It Might be Time to Hang Up My Spikes

Doug Harvey

January 15, 2018- The Hall Ball is at an awkward point in its journey. For the last seven and a half years I have traveled all over the United States in an effort to take a picture of every member of the Hall of Fame, living or deceased. I have photographed 310 of the 319 members, with that latter number sure to go up in the coming days with the announcement of the Baseball Writers Association of America on January 24th. Early returns seem to indicate that Chipper Jones, Vlad Guerrero and Jim Thome are locks, while Edgar Martínez and Trevor Hoffman are lingering near the fringes of the threshold 75% of the vote.

If all five are elected it will mean a final class of seven, once you add in the already elected Veteran’s Committee choices of Jack Morris and Alan Trammell. That would be the most people inducted in a single summer since 2006 when Bruce Sutter and 17 former Negro Leaguers were elected during that committee’s final year of existence. There have been ten elections when 7 or more men have been tapped. It happened in the back-to-back years of 1945 and 1946, when the Veterans Committee elected a total of 21 men while the BBWAA elected zero. It happened again in 1971 and 1972, in part because of the introduction of the acceptance of Negro Leaguers in the Hall. That large a class is rare, but not unheard of.

Chances are always good that I will be able to get the whole of this year’s class on Induction Weekend. I know for certain I should be able to photograph a couple even before July. I am confident that I will have a shot with everyone who is going in this year. I have gotten familiar with the events surrounding the new inductees that weekend and I have learned where to linger.

The new guys are not why things are awkward, however. No, what has me a trifle uncomfortable about the project would be the other eight guys I still need, the ones I have been working on for some time. As of last week, I still needed eight living Hall of Famers. I had visited all of the graves and the final pieces of putting this mammoth work to rest were all still walking among us. The list below is of the remaining living players I still need and, if you know anything about the private lives of Hall of Fame baseball players, you will understand why they remain elusive. These names are not the ones who spend much time on the autograph circuit. Most of them have more private post-career lives, typically only making public appearances in their respective home towns if at all. Those men are: George Brett, Ken Griffey Jr., Sandy Koufax, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Nolan Ryan and Tom Seaver.

An astute reader will notice that I previously stated that I needed eight living members but there are only seven names on that list. That is because on Saturday, January 13, the world lost the eighth man. Doug Harvey was such a formidable umpire in his thirty-one-year Major League Baseball career that his nickname came to simply be, God. But, god was mortal in this case, as are we all, and he passed in Visalia, California, his final days spent in hospice care. He left a legacy of fairness and excellence.

I never reached out to Harvey. I had contact information for him but I was desperately trying to coordinate something with Tom Seaver first, so that I would only have to go out to California once. I have had no luck with Mr. Seaver and, as a result, I failed to contact Mr. Harvey. I am sure another piece of me hesitated because I knew he was ill and I have to admit to some discomfort about bothering the family of a very sick man for what still occasionally feels to me like a selfish enterprise.

Now, he has passed. I will spend the next few days looking for information about his funeral and possible burial. As I mentioned in a previous post, six members of the Hall have died after I took their photo. There are also now eleven who have died since I began the project in August of 2010 who I was not able to reach before they passed. Five of those eleven have chosen to be cremated, so there is no guarantee Mr. Harvey will even have a grave for me to visit. Hopefully I will soon learn whether I have a concrete location or if I will be creating another one of the symbolic photos.

There is something different about the death of Mr. Harvey that sets him apart from the other ten that I missed, however. When those other gentlemen died I was still working on visiting all of the gravesites. I had a significant portion of the project to complete. While it was unfortunate that I could not get to men like Bob Feller and Harmon Killebrew, I knew that was an inevitability and accepted it as a risk while I traveled to the four corners of America to complete the rest.

But, before Saturday and Harvey’s death, I had visited all of the graves. I was at a point where only those eight living men remained. This is the crux of my discomfort. The inspiration for the project was to find a way to celebrate ALL of the individuals who have been elected into the Hall, whether or not they still had a pulse. I considered my visits to the graves to be respectful and my admiration sincere. I have never thought any part of my project ghoulish.

Except that with these remaining men, I am starting to feel as though I am simply lurking, waiting for them to die. The median age of those seven men is 73. I am only 45 years old, a non-smoker who gets moderate exercise. I could, in all likelihood, live long enough to visit most of the remaining seven at their graves. But, for the love of all that was meant to be honorable and respectful in the project, I simply do not want that. That would be when the project starts to feel macabre in a way that I never intended.

There really does seem to be only one solution. Hand it over, sooner rather than later. Give it to the Hall, if they will take it, even if it is not finished. It is, as I type these words, 97.2% complete. That is a fabulous success rate no matter what baseball statistic you are citing. I will be attending Spring Training in March and, as I mentioned, Induction in July. What I should do is get as many of the remaining photos as I can between now and then and then surrender the ball. Assuming the Hall accepts it, I can always hope that they will get those final few photos. If they don’t… well, then the book I have written will have a very different final chapter than I have been planning.

But, can I? I am not one who easily leaves a job unfinished. Can I really invest all those miles, all those dollars, all those days and nights of driving into the darkest, most remote corners of America and call the job done even if it is incomplete? I honestly don’t know. I’d love to hear what you folks think I should do.

No matter what route I choose, I am not done yet. July is six months away. Many of the Hall of Famers, including Willie Mays, George Brett and Sandy Koufax, spend some time at Spring Training. There is still a chance I will reach them all, even if it is getting a little slimmer every day. I will carry on as I have been for the last 2,700 days, hopeful and watchful.

I wish all of the best to the family of Doug Harvey. I know that this is a difficult time for them and I hope the immediate hurt is replaced with fond memories of one of the most powerful voices in the history of the game and a dedicated family man. He is survived by his wife; his brother; his two sons; six grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren. A bountiful family, indeed. I look forward to honoring your beloved patriarch.