COMMENTARY : Would Players, Reporters Do Better Than Fans?

As you know, Mike Schmidt (3B, retired) and Jose Canseco (OF, resting) have been voted by you, the baseball public, onto their respective All-Star teams.

You could analyze this phenomenon in a number of ways. One, many Americans are practical jokers. Two, many Americans are too busy to keep up with the news (for them, this public service announcement: Reagan retired; Orioles in first; Franco still dead). Three, as Dan Quayle once said, it’s a terrible waste to lose your mind.

Personally, I think it’s much too easy to attack Joe and Jane Fan (or Jane Fanda), who could have put, say, Jimmy Hoffa on the team. Certainly, voters have erred more grievously in the past. There is a story of the dead man who was actually elected to political office, and not just some All-Star team. He wasn’t retired. He wasn’t injured. He was dead. Requiescat in pacem.

Let’s try to put ourselves, if gingerly, in the shoes of the honest-to-gosh live person who lost that election. He had to face up to the fact that people believed he was less competent to lead than someone who no longer remembered how to breathe.

Speaking of breathing, how ‘bout them O’s, alive and well and breathing fire, except for Jeff Ballard. More on that later.

Bowie Kuhn resurrected the concept of fan voting, overruling a strong sentiment that he should have introduced simultaneously a literacy test. (Sample question: It’s one, two, how many strikes you’re out in the old ballgame?) But Kuhn wanted all fans, literate or otherwise, to vote, thereby increasing interest in our national game. And, hey, it worked. I’ll bet Pete Rose accumulated more votes over the years than Ronald Reagan, and he wasn’t hitting against Walter Mondale either.

If the fans didn’t name the starting lineup, who would? You could go back to the players, some of whom can name all the teams in their league. Or you could tap the sportswriters, some of whom can name all the teams in their city. Or you could go to Tony LaRussa, who picks the pitchers and reserves with the help of league President Bobby Brown and was sufficiently adept at the business of star-making to leave Ballard off the team. You think the fans could do worse?

But even if you like the concept of fans as voters, you still can’t help but wonder what the person who punched in Schmidt and-or Canseco might have been thinking. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who gets the preponderance of votes. Most people who aren’t victim to Rotisserie-League fever do not pore over the statistics each day, comparing the relative prowess of Felix Fermin and Jody Reed. And since the voting starts early in the season anyway, we vote for the guys we know have done well in the past. Which is why I’m always a little surprised when Hank Aaron doesn’t make it.

In the case of Schmidt, who retired May 29, he’s done a lot of good things in the past. The fans must have figured: “I can vote either for Howard Johnson (a restaurant, after all) or thegreatest third baseman of all time.”

Canseco is a little more puzzling. Last year, he became the first 40-40 man (40 homers, 40 steals), and this year he’s the first 0-2 man (0 at-bats, 2 arrests) to make the All-Star team. He did, however, prompt one of my favorite lines of the baseball season. After being arrested for driving 140 mph, he told Los Angeles Times columnist Scott Ostler that, in his sports car, 140 mph felt like going 60. Ostler said that could be quite dangerous, because when the car is going 40, Canseco might think it has stopped and try to get out.

In any case, unlike Schmidt, who retired for a reason, Canseco wanted to play. He planned to take his first major-league swings this year on Sunday and figured that would have been enough time to have his injured wrist ready by Tuesday. Unfortunately, American League officials determined Canseco maybe didn’t deserve the position and said he can’t play.

You usually need at least two consecutive good seasons to gather enough fan recognition to be voted onto the team, leaving one to wonder why there wasn’t more support for Kevin Costner (brilliant in “Bull Durham” and “Field of Dreams”). Maybe they didn’t know which league he belonged in. Shoeless Joe Jackson (“Field of Dreams” and “Eight Men Out”) could, with a hit next year, possibly make the squad, if not the Hall of Fame.