They Have Their Own Notes for Malamud . . .

I am both puzzled and annoyed by a remark made in Allan Malamud’s Dec. 14 column. He said that if Bart Giamatti had been commissioner in Ty Cobb’s time, Cobb would have been kept off the Hall of Fame ballot.

There are several things wrong with this statement. Even if Ty Cobb was a rotten human being, he still did more for ex-players than Marvin Miller and Don Fehr combined--which should tell you something about Miller and Fehr.

For all his faults, Cobb never broke the rules the way Pete Rose did, and he never sued the commissioner to avoid punishment.

The rule forbidding players on the commissioner’s ineligible list from appearing on the Hall of Fame ballot was passed two years after Giamatti’s death--never mind that sportswriters like Malamud took it upon themselves to keep Joe Jackson off the ballot for 55 years.

Finally, why the cheap shot against a dead commissioner who cannot defend himself, and whose actions prove he considered the game far more important than any one individual?

RICHARD BLUE

Los Angeles