Sport: Two More Immortals

The Baseball Writers' Association of America last week picked two more mortals (No. 63 & No. 64) for immortality in Baseball's Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, N.Y. The men and their claims to fame:

¶ Jerome Herman ("Dizzy") Dean, 42, a pitcher who knew no peer (and was the first to admit it) during the rowdy days of the famed St. Louis Cardinal "Gas House Gang" in the '30s. The last pitcher in either league to win 30 games in one season (1934), Ol' Diz also holds the National League strike-out record (17 in one game), wound up his flamboyant career with 150 victories, 83 losses. After his pitching days were cut short by an injury in 1937, Diz turned to sports announcing, enriched the language with such phrases as "slud" and "hitterish."

¶ Al Simmons (real name: Aloysius Harry Szymanski), 49, hard-hitting outfielder (lifetime average: .334) whose famed foot-in-the-bucket batting stance was the terror of American and National League pitchers for 20 years (1924-44). As a Philadelphia outfielder in the heyday of Connie Mack's Athletics, Simmons hit over .300 for nine straight seasons, won the American League batting title in 1930 (.381) and 1931 (.390).

Needing 75% of the 264 ballots (each listing ten players) cast by the baseball writers, Dean made the grade with 209, Simmons with 199. Just missing for the second year in a row (by seven votes): New York Giant First Baseman Bill Terry, the last National Leaguer to hit over .400 (lifetime average: .341), later a pennant-winning manager, who made no bones about his dislike for baseball writers. Eligible for the first time, and finishing eighth in the balloting (117 votes): New York Yankee Outfielder Joe DiMaggio.