Ken Davidoff's baseball insider

At the general managers' meetings, a gentleman named Kevin Bender made the rounds and passed out copy of a DVD called "Ball Talk: Baseball's Voices of Summer." Filmed in 1988, it features interviews with six Hall of Fame broadcasters: Mel Allen, Red Barber, Jack Brickhouse, Jack Buck, Curt Gowdy and Ernie Harwell. Sadly, only Harwell is still with us.

I watched the DVD while in California, and I thought it was pretty good. Good enough for one of you to enjoy.

Since I can't think of a trivia question pertinent to this DVD, I'll ask one related to current events. Tony Pena is about to be named the Yankees' seventh bench coach in as many years. The first person who names all seven, in the proper order, will get the DVD. E-mail me at kdavidoff@newsday.com.

UPDATE: Congrats to Dennis, who knew the precise order of Yankees bench coaches since 2003: Don Zimmer in '03, Willie Randolph in '04, Joe Girardi in '05, Lee Mazzilli in '06, Don Mattingly in '07, Rob Thomson in '08 and Tony Pena in '09.

When I checked into this hotel Sunday night, I watched this DVD, which features the original highlight films of the 1987 and 1991 World Series, both won by the Twins.

In watching, I was taken aback by how dissimilar the rosters were, particularly the pitching staffs. The Twins used eight pitchers in the '87 Fall Classic, and nine completely different pitchers in '91.

So to win this DVD, name the seven position players who took part in both the '87 and '91 World Series for the Twins. E-mail your answer to me at kdavidoff@newsday.com.

If no one can come up with all seven names in 24 hours, I'll give it to the person who comes the closest.

I received a DVD of Bud Greenspan's "Pride and Prejudice: The Larry Doby Story," (you can see I grabbed this photo from that site) and I thought it was a good biography of Doby, as well as a good history of his era. In 1997, I had the privilege of interviewing Mr. Doby at his home in Montclair, New Jersey, in anticipation of the 50th anniversary of his major-league debut. Mr. Doby was soft-spoken, but he politely answered all of the questions I asked him. It couldn't have been easy talking so much about such a painful period.

Anyway, I'll give the DVD to the first person who can answer this question:

If you were to write a comprehensive history of the 1978 Yankees, you would have to mention Doby, even though he didn't work for the Yankees. What tangential role did he play in that memorable season?

The first person who e-mails the correct answer to kdavidoff@newsday.com will get the DVD.

WE HAVE A WINNER!: whynot was the first to answer correctly that Larry Doby replaced Bob Lemon as the White Sox manager in 1978, and Lemon wound up replacing Billy Martin as the Yankees manager and leading the Yankees to the World Series title.

Spoke a few hours ago with Mike Schmidt, who unwittingly stirred it up a couple of weeks ago when his e-mail to the Phillies became public. He regretted that he came off as trashing the Mets.

"I shouldn't have said '(The Mets) know you're better than they are," Schmidt said. "It's something I might have said if I was in uniform, in the clubhouse. 'They know you're better than they are,' that's kind of a tough comment. Maybe 'You know you're better than they are' would've been better.

"I didn't mean it to be disrespectful. ...Basically, both teams have got to feel they're better than the other team. For me, the most important stuff in the e-mail was the other stuff, about thinking small."

The truth is that, if the Phillies hadn't been so mindless about posting the e-mail where nosy media folks like myself could see it, this never would have become a story.

Meanwhile, Schmidt is promoting his involvement with this cause. This is especially relevant for men in their late 40s and early 50s. Schmidt himself is dealing with an enlarged prostate.

Here is my Midweek Insider, which discusses a key role that Jason Giambi played in recent Yankees, off-field history. Thanks to Newsday teammate Jim Baumbach for the initial tip on this one.

And your contest winner is...Dennis! He wins my copy of Mel Stottlemyre's book, because he correctly identified the 18 MVPs, nine Cy Young Award winners and 21 Rookies of the Year whom Stottlemyre has called teammates (as a player, coach or manager).

Here is the correct list:

MVPs: Jeff Bagwell, Yogi Berra, Ken Caminiti, Jose Canseco, Roger Clemens, George Foster, Jason Giambi, Keith Hernandez, Elston Howard, Jeff Kent, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Don Mattingly, Kevin Mitchell, Thurman Munson, Alex Rodriguez, Ichiro Suzuki, Joe Torre

Cy Youngs: Roger Clemens, David Cone, Doug Drabek, Whitey Ford, Dwight Gooden, Randy Johnson, Sparky Lyle, Bret Saberhagen, Frank Viola

Rookies of the Year: Stan Bahnsen, Curt Blefary, Jeff Bagwell, Jose Canseco, Chris Chambliss, Vince Coleman, Dwight Gooden, Ron Hansen, Steve Howe, Derek Jeter, David Justice, Chuck Knoblauch, Tony Kubek, Raul Mondesi, Thurman Munson, Eddie Murray, Lou Piniella, Darryl Strawberry, Ichiro Suzuki, Tom Tresh, Bill Virdon

Dennis correctly identified all 48. Dennis, e-mail me your address, and I'll send you the book.

Brian Rippeon finished second with 45, followed by Jim with 43 and Carl Carrie and Larry Nagengast with 42 each. Jim deserves special credit for alerting me to four Rookies of the Year that I had missed - Bahnsen, Blefary, Hansen and Tresh. One of these times, I'll do a contest without any problems.

Just finished "Pride and Pinstripes: The Yankees, Mets, and Surviving Life's Challenges," an autobiography that Mel Stottlemyre wrote with John Harper of the Daily News.

