London Calling

Heading to England for the weekend to find (best I can) and write about the passion of the Premier League leading into the season. I can only hope to learn as much as An American Coach in London:

If you have any ideas or thoughts or suggestions … please include them in the comments or send them here. I have a few cool things going in England, but I can always use more.

In the meantime, the BR Hall of Fame is getting fascinating. All of the numbers will be available at the end, but you should know that in the last batch, current Hall of Famers Cap Anson, Charlie Gehringer, Paul Molitor (wow, Molitor?), Arky Vaughan (Bill James’ second-best shortstop ever!). Eddie Murray (3,000 hits! 500 homers!), Dizzy Dean, Phil Niekro and Robin Roberts ALL failed to get 75% of the vote. They will all get one more shot as the loser’s bracket comes back around but … pretty stunning stuff. The BR Hall of Fame will be mega-exclusive.

And so I’m fascinated what will happen this go-around. I put up 15 new players -- 13 current Hall of Famers, plus one who many think did not get a fair shake (Kevin Brown) and probably the most iconic Japanese player ever (Sadaharu Oh). Early vote signals suggests ALL OF THEM will have a tough time getting the necessary 75%. A pattern definitely seems to be developing.

Also, a little bit of housekeeping:

1. I am updating the BR Hall of Fame page as players are elected in. I am filling in the Hall of Famers bios as time permits -- I’m pretty far behind right now, but I’ll catch up.

2. The NBC Links page now links to … NBC’s Archive Page for me. They are continuously working on improving this page, which I appreciate.

3. NBC has a new RSS Feed for my stuff.

4. I hope you are enjoying the Favorite Athlete series. Thursday’s entry -- Jonah Keri on Tim Raines -- is a lot of fun. There are a few more really good ones on the way.

5. I’ve got lots and lots of posts in the works including:

-- Ceremony of the Keys.

-- How my daughter learned to stop worrying and like baseball (sort of).

-- Bonds.

-- How this time I really did pick my Premier League team.

-- Two amazing running backs.

-- Pixifoods revisited.

-- My new favorite informercial.

-- The best baseball team featuring players who never played in the big leagues (BR request)

OK. Gotta get to the airport.