Should Gaylord Perry be in the Hall Of Fame? His numbers are unquestionably there; 314 career wins, plus two Cy Young Awards. He won his first Cy Young this year with Cleveland, and did so with some marvelous numbers. But Perry was always suspected of throwing the spitball, a banned pitch; Billy Martin once complained that he smelled like a medicine cabinet. After he retired, Perry admitted what most people already knew: that he threw the spitter, and was, in effect, a cheater.

        Perry was at the peak of his career; he was in the middle of an eight-year period in which he averaged more than 300 innings pitched a year, with fine ERAs and a bunch of strikeouts. This was the best season of his career, and it clearly was the best in the league. So he was a great pitcher... but how do you rate someone who clearly broke the rules, and got away with it?
        In my opinion... well, Gaylord Perry is just a bit before my time, and I'm always careful when I try to pass judgment on the 1970's, a decade that really doesn't make any sense to me. I think the time to punish Perry was while he was still active; I can only assume that baseball's governors were OK with Perry's shenanigans at the time, and if those were the rules... well, we'll have to live with that legacy. I don't condone cheating, and I hope that Perry is the last pitcher who can use the spitter to gain entrance to the Hall Of Fame, but there is little doubt that he deserves to be there.
        In other parts of the world, the Oakland Athletics won the World Series, their first of three in a row. It was also their first since 1930, when they played in Philadelphia. The 42 years in between had been very dark, including 13 horrible years in Kansas City. But owner Charles O. Finley turned the team around. Finley was a fruitcake; he had all of his players wear gaudy green-and-gold uniforms with white shoes, had them grow mustaches, and gave them colourful nicknames like "Blue Moon" and "Catfish". He also championed orange baseballs, and planted a mechanical gopher in the ground to give the umpire fresh baseballs.
        He was also committed to winning, and that's what you want most from an owner. Finley's excesses would eventually be a bit much; in 1973 he tried to fire a player in the middle of the World Series, prompting manager Dick Williams to resign in disgust. Finley later tried to sell several of his superstars because he was running low on cash, but was stopped by commissioner Bowie Kuhn. The team sunk back to the bottom of the league, and Finley sold it.
        In the Cy Young balloting, Perry was followed by the incredibly durable knuckleballer Wilbur Wood, and Mickey Lolich. While both those guys had terrific years, I think I would rather have had Catfish Hunter and Jim Palmer. Hunter was the Athletics' best pitcher, and had one of his best seasons. Palmer won 20+ games for the third straight year.