Mel is one of my all-time favorite people I've covered. He is a true hero who handled everything that has come his way _ and a lot has come his way _ with grace and dignity. And Harp did a great job putting that personality into words.

There's a chapter on how Mel lost his 11-year-old son, Jason, to leukemia, and it's just heart-shattering. Mel and his wife, Jean, displayed tremendous courage in going back to this very difficult time in their life, in 1981, and recalling what it was like and how it impacted them and their two other sons, Mel Jr. and Todd.

There's Mel's story of how he handled his own cancer diagnosis, multiple myeloma, and how he continues to battle it.

And on the lighter side, there is a plethora of great baseball stories. From his pitching days with the Yankees, as he pitched in the 1964 World Series as a rookie and then never again made the postseason.

There are great stories from his time as the Mets' pitching coach, from 1984 through 1993. My favorite is how, in the 12th inning of 1986 NLCS Game 6, that incredible game that I included among my personal favorites here, Mets manager Davey Johnson turned to Mel and said, "You know, you just gotta take in every minute of this. You really gotta smell the roses and enjoy all of this.'

And there are even more stories about his time as the Yankees' pitching coach, from 1996 through 2005. Countless George Steinbrenner tales. Stories about in-fighting with Billy Connors.

Perhaps the freshest aspect, something I haven't seen before, is a real breakdown of the decisions Mel and Joe Torre made during the 2004 ALCS that led to the collapse against the Red Sox. To quickly summarize: Mel wonders whether he had called for a pitchout on the first pitch to Bill Mueller in the ninth inning of Game 4, when Dave Roberts stole second and eventually scored the tying run. He wishes he and Torre had lifted Tom Gordon one batter sooner in Game 5. He wonders whether Javier Vazquez, not Kevin Brown, should've started Game 7, although he points out that they had questions about Vazquez health and toughness.

Anyway, what struck me most about Mel is how much greatness he has personally witnessed. So here's your trivia question:

When you combine his playing career (1964-74 with the Yankees), and four coaching stops (1984-93 with the Mets, 1994-95 with Houston, 1996-2005 with the Yankees and 2008 with the Mariners). Mel has been on the same team as 18 Most Valuable Players, nine Cy Young Award winners and 21 Rookies of the Year. These include his teammates as a player, his superiors (managers and coaches) when he played, players on a team he coached, managers under whom he coached and fellow coaches.

Some players are in two columns. For instance, to use one you'll get, anyway, Dwight Gooden counts as both a Rookie of the Year and as a Cy Young Award. Guys who have won the same award more than once, like Roger Clemens and his seven Cy Youngs, count just once in each column.

So whoever can send me the most correct answers at kdavidoff@newsday.com, in the next 24 hours, will get my Stottlemyre book. And anyone who's a Yankees or Mets fan, or just wants to read about someone dealing with loss and adversity, would do well to get a copy for yourself.

Just finished a book, "How Bill James Changed Our View of Baseball," which features essays by people in the baseball reporting/statistical analysis communities about James' impact on the game.

I enjoyed it enough that I want to pass it onto someone to enjoy it, as well. But since not everyone here (coughBobTuftscough) is a fan of James' work, let's keep this one simple.

Here are the contest rules: The first person to e-mail me at kdavidoff@newsday.com and express interest in the book, will get the book. If I receive no such e-mails after 24 hours, I will send the book to Bob T., who will use it for his fireplace just like Homer utilized "The Bridges of Madison County" in this episode.

Thanks to Leon Schweir, executive producer of the Big Ten Network, I now have what I think is the definitive list of Bobby Murcer's 31 broadcast partners.

Leon worked at MSG Network (my new corporate sibling) during the Yankees' time on MGS's air, 1989-2001, and he has an extremely sharp memory. Leon pointed out that Bobby actually worked with 32 partners, if you count Mike Crispino, who occasionally did play-by-play on MSG. But none of you submitted Crispino, anyway, so we won't count him (no disrespect intended if you're reading, Mike) for our purposes.

The winner is Tim Boat, who came up with 29 names. Tim missed only the legendary Mel Allen and Dave Cohen, both pictured here; I hope you know who is whom. I will mail Tim my copy of Bobby's book, Yankee for Life. I encourage the rest of you to read it.

Dennis came in a close second with 28, followed by Jim and Brian Mac Millan with 26 each.

Here are the 31 correct answers:

1) Mel Allen
2) Rick Cerone
3) David Cohen
4) David Cone
5) John Flaherty
6) Joe Girardi
7) John Gordon
8) Greg Gumbel
9) Hawk Harrelson
10) Fran Healy
11) Tommy Hutton
12) Tommy John
13) David Justice
14) Jim Kaat
15) Michael Kay
16) Tony Kubek
17) Al Leiter
18) Mickey Mantle
19) Tim McCarver
20) Frank Messer
21) Paul Olden
22) Paul O'Neill
23) Lou Piniella
24) Phil Rizzuto
25) Spencer Ross
26) Tom Seaver
27) Ken Singleton
28) Dewayne Staats
29) Al Trautwig
30) Suzyn Waldman
31) Bill White

I'm still working on it.

There are two more people I'm trying to contact who might have the precise answer. If neither person comes through, then I'm just going to send a book to each of the four people who took the time to enter.

I knew I shouldn't have tried a contest.

Up here at Fenway - there doesn't appear to be anything new on the trade front for the Yankees.

Thanks to the IMDb for the photo.