When I heard the news that longtime Royals broadcaster Fred White decided to retire after 40 years with the Royals due to a serious health issue, I hoped he would recover from his illness and enjoy his retirement. But the next day, White died from complications from melanoma.

It’s a sad end for a broadcast legend such as White, but he lived full life a lot of folks would envy. In 1973, He began his Royals career as a part-time announcer for the Royals TV broadcasts. When Royals broadcaster Buddy Blattner retired in 1975, White teamed up with Denny Matthews for the Royals radio broadcasts.

Denny and Fred were a fixture of Royals radio broadcasts during the team’s glory days, announcing the 1980 and 1985 World Series and many playoff games. It was White who announced George Brett’s three-run homer off Goose Gossage in the 1980 ALCS and Brett’s 3,000 hit in Anaheim. He also called Bo Jackson’s first big league home run. Denny and Fred worked well together, with their similar announcing styles and their sense of humor. The term “Denny and Fred” or “Fred and Denny” became a lexicon of Royals baseball in the Midwest.

By 1998, the Royals were in decline and the Royals and Entercom, the company responsible for Royals broadcasts, fired Fred White after 25 years with the team. A young broadcaster from Minnesota named Ryan Lefebvre took White’s place. Royals fans were outraged by the move.

After 25 faithful years of service with the Royals, you could understand if White became angry or bitter about being fired. But Fred White wasn’t that type of guy. Instead, he supported Lefebvre and the two became good friends. White took a job with the Royals as the director of broadcast services for the Royals Radio Network, taking a struggling radio affiliate network and making it into the largest baseball radio network in the American League. White also directed activities for former players in the Royals Alumni program.

In 2001, White rejoined the Royals as a part-time announcer. Listening to Denny and Fred again was like listening to the Royals in the old days, even if the current Royals teams weren’t that good.

White didn’t have a catchphrase or even a distinctive voice like Vin Scully. He just had that smooth, Midwestern voice that called a baseball game like it should be called. When I was younger and even recently, listening to Fred White call a game with Denny Matthews or Ryan Lefebvre was a treat, no matter how good or bad the Royals played. Fred will be missed, but he will not be forgotten.

BBA Selects Kimbrel, Valverde For Goose Gossage Award

In earlier voting this postseason by the Baseball Bloggers Alliance, Atlanta Braves closer Craig Kimbrel won the Willie Mays Award for top rookie handily while the American League race for that award was much tighter. With the Goose Gossage Award, handed out to the best reliever, Kimbrel got to see how the other half lives, at least somewhat.

Kimbrel beat Milwaukee’s John Axford by 13 points in the votes submitted by the National League voters of the Alliance, accumulating 78 points and garnering 12 first place votes. Axford, on the other hand, received 65 points on the strength of seven first place selections. Kimbrel’s bullpen teammate Johnny Venters was a very distant third with nine total points.

The race in the American League was a little more anti-climatic as Detroit closer Jose Valverde gained 13 first place votes on his way to a league-leading 74 point total. Two New York Yankees followed him in the voting, with Mariano Rivera receiving four first place votes and 56 total points while David Robertson gained 39 points for third.

The complete voting results are as follows (first place votes in parenthesis):

American League
Jose Valverde, Detroit (13) 74
Mariano Rivera, New York (4) 56
David Robertson, New York (3) 39
Jonathan Papelbon, Boston (1) 21
Koji Uehara, Texas (1) 6
Alfredo Acevas, Boston (1) 5
Neftali Feliz, Texas 2
Greg Holland, Kansas City 2
Chris Perez, Cleveland 2
Brandon League, Seattle 1
Vinnie Pestano, Cleveland 1

National League
Craig Kimbrel, Atlanta (12) 78
John Axford, Milwaukee (7) 65
Johnny Venters, Atlanta (1) 9
Joel Hanrahan, Pittsburgh 8
JJ Putz, Arizona 7
Sean Marshall, Chicago 6
Heath Bell, San Diego 3
Tyler Clippard, Washington 3
Sergio Romo, San Francisco 1

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance was formed in the fall of 2009 to encourage cooperation and collaboration between baseball bloggers of all major league teams as well as those that follow baseball more generally. As of this writing, the organization consists of 316 blogs spanning all 30 major league squads as well as general baseball writing.

The BBA is organized under a similar structure as the Baseball Writers of America, where blogs that follow the same team are combined into “chapters” and only two votes from the chapter on an award are counted. The blog chapters that are focused on general baseball were allowed two votes as well, which they could use both on the same league or split between the two leagues.

Chapters generally followed one of two methods when casting their ballot. Either representatives of the chapter were given the ballots for voting or a “group ballot” was posted, accounting for both of their votes.

Notably, though the Alliance’s awards come out well before their official counterparts, the BBA selections have matched those of the Baseball Writers of America in all but two instances in the past two years. This, of course, does not include the Goose Gossage Award that is exclusive to the BBA.

