To paraphrase late President Ronald Reagan, there they go again.

When Reagan, then the Republican presidential candidate, initially said “there you go again,” he was mocking President Jimmy Carter in a presidential debate. I borrow the phrase to describe yet another change the Hall of Fame is making in its format for voting by what it used to call its veteran committee but it now calls its era committees.

I call it the Jane Forbes Clark show.

Jane Forbes Clark is the chairman of the Hall’s board of directors. She is the heiress to the Singer Sewing Machine fortunes, owns much of Cooperstown, N.Y., and runs the Hall of Fame as her private fiefdom, doing with it whatever she wants when she wants.

The Hall’s announcements usually attribute developments to its board of directors, but the board does her …

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We have to stop saying “if George Steinbrenner were alive,” but if George Steinbrenner were alive, he’d be rolling over in his grave.

Imagine the New York Yankees, in Steinbrenner’s days, basing their future on Gleyber Torres and Clint Frazier. No, you can’t imagine that; it would never have happened.

But then if Steinbrenner were alive, he would have jettisoned Brian Cashman years ago. Cashman, now in his 19th year as general manager, initially lived off the work of wise baseball men who preceded him and continued living off the Steinbrenner fortunes that fueled outrageous payrolls.

Now, under Steinbrenner’s conservative son, Hal, Cashman is trying to make it the way most other teams have to do it. That’s where Torres and Frazier come in. They were the key parts of the trades the Yankees made for Aroldis Chapman and Andrew Miller, two-thirds of the celebrated bullpen troika the Yankees formed last winter.

Cashman made additional deals before the Monday deadline …

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It wasn’t even a deadline trade. It was a trade made 12 days after the deadline. But it was nevertheless a trade made late in the season, around the July 31 deadline (this year Aug. 1), and it qualifies as possibly the most celebrated deadline deal of all time.

On Aug. 12, 1987, the Detroit Tigers acquired a 36-year-old pitcher, Doyle Alexander, who they hoped would help get them to the post-season. On the day the Tigers made the trade, they had a 64-46 record and were a game and a half behind Toronto in the American League East. Post-trade, the Tigers won 34 of 52 games and finished two games ahead of the Blue Jays.

Alexander, the new guy in the rotation, started 11 games, won 9 and lost none. The Tigers also won …

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