Flak Magazine: Kick Out the Sports! 07.18.05

On July 31, the Baseball Hall of Fame will enshrine Wade Boggs and Ryne Sandberg, both ex-players. But the Hall of Fame isn't just about those who took the field. It has a wing called "Pioneer/Executive," a place to honor luminaries such as Harry Wright, the inventor of the pre-game fungo, Henry Chadwick, the inventor of the box score, and Candy Cummings, the inventor of the curveball and the fake porn name.

Certainly, most of what we see today was invented in baseball's earliest days, but it still isn't right that the only Hall-enshrined pioneer not from the 19th Century is team owner and promotional genius Bill Veeck. (Yes, Larry MacPhail pioneered night games, plane travel and pension plans, but unlike Veeck, he was inducted more because he was an executive whose teams won World Series titles.)

Despite what Bob Costas might tell you, baseball has seen plenty of change for the better since TV began broadcasting in color. So it's time the Baseball Writers Association of America, the star chamber that fills the Hall, recognized these five pioneers:

1. Curt Flood

If you want a sense of how conservative baseball writers can be, assume they probably will never honor Curt Flood, who died in 1997, while such wacky, out-there, crazy liberals as Orrin Hatch have. Of course, the way Hatch honored Flood gives you an idea of why the writers won't. Hatch introduced the ultimately successful "Curt Flood Act of 1998," which codified players' freedom of movement between teams even as it upheld baseball's antitrust exemption.

Twenty-eight years previous, Flood, a three-time All-Star outfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals, had sued Major League Baseball to end the "reserve clause" that effectively bonded players to their teams for life. Flood had objected to being traded to Philadelphia, which he considered a racist city, and objected to being sold like a piece of property.

Flood actually lost his case in the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-3 decision featuring a bizarre, Harry Blackmun-written justification that focused as much on the sanctity of baseball as it did the law. (Essentially, Blackmun shoved it off to Congress to solve.) Flood not only lost the case; he lost his career, too. But within three years of that 1972 decision, further challenges to baseball broke the chokehold teams had on their chattel, and the free-agency era had begun.

Maybe fans and crotchety sports columnists carp about players not having "loyalty" to their teams, but the Flood case proved that loyalty was a sham. Plus, how would your team sign that big free agent if Flood hadn't challenged the system? For Flood, a self-described child of the '60s, his bust should consist of him wearing a cap embossed with a Black Power fist.

2. Dr. Frank Jobe

Tommy John the player, rightfully, is never going to make the Hall, but Tommy John the surgery should.

The procedure is formally called ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction, but you're as likely to hear that term as to hear someone say Lou Gehrig died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Frank Jobe, a California orthopedist, pioneered "Tommy John Surgery" in 1974 by transplanting a tendon from the Dodgers pitchers' right wrist to his left elbow, where it replaced a torn ligament. A UCL tear used to be a career-ender, but John pitched 14 more seasons after his surgery. Now, it seems like it's more difficult to find pitchers who haven't had the surgery than those who have. Without Jobe, baseball would be putting pitching machines on the mound.

Jobe must have known what he hath wrought, for there is a reason others who perform Tommy John surgery don't call it Tommy John surgery — Jobe trademarked the name. Instead of his head, Jobe's bust should consist of a very muscular elbow.

3. George Toma

George Toma has forgotten more about grass than Method Man and Redman could ever know.

Toma is America's most famous groundskeeper, not that there's a lot of competition. Still, in 42 years as a groundskeeper for the Kansas City Athletics (before they moved to Oakland), the Kansas City Royals and the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs, Toma was the first to make an art out of preparing a field. Instead of just mowing the outfield and throwing some dirt down, Toma paid meticulous attention to the variety of grass that was planted, how it was fertilized and how it ultimately looked — same with the dirt. Toma, who retired in 1999, literally made a career out of watching the grass grow.

No wonder he's handled the turf preparations for every single Super Bowl. How many other groundskeepers get their own book and bobblehead doll? The NFL Hall of Fame gave him an award that was as close as he's going to get to being inducted; baseball should one-up the NFL and actually induct him.

Instead of Toma's bust portraying him wearing a cap like a ballplayer, you could let him pick what variety of grass should be planted, Chia Pet-style, on top of his bust.

4. Charley Lau

Here's a partial list of people who had disciples: Jesus, Bob Dylan, Charley Lau. Lau was a hitting coach, but hitting guru was more like it. He was the first hitting coach to actually study hitting, teaching anyone from stars to journeymen — which Lau was as a player — how to consistently hit for average and power beyond tips like "keep your eye on the ball" and "hit 'em where they ain't." Lau was the Moses whose 10 absolutes of hitting were the Ten Commandments that turned a lowly, .200-hitting scrub like George Brett into a Hall of Famer. Brett, Carlton Fisk and Dave Winfield all thanked Lau by name in their induction speeches.

Lau moved from the Kansas City Royals to the New York Yankees to the Chicago White Sox before he died of colon cancer in 1984, at age 50. At the time of his death, he was on leave from the White Sox. The team was paying him more than $100,000 a year — at the time, an astronomical sum for a coach.

For his bust, Lau's head should be, as he said in Absolute No. 7, still and down at contact.

5. Ted Giannoulas

Ted Giannoulas can't yet be enshrined, because he hasn't technically retired. Giannoulas, 31 years into his career, is still showing up at ballparks, hockey rinks and promotional appearances across America.

Who is Giannoulas? He's officially known as the Famous Chicken, but he's had more nicknames than Ol' Dirty Bastard: the KGB Chicken, the San Diego Chicken, The Hardest Working Bird in Show Business, The Godfather of Feathers, The Mascot of the Millennium. He's the reason there's a Phillie Phanatic, a Phoenix Suns Gorilla and a Capitol City Goofball. He's the original guy in the creature suit, dancing like an idiot to draw a laugh while the pitcher takes 10 minutes to adjust his jock.

Giannoulas' original qualification back in 1974 was that he was willing to wear the chicken suit KGB radio created for promotions. (The station went to his San Diego State campus to find a sap willing to get paid $2 an appearance because no one from the station would wear the suit.) The chicken ended up at San Diego Padres games, at Elvis concerts, just about anywhere people gathered — and the station fired him for sticking his beak in too many places. KGB sued Giannoulas to prevent him from ever wearing a chicken suit again, and the case worked its way up to the California Supreme Court, with Giannoulas victorious. That led to the most famous mascot event ever — the chicken's "Grand Hatching" out of a giant egg at Jack Murphy Stadium as "Also Sprach Zarathustra" blared. So to answer the debate, the chicken came first, before the egg.

Soon, Giannoulas and his chicken suit were all over the country, on the field and on TV, co-hosting "The Baseball Bunch" with Johnny Bench. Imitators sprouted. The Sporting News named him one of the 100 most powerful figures in 20th Century sports.

Sure, Giannoulas wrote me a complimentary note after my July 11 column about Lou Piniella. But I'm pushing him because he's a legitimate Hall of Famer, the man who brought entertainment to millions, teaching the sports world that showing fans a good time was more than just tossing a team onto the field. Giannoulas' bust should, of course, be his chicken head, with his top and bottom beaks pulled in opposite directions, his classic pose.

E-mail Bob Cook at bobc@flakmag.com.