Ballots are posted on the respective blogs and for this award, were tabulated on a 5-3-1 point scale for first through third place. In the interest of transparency, links are given below for the ballots. Chapter affiliation is in parenthesis. Those chapters that decided on the group method are noted with an asterisk.

American League
Baltimore Sports and Life (Baltimore)
Baseball Is My Boyfriend (Texas)*
Baseball North (Toronto)
Boston Red Thoughts (Boston)*
Contract Year (Oakland)*
The Flagrant Fan (General)
Kings of Kauffman (Kansas City)*
Lady At The Bat (New York)
Misc. Baseball (History)
Motor City Bengals (Detroit)
North Dakota Twins Fan (Minnesota)
The Rays Rant (Tampa Bay)
Seattle Mariners Musings (Seattle)
Seedlings To Stars (Other)
Some Thoughts On Baseball (Toronto)
Tigers Amateur Analysis (Detroit)
The Tribe Daily (Cleveland)*
Twins On Twins (Minnesota)

National League
Appy Astros (Houston)
Blog Red Machine (Cincinnati)
Cincinnati Reds Blog (Cincinnati)
Dugger Sports (Philadelphia)
The Eddie Kranepool Society (New York)*
The Flagrant Fan (General)
Misc. Baseball (History)
On The Outside Corner (St. Louis)
Phils Baseball (Philadelphia)
Prose and Ivy (Chicago)*
Raise The Jolly Roger (Pittsburgh)
RJ’s Fro (San Diego)
Rockies Woman (Colorado)
22 Gigantes (San Francisco)
Victoria Seals Baseball Blog (Other)
Websoulsurfer (San Diego)
Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke? (Pittsburgh)

Prior Winners: 2010: Rafael Soriano, Tampa Bay; Brian Wilson, San Francisco

The official website of the BBA is located atbaseballbloggersalliance.wordpress.com. The BBA can be found on Twitter by the handle @baseballblogs and by the hashmark #bbba. For more information, contact Daniel Shoptaw at founder@baseballbloggersalliance.com.

Every baseball nerd worth his weight in Topps cards can vividly recall the events of July 24, 1983 at Yankee Stadium. Whether you were alive and in attendance or not, the film roll itself is replayed consistently for us to witness. Legendary Yankee hurler Goose Gossage was on the mound, Royal U.L. Washington was on first and future Hall Of Famer George Brett was on his way to the plate. The Yankees were ahead 4-3 in the ninth inning and with one swing of the bat, Brett sent a meaningless middle of the year game straight into history. Brett connected with a home run, Yankee manager Billy Martin protested, and the Pine Tar Incident was born.

In the midst of the tirade and subsequent arguments, Brett, Royals manager Dick Howser, Gerald Perry and Rocky Colavito were ejected from the game. Brett was called out, the home run nullified and the Yankees won. That is where most fans think the situation ended.

But the Royals protested the game. The rule at the time stated that pine tar could not be used more than 18 inches from the handle of the bat. However, the rule simply stated that if that provision was broken, the bat was to be taken out of play. There were no provisions for the hitter to be called out or there to be an ejection. The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland used his knowledge of other rules and ultimately the rule of “Umpire Prerogative” to decide the consequences of the illegal bat.

The protest was taken to Lee MacPhail, American League President, and upheld. The two teams would meet on a mutual day off to resume the game. The home run would stand, as would the ejections, and the game would resume on August 18.

Pine tar was not outlawed because it would give a player an advantage when striking the ball. It was outlawed in order to keep more balls in play and thus not use more new baseballs then necessary during a game. It was simply because of the black mark it would leave on the ball.

Billy Martin, not to be outdone, filed his own protests to attempt to intervene. In front of a new umpire crew, Martin appealed to each base prior to the first pitch being thrown to Hal McRae on August 18th. Martin contended that Brett did not touch all the bases and the umpire crew could not dispute that fact. However, a signed affidavit from the original umpire crew was produced stating that Brett had come into contact with all four bases. Obviously, the league was ready for Billy Martin.

Not able to change the ruling, Martin took matters into his own hands to make the four out affair as big of a laughing stock as he possible could by sending Ron Guidry, a pitcher, to play center field. He would also send his legendary first baseman Don Mattingly to play second base. Mattingly would become the first left handed second baseman in almost two decades due to the antics of his manager.

The Yankees would send George Frazier to the mound to retire Hal McRae almost a month after the inning started. The Royals closer Dan Quisenberry would pitch a perfect bottom of the ninth to put a win on the board for the Royals and bring to an end a game that is truly legendary.

Bill Ivie is the editor here at I-70 Baseball as well as the Assignment Editor for BaseballDigest.com.
He is the host of I-70 Radio, hosted every week on BlogTalkRadio.com.
Follow him on Twitter here.