In a period running less than three months in the second half of last year, two and a half professional sports teams were sold for these astounding amounts: Miami Marlins $1.2 billion, Houston Rockets $2.2 billion and 49 percent of the Brooklyn Nets, valuing the team at $2.3 billion.

Those are b’s, not m’s, and they require extra zeros. Coupled with current events, they prompted an e-mail from Fay Vincent, the former baseball, who obviously is paying closer attention that most others, including a newspaper sports editor, who he mentioned but I have intentionally omitted.

“How can gambling be so important,” Vincent wrote, “that it is seriously affecting the prices being paid for sports franchises and yet so little is being written about what is going to have to be done to establish the new context for all sports in this country? How can the media not be at least trying to spell out the effects of an economic revolution that is about …

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Either baseball players have become better in recent years or baseball writers have become dumber.

I reach this conclusion based on the results of the writers’ Hall of Fame voting for 2018, announced Wednesday evening. Exactly half of the 422 voting writers checked off the maximum 10 players on their ballots. That 50 percent ratio was virtually the same as last year’s 50.4 percent.

“In recent years, we have been in the 50% range,” said Jack O’Connell, secretary-treasurer of the Baseball Writers Association. “Also, this year nobody voted for just one guy. That never happened before in the years I have been doing this, since 1995.”

In other words, writers are eager to vote early and often, voting for more players than writers had voted for previously. There was such a rabid desire to vote for more players that a year ago the BBWAA adopted a motion calling for an increase from 10 to 12 in the maximum number of players writers could vote for. However, the Hall of Fame’s board of directors rejected the motion.

While I reject the HOF rejection …

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No one, as far as I know, has ever accused Frank Coonelly of being funny, but last week the Pittsburgh Pirates’ president, said something that, though unintentional, turned out to be very funny.

I called Coonelly to ask him about the Pirates’ trades, within a week, of their two best players, pitcher Gerrit Cole and Andrew McCutchen. In particular, I wanted to find out the fans’ reaction. It’s not every week that a team trades its two best players.

“I’m not sure this is the right venue,” Coonelly said. “We’re going directly to the fans and talking to them.”

As Coonelly spoke on the telephone Friday, Pirates’ fans were already talking. More than 50,000 had signed an on-line petition (change.org) demanding that Bob Nutting relinquish control of the team. For the past decade, Nutting has been chairman of the board.

“Pittsburgh is a baseball town that is being destroyed by a greedy owner,” the petition read. “There are so many loyal fans who truly care and support this team through thick and thin. We deserve better. … “

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