Peter Gammons

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Apolitical blues

By Peter Gammons
Special to ESPN.com

January 18

Can't find my way home
The top three vote-getters in this year's Hall of Fame balloting were teammates on the 1980 Red Sox: Carlton Fisk, Tony Perez and Jim Rice. Of course, that team finished 83-77, Don Zimmer was fired as manager and after the season Fisk became a free agent and signed with the White Sox while Fred Lynn, Rick Burleson and Butch Hobson were all traded.

Incidentally, Rice picked up 111 votes from last year's balloting, the second biggest increase of the past 25 years. Luis Aparicio went up 148 votes from 1981 to 1982.

Why we wish
It could be argued that Jaime Navarro was one of the worst free agent signings of the '90s, especially since the White Sox let Kevin Tapani go to the Cubs as Navarro signed with the South Siders. In three seasons with the Sox, Navarro was 25-43, 6.06, saw his innings go from 209.2 to 172.2 to 159.2, led the league in losses, hits, runs, earned runs and wild pitches and allowed nine or more runs 11 times.

Cal Eldred's last three seasons in Milwaukee: 19-31, 5.48, led the league in losses once and saw his innings go 202 to133 to 82.

Whole lot to think about
Cuban refugees Jorge Toca of the Mets and Dannys Baez of the Indians went to the White House January 6 with more than 100 other rookies as part of the Rookie Development Program co-sponsored by MLB and the Players Association. Pointing to a picture of the bearded Ulysses T. Grant, Toca said, "Look, Fidel."

Then Baez and Toca had their picture taken in the White House in front of an American flag. "Let's send it to Fidel," suggested Baez.

I'm outlived by that thing?
How the Mets may profit from Bobby Bonilla:

"We figure we're going to make more than a hundred million off this," says one Mets official. GM Steve Phillips agreed to pay Bonilla $1.19 million a year for 25 years starting in 2011. "We've invested the $5.9M (originally owed to Bonilla in 2000) already," says the official. "At a conservative rate, if the market doesn't collapse, we figure we'll already have more than $36M by the time we make the first payment to Bonilla, and we'll be well over $100M by the time we've finished paying him off."

Immigrant eyes
A study by The National Association shows that 40.35 percent of all players under contract in the major and minor leagues are foreign born. Of the 2,794 foreign-born players in organized baseball, 1,513 are from the Dominican Republic, followed by Venezuela (673), Puerto Rico (153), Mexico (120) and Canada (84).

A few footnotes:

The Mets (128), Dodgers (127), Braves (123), Yankees (112), Orioles (106) and Red Sox have the most foreign-born players. The Angels have the fewest (52).

Boston GM Dan Duquette claims that his club's total expenditures in the Dominican -- including bonuses, contracts and maintenance of both an academy and summer and winter league teams -- is less than $500,000 a year. So while it makes sense for the Mets (82), A's and Red Sox (69) to mine that baseball-rich country, when Angels and Twins fans hear their managements whine about costs, they should ask why their teams have the fewest Dominicans in their organizations, 17 and 30, respectively. That's not cash, it's hard work.

The Indians (44), Astros (39), Braves (35) and Yankees (35) are the leaders in Venezuela.

The Red Sox have six of the 14 Koreans in organized baseball.

(song title courtesy of Tim Flannery)

The low spark of the high-heeled boys
One National League team looking for a young shortstop rated the best prospects in this order:

1. Felipe Lopez, Toronto (19 years old, .277, 14 HR, Class A Hagerstown). "Absolutely can do everything, with a high ceiling."

2. Alfonso Soriano, Yankees.(22, .305, 15 HR, AA Norwich). "Great tools, power potential. Can play center as well."

3. Travis Dawkins, Cincinnati (20, .298, A-AAA). "Great improvement, showed makeup in Pan Am Games."

4. Adam Everett, Houston (23, .263, 10 HR, AA Trenton). "Best defender in the minors. Bat still a question."

5. Rafael Furcal, Atlanta (19, .337, 72 SB, A Macon). "Waterbug with ability to get on base and lead off. But there's question whether or not he's going to end up at short or second."

6. Pablo Ozuna, Florida (20, .277, 31 SB, AA Portland) "A very good, quick offensive player, but his arm likely necessitates move to second."

7. D'Angelo Jimenez, Yankees (22, .327, 15 HR, AAA Columbus). "A lot better player than some people realize. He could really help a San Diego or Montreal." Hey ... the Yankees turned down San Diego's offer of hard thrower Wascar Serrano for Jimenez.

Something is happening, but you don't know what it is ... do you, Mr. Jones
Much has been made about the fact that now that the Mets have two players named Bobby Jones they are the first NL team with two players with the same name since the '62 Mets had two Bob Millers (the '90-'91 Mariners had two fellows named Ken Griffey, of course). But remember, the Valentins are the only current baseball family with two players with the same name -- White Sox SS Jose Valentin and Twins C Jose Valentin. The latter goes by his middle name, Javier.

My father always promised us that we would live in France
Expos GM Jim Beattie, once a fine basketball player at Dartmouth, drove down to Hanover, N.H. on Martin Luther King weekend to watch the Dartmouth women play Yale. Why? Playing for Yale is Meg Simpson, daughter of Beattie's former Mariner teammate Joe Simpson, now the highly respected Atlanta broadcaster.

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