Gammons' Hall of Fame Speech

If you love baseball, truly love baseball, as I do, there are a few points where Peter Gammons' speech last week at the Baseball Hall of Fame, where he receieved the Spink Award, will remind you why. It might even make it a little bit dusty in the room where you read it. The Eckersley story from 1978 is what did it for me. This speech is an homage to love of the greatest game.

Last week the Globe's Dan Shaughnessy provided this reminder of why Gammons may be the greatest and is undoubtedly the most influential sportswriter of all time. Gammons has lost a little off of his fastball (Shaughnessy, who could not resist making an unnecessary dig even in this piece, has lost a lot off of his best stuff) but he was still as much a part of my teen years as insecurity and an endless matabolism.

(You'll note that I have continued the great Rebunk tradition of coming to a topic a few days after its expiration date. Rock on. So you may as well check out this lengthy feature from the July 31 New York Times Magazine about the Mets and the cultivation of beisbol in the Dominican.)