A Fine Line Between Hall and the Door

Reggie Jackson will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame this weekend, which prompted Larry Eldridge of the Christian Science Monitor to research some who came close but didn’t make it to Cooperstown.

Jim Bunning, who won 224 games in 17 years spent mostly with Detroit and Philadelphia, missed because nine New York sportswriters, apparently concerned lest marginal candidates get elected, submitted blank ballots. Bunning received 317 votes. Had those nine writers abstained, that would have been enough, but the blank ballots raised the total number to 427--leaving Bunning four votes short of the 75% needed.

Close miss, cont.: Nellie Fox, a second baseman and .288 hitter over 19 seasons, mostly with the White Sox, received 295 votes out of 395 cast--missing by two votes. His supporters noted that those 297 votes came to 74.7% of the total--which could be rounded up to the necessary 75. The Hall of Fame has never rounded off vote totals this way, however, so Fox has the dubious honor of coming the closest of any player in history without getting in.

Trivia time: How many golfers have won both the PGA and the Southern California PGA championships?

Poker face: Philadelphia Phillie General Manager Lee Thomas gets much of the credit for bringing John Kruk, Lenny Dykstra, Terry Mulholland, Tommy Greene, Curt Schilling, Mitch Williams and David West together to form a winning unit.

Thomas told Frank Fitzpatrick of the Philadelphia Inquirer his secret in negotiating trades: “I try not to seem overeager. I’m putting myself in the other general manager’s place when we’re talking. What do they think Lee Thomas is trying to do and what are his thoughts? I don’t ever want to let them know what I’m thinking. If I’m thinking, ‘Boy, I’ve got to have that guy,’ and they know it, I know they’ve got me.”

Rolling along: Harry Sullins is competing in his 236th consecutive bowling tournament this week in the $148,000 Wichita Open. His streak began in 1986.

Right resume: Before Kevin Constantine was hired as the San Jose Sharks’ coach, he sent team officials several faxes chronicling the successes in his career. Among them:

“In Rochester (Minn.), the team went from national champions the year before I arrived to national champions again in one year.”

Loves the heat: Stock car champion Dale Earnhardt is known as “The Intimidator” because of his driving tactics, but it could also be for the way he loves racing in 100-degree summer heat.

During a delay while the track was being repaired last Sunday at Talladega, Ala., Earnhardt, 41, said: “When we got out of the cars I saw all those kids over there getting oxygen. I felt great. I said to myself, ‘I’ve got 20 more years in this sport.’ ”

Trivia answer: Four: Jerry Barber, Jim Ferrier, Paul Runyan and Olin Dutra, who won the SCPGA six times between 1930 and 1940. Dutra is the only one to win both in the same year, 1932.

Quotebook: Tom Lasorda on hitting, from “Baseball Quotations”: “Think about each pitch like you think about women, then select one which is particularly appealing.”