Tuesday, September 14, 2010

On the Beat with Jim Deshaies

In the "leaderboards" Section on the Baseball-Reference page for Jim Deshaies, you will see he got a Hall of Fame vote in 2001. That's a bit unusual for a pitcher with a career record of 84-95 over 12 seasons.
I am sure some reporter probably voted for Deshaies because he liked him and figured it would be cool for Deshaies to get a vote. No matter the reason, Deshaies logged in a vote to the HOF. (I would probably incorporate that onto my business card if I was Deshaies.)
He chuckled a bit when I asked him about it. I wasn't being sarcastic. I told him I thought it was pretty cool.
A special tip of my reporter's cap goes to my nephew Matt, who spotted and recognized Deshaies on the field. Once Matt pointed out the former pitcher, I wasn't going to let him escape without trying.

2 comments:

night owl said...

Jim Deshaies is a great guy. I've interviewed him several times as he's from the area.

The reporter who placed a HOF vote for Deshaies was Richard Justice from the Houston Chronicle. He was "provoked" by someone who knew Deshaies and created a tongue-in-cheek website called "Put J.D. in the Hall of Fame." The site was hysterical.

The whole thing was amusing at the time, although I know some people would get riled up about a reporter "wasting" a vote on Deshaies.

Johngy said...

Thanks for the extra info. I was hesitant about asking him about that, because I didn't want him to think I was mocking him. I thought it was interesting (not that I'd want every player getting a vote like that). Anyway, he was very nice about it and we even talked after for a bit.