nobody on a list of players whose careers started after 1943 and ended by 1987 was invited to Cooperstown, either.

I do not think Dick Allen belongs in the baseball Hall of Fame. I'm quite sure, however, that the Wampum Walloper belongs among the candidates listed on the Golden Era ballot that was released Thursday by the National Baseball Hall of Fame. And, yet, the list of players and executives selected from the era between 1947 and 1972 did not include the Phillies' first African-American star. Five position players - Ron Santo, Ken Boyer, Minnie Minoso, Tony Oliva and Gil Hodges - three pitchers - Jim Kaat, Luis Tiant and Allie Reynolds - and two executives - Buzzie Bavasi and Charlie Finley - were among the candidates selected by a Historical Overview Committee that was comprised of 11 members from the Baseball Writers Association of America.

ORLANDO, Fla. - Reggie Miller has a chance to nail his legacy, just as he did so many three-point shots. The Indiana Pacers great was announced Friday as a first-time finalist for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. He is one of 12 finalists for the Class of 2012. Miller, a five-time all-star, was joined as a first-time finalist by five-time NCAA Final Four coach Rick Pitino, former NBA coach Bill Fitch, and two-time Olympic gold medalist Katrina McClain. On the ballot again are Maurice Cheeks, Don Nelson, Bernard King, Dick Motta, Hank Nichols, Ralph Sampson, Jamaal Wilkes, and the All-American Red Heads, known as the female version of the Harlem Globetrotters and the first women's professional basketball team.

Ron Santo, the barrel-chested Chicago Cubs third baseman, was elected to the Hall of Fame Monday, overwhelmingly chosen by the Veterans Committee nearly a year to the day after he died hoping for the honor. "It's really exciting because so many years that we had parties over to his house in spring training saying, 'This is the year,' " said Hall of Fame teammate Billy Williams, a member of the voting panel. Santo, who played in the majors from 1960 to 1974, was a nine-time all-star, hit 342 home runs, and won five Gold Gloves.

I do not think Dick Allen belongs in the baseball Hall of Fame. I'm quite sure, however, that the Wampum Walloper belongs among the candidates listed on the Golden Era ballot that was released Thursday by the National Baseball Hall of Fame. And, yet, the list of players and executives selected from the era between 1947 and 1972 did not include the Phillies' first African-American star. Five position players - Ron Santo, Ken Boyer, Minnie Minoso, Tony Oliva and Gil Hodges - three pitchers - Jim Kaat, Luis Tiant and Allie Reynolds - and two executives - Buzzie Bavasi and Charlie Finley - were among the candidates selected by a Historical Overview Committee that was comprised of 11 members from the Baseball Writers Association of America.

SANDY ALOMAR SR. played for the Yankees in the mid-1970s. He used to bring his sons to the ballpark with him. That was the first time Pat Gillick, then New York's scouting coordinator, saw Roberto Alomar. In 1990, when Gillick was general manager of the Toronto Blue Jays, he traded Fred McGriff and Tony Fernandez to the San Diego Padres for Robbie Alomar and Joe Carter in a blockbuster deal. He still laughs when he tells the story of how McGriff was his wife's favorite player and Doris scolded him and told him to get back from the winter meetings before he screwed up the team any further; she relented somewhat after Alomar played an integral role in the Jays' world championships in 1992 and '93. Gillick became general manager of the Baltimore Orioles in November 1995.

A veterans committee for baseball's Hall of Fame will meet next week at the game's annual winter meetings to judge the merits of 12 candidates recently selected for approval by yet another committee. It is a somewhat convoluted process intended to give due consideration to those who might have slipped through the cracks of the Hall of Fame, which has notorious gaps in the floorboards. The Historical Oversight Committee, focused this time on the last 40 years of baseball, came up with a list that covers the gamut from great players (Vida Blue)

ALL MEMBERS of Baseball's Hall of Fame are created equal. But some are created less equal than others. Mistakes have been made. Mistakes happen in the best Halls of Fame, and baseball has the best one by far, warts and all. Even if in 1946, a loosely assembled forerunner of the lamentable Veterans Committee called the Old Timers Committee actually voted a poem into Cooperstown. Those were the saddest of possible words . . . Tinker to Evers to Chance. The subjects of the famed newspaper poem by Franklin Adams were stars for the last Chicago Cubs team to win a World Series.

  The lefthanded pitcher whose once-record win total Jamie Moyer tied last night had a resumé that contained considerably more than those 266 victories.  While Moyer, the Phillies' 47-year-old lefthander, is one of baseball's most intriguing figures, his story reads like a mundane child's tale when compared to the novel that was Eppa Rixey's life.   Rixey was the son of a wealthy Virginia banker, the nephew of the nation's surgeon general. At 6-foot-5, when he arrived in Philadelphia in 1912, he was the game's tallest player.

Whitey Herzog spent a good, long time stewing about a blown call in the 1985 World Series. So in a strange way, perhaps this fits: He's going into the Hall of Fame, standing next to an umpire. Herzog and prominent crew chief Doug Harvey got the call yesterday, elected to the Hall by the Veterans Committee. Herzog was a single vote short in his previous try, and might've made it sooner with another crown on his resume. But he was forever linked to Don Denkinger after the ump's infamous miss in Game 6 so long ago cost St. Louis a chance to clinch.

The gates to Hardball Heaven - also known as the Baseball Hall of Fame - will swing open today for Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice. Henderson, the all-time leader in stolen bases and runs scored, became the 44th player to be elected to the Hall in his first year of eligibility in January. Rice, arguably the American League's most dominant hitter from 1975 to 1986, was elected in his 15th and final year of eligibility on the ballot. Voting is done by veteran members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America.

Feeling at home Jim Rice made his first visit to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum yesterday and took a tour ahead of his induction this summer. The former Red Sox slugger said it was nice to feel like a rookie again. "All of a sudden you're able to touch some of the memorabilia of players that made the game what it is today, some that I enjoyed playing against," Rice said. Rice posed for photos with an elementary school group and handled bats once used by Babe Ruth and Rabbit Maranville.