He Gets to Make the Call of Fame

Listen! Did you ever look over at a guy and think to yourself, “Boy! I wish I had his job”?

Maybe he was an emcee at a beauty pageant. Maybe he ran golf tours to Hawaii. Maybe he was President. Secretary of State. Ballroom dancer. Donald Trump. Social director on the Love Boat.

Not me. I always envied Jack Lang’s job. It has been called “the happiest job in America.”

Jack Lang calls people up to tell them they’re in the Hall of Fame.

Now, that’s the next best thing to being Santa Claus. Jack is the secretary-treasurer of the Baseball Writers Assn. of America, the organization that is the real umpire of the game, the conscience--and the judge and the jury--of the grand old game in this century.

Of the 20,000 or more players who played in the big leagues, only a handful have made the game’s Valhalla--a little over 200, including umpires, managers, commissioners and executives. It’s easier for the proverbial camel to go through the eye of a needle than for an athlete to get into this kingdom.

The baseball writers are the toughest judges in the country. Their Hall of Fame is a more exclusive fraternity than the House of Lords. You indeed have to be baseball royalty to get in.

First of all, you need 75% of the vote. If the Electoral College had that provision, we’d never get a President.

Would you believe Joe DiMaggio--Joe DiMaggio!--didn’t make it his first year of eligibility? He came up 14 votes short of admission.

Would you believe 11 voters didn’t think Babe Ruth belonged in the Hall of Fame? Would you believe 43 didn’t believe Mickey Mantle did? Henry Aaron, no less, finished up nine votes short of unanimous. At that, he got the highest percentage of anyone but Ty Cobb and Tom Seaver.

Ballplayers are used to calls from the President of the United States, the governor of the state, Bob Hope, or other famous athletes at the high moments of their careers. But the call they wait for most of the rest of their lives is from Jack Lang.

Jack Lang is a sunny, cheerful, optimistic man who never ceased to be a baseball fan. Sometimes, years in a press box can dim the glamour for a man who is hired in part to keep a jaundiced eye on the flaws in the grand old pastime. For Jack Lang, it never did. His love of baseball always shone through the cynicism of press row. One result is, his BBWAA, of all journalistic trade associations, is the most respected--and the most powerful.

So, it falls to him to notify our athletic heroes that they have had their careers validated by inclusion in the most prestigious shrine of them all. They have joined history. Their careers had meaning. His call has become one of the most eagerly awaited events in the lives of many of them.

Some have wept when the Lang call came in. Others have muttered prayers of thanks. None have shrugged or growled. The most hard-bitten of cases have been softened by inclusion. They have won the Oscar.

“It has been my good fortune since 1967 to call every winner of every award the BBWAA hands out,” Lang recalls. “The Hall of Fame calls were highlights.”

The first Cooperstown call he made was to the great Yankee pitcher, Red Ruffing, who was in his last year of eligibility (a player becomes eligible five years after his career is over and for 15 years thereafter). “He was so nervous, he was out driving around Cleveland in his car. He was afraid to know,” Lang recalls.

In 1968, Lang put through one of his most poignant calls. “When I was a kid back in Brooklyn in 1935, I remember hanging over a fence one day begging a player named Joe (Ducky) Medwick for an autograph. Now, Joe was a kind of surly sort in those days, but he grudgingly gave me the autograph. Thirty-three years later, I call him up to tell him he made the Hall of Fame!”

“I never call losers,” Lang admits. “I only bring good news.” He broke this rule only once, he says. The late Roy Campanella, in his first year of eligibility, had come up a few ballots short of inclusion. He had asked Lang to phone him in any event. “I don’t call losers, I hate to disappoint,” Lang told him. “Call me anyway,” Campy instructed. “I did,” Lang recalls, “the only loser I ever called. Campy said, ‘That’s OK, Jack. The good Lord will take care of me next year.” Adds Jack: “He did.”

When Mickey Mantle was called in 1974, his first thought was, “Did Slick make it?” Slick was his nickname for his Yankee colleague Whitey Ford. “Yep. You’re an entry,” Lang told him. Mantle and Ford set the Bloody Mary record the morning of the press conference, Lang recalls.

He almost didn’t get Ralph Kiner in Ralph’s final year for inclusion. “His mother-in-law kept his phone tied up for hours. He almost missed the call.”

Willie Mays, believe it or not, missed unanimous selection by 23 votes, Lang recalls. (No one has ever gotten in unanimously.) But, when Willie arrived, he got even. At the press conference, he was asked who was the greatest player he ever saw. “Me,” Willie responded.

Lang was occasionally robbed of the pleasure of personal notification. When he tried to reach Luis Aparicio in 1984, the old White Sox shortstop was broadcasting a game in his native Venezuela. “They put me through, not to Luis, but to the public-address announcer. He promptly got on the P.A. to announce it not only to Luis but the entire ballpark.”

On Wednesday, Jack was hoping to make a call to San Francisco. Like a lot of us, he was hoping Orlando Cepeda would get in. “I’ve voted for him for eight years,” Lang admitted. “But he missed by seven votes. Since there were 455 votes cast, it means 120 people didn’t vote for him. But, Nellie Fox missed by only two votes in his last year and Jim Bunning missed by eight in 1980.” So, Cepeda became the second-closest call in Hall history.

The voters did give pitcher Steve Carlton 95.5% of the votes (436). “Steve was in Durango, Colorado, waiting to get on a flight to Denver and then New York if he made it. Ten minutes before the flight, he phoned up. ‘Shall I come?’ he asks. ‘Get here!’ we tell him. ‘You’re in!’ ”

While the disappointment for Cepeda was great, Lang defends the Hall’s standards. “I’ve never seen a ballot with more good players on it (than this year),” he admits. “But you have to remember, the Hall is for great players, not good players.”

And when you’re great, Lang will be the first to tell you.