FanNation - The Republic of Sport

By Bill Chuck

I describe myself as a “Baseball Newstalgist,” that is someone who combines news, history and nostalgia hopefully to help readers by informing, illuminating, and reflecting on baseball events of the present and past. I gave myself that title because the title “Jerome Holtzman” was already taken.

Jerome Holtzman, the Hall of Fame baseball writer who created the saves rule and later became Major League Baseball’s official historian, died Saturday at the age of 82. Holtzman worked at the Chicago Sun-Times and the Daily Times, its predecessor, before joining the Chicago Tribune in 1981. “The Dean” retired in 1999, when his friend commissioner Bud Selig named him MLB’s official historian. When I was a kid I read his work in the Sporting News, and I feel like my entire baseball life I’ve been reading his words.

Holtzman attended Northwestern University and the University of Chicago and began his newspaper career as a 17-year-old copy boy. Following two years with the Marines during World War II, he returned to The Daily Times in 1946 to cover prep sports for 11 years. Holtzman began covering baseball in 1957. Membership cards issued by the Baseball Writers Association of America are numbered sequentially, and the standard crack at later reunions with Holtzman was that his number was five.

Amongst other things, Holtzman wrote the annual recap of the preceding season for The Official Baseball Guide and contributed to countless magazines. He was the Cal Ripken Jr. of The Sporting News, writing more than a thousand consecutive weekly columns for the one-time “Bible of Baseball.”

“As a baseball writer, columnist and historian for more than 50 years, Jerome Holtzman was a beloved figure and made an incredible impact on the game,” Commissioner Bud Selig said Monday. Holtzman won the J.G. Spink Award, given annually to the one baseball writer who has exhibited “meritorious contributions” to baseball writing, as well as a spot in the Hall of Fame in 1989.

Feeling that earned run averages and won-lost records were not the most accurate reflection of relievers’ effectiveness, Holtzman created the formula for “saves” in 1959, which was adopted by the game’s Official Rules Committee in 1969. “In the case of Jerome, every one of the closers over the last 30 years … should take out their checkbooks and write a gigantic check to whatever foundation or charity the family directs,” broadcaster and former White Sox pitcher Steve Stone said. “He’s really the person responsible for being able to quantify what has become one of the most important positions on the field.” In my mind, the saves leader should now receive the Jerome Holtzman Memorial Award.

Here’s how Holtzman wrote about saves for MLB.com in 2003, “…in 1959, Elroy Face of the Pirates was the rage. Face was 18-1 in relief. It was and still is generally acknowledged as the greatest season for anyone coming out of the bullpen. The 18 victories in relief is still the Major League record.

I was suspicious and checked the scorebook of a Pittsburgh beat writer and discovered that 10 of Face’s wins came after he had given up the tying or lead run. In effect, they were blown saves. The Pirates had a strong hitting team, known as the Pittsburgh Lumber Co., and took Face off the hook with late-inning rallies. Because he was the pitcher of record he got the win. There is no other way a reliever can win 18 games.

The year before, in 1958, Face had a better year. He had a 5-2 won-loss record. But if my system had been in effect, he would have had 26 saves, which probably would have led the league. In those days the only important stat for a reliever was his earned-run average, and even that wasn’t an accurate measure of his effectiveness because, then as now, many of the runs scored against him are charged to the previous pitcher. Generally, a relievers’ ERA should be 1.00 lower than a starter.

I was then a correspondent for The Sporting News and wrote a letter to J.G. Taylor Spink, its editor and publisher, and enclosed my saves formula. Spink jumped on it. He gave me a $100 or a $200 bonus. I don’t remember which but I do recall him telling me I should be sure to call him if I had any other ideas. I have been barren ever since.”

Holtzman wrote seven baseball books including the classic “No Cheering in The Press Box” which was reissued with six new chapters in 1995. He also authored “Three and Two,” a biography of National League umpire Tom Gorman; “The Commissioners;” “Jerome Holtzman on Baseball”; and “Fielder’s Choice,” an anthology of baseball fiction. His other books, co-written with George Vass, were “The Chicago Cubs Encyclopedia” and “Baseball Chicago Style.”

In a year in which seminal figures like George Carlin, Jim McKay, and Tim Russert have died, we just lost another one in Jerome Holtzman.

Bill Chuck is the creator of Billy-Ball.com (www.Billy-Ball.com) and, with Jim Kaplan, is the author of the book, “Walk-Offs, Last Licks, and Final Outs – Baseball’s Grand (and not so Grand) Finales,” with a Foreword by Jon Miller, published by ACTA Sports, and available worldwide. Autographed first editions are available by contacting, Bill@billy-ball.com or order directly from Acta Sports or from your favorite bookstore.