GUEST COLUMN

Note: Gene Orza is the retired chief operating officer of the Major League Baseball Players Association. Although he joined the union as a lawyer after Marvin Miller retired as its executive director, he experienced first-hand the ability Miller used to turn the union into one of the most powerful in labor history and the players into the wealthiest union members.

The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Lately starring, I read, Jake Ruppert, Hank O’Day and Deacon White. That’s nice. But a baseball museum with Jake Ruppert, Hank O’Day and Deacon White in it, and not Marvin Miller? Some museum.

The absurdity, in the end, is entirely the Hall’s fault, and no one else’s …

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All right, so the Baseball Hall of Fame has repeatedly refused entry to Marvin Miller and even if it wanted to, the Hall’s committee assigned to Miller’s category of candidates can no longer elect him to membership during his lifetime.

Miller’s lifetime, which lasted 95 years and eight months, ended last Tuesday. If he is elected next year, when he will next be eligible, the election would be a meaningless gesture. There is, however, an idea to honor Miller that would not be meaningless. It comes from a former colleague at The New York Times.

“All teams should wear a black ‘MM’ on uniform sleeves next season,” Ray Corio wrote in an e-mail “in memory of and appreciation for the guy whose impact on the game was as great as Babe or Jackie.”

It’s such a good idea it won’t happen. Or might it?

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Now the Hall of Fame can allow Marvin Miller into its hallowed halls. Baseball owners and executives are safe from Miller, who died Tuesday at the age of 95.

After Hall of Fame committees loaded with current and former management personnel repeatedly rejected Miller, I came to the conclusion they refused him admission not only because he took control of the game away from them but also because they feared what he might say in his induction speech. They would deny that, of course, but those on the committee mostly hated Miller and did not want to hear what he might have had to say.

Not all management people opposed Miller’s election, but most of them on the various committees Miller’s name went before refused to vote for him.

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