Max Carey poses with Billy Hamilton's daughters at the Hall of Fame in 1961. (AP)

On occasion, Big League Stew honors a birthday boy per week by taking a longer look at his career. Please join us in lighting the candles.

Twelve players have been inducted into the Hall of Fame as Pittsburgh Pirates. But Willie Stargell is the only Pirates Hall of Famer to have played for the team in the last 40 years.

Max Carey, though, played for the Pirates when they were a serious powerhouse in the National League. In 1911, Carey's first full season,  his teammates included future Hall of Famers in Honus Wagner and player-manager Fred Clarke, as well as future Hall of Fame manager Bill McKechnie (the namesake of the Pirates' spring training facility in Florida).

Carey was a fleet-footed center fielder. He didn't have much power but he did have a knack for hitting singles and then running like the wind. He led the league in steals 10 different times, and his prowess preceded him beyond the majors. A star Negro Leagues pitcher, Smokey Joe Williams, who played against numerous major leaguers in exhibitions games, paid Carey the highest compliment, as recorded on Carey's Hall of Fame page:

He was just as fast between the ears as he was with his feet. That's what made him harder to stop than a run in a silk stocking.

Reds GM Walt Jocketty shrewdly signed Ryan Madson for $8.5 million. (AP)Ryan Madson seemed to have struck it rich in free agency in December.

But now he's going to have to prove himself all over again as a closer if he wants the big, big money.

The AP reported early Wednesday morning that the Cincinnati Reds and Madson had reached an agreement on a one-year contract worth $8.5 million. Great work if you can get it, but nothing close to the $44 million deal Madson reportedly was set to sign with the Philadelphia Phillies a month ago. That deal was apparently nixed by ownership, prompting Phillies' GM Ruben Amaro to turn around and spend $50 million on former Boston Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon.

A month later, something has now become apparent to Madson's agent, Scott Boras: Not only were the Phillies not going to pay his client, but no other teams were going to give Madson $44 million, either. Supply, say good-bye to demand. (And the next time someone insists that Boras could sell sand to Egypt, remember this moment.)

Bud Selig isn't stepping down anytime soon. (AP)No disrespect to Bud Selig, but we've apparently reached the point where it's OK to throw out the old line about pine boxes when it comes to him surrendering his title as commissioner of baseball.

Callous and crude, even when uttered by those of us who like him?

Yes.

But also increasingly possible (by definition, we mean) after ESPN's Buster Olney reported on Tuesday that Selig will receive at least a two-year contract extension when the owners meet later this week. The 2012 season is the last on Selig's current contract and the 77-year-old hasn't been shy about telling people he wants to become a history professor at the University of Wisconsin when he retires from baseball.

But as we've said before, we'd believe it when we see it. Selig has announced and reiterated plans to retire on many different occasions over the past decade, but never actually followed through with them. He's a very stubborn man.

As Pat Lackey wrote on Fanhouse back in 2009:

Don Mattingly proposes an NV MVP do-over if Ryan Braun's appeal is denied later this month. (Getty)So, Don Mattingly proposes re-voting for NL MVP if Ryan Braun is denied his appeal of a positive drug test for a banned substance. Fair is fair, right? Performance enhancing drugs are bad, right? What Mattingly suggests (via ESPN) sounds noble and seems to appeal to fairness, as long as you ignore that he is manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers and thinks Matt Kemp should have won MVP.

"To me Matt was the best player in the game last year," Mattingly said. "Ryan had a great year too.

"But you guys (the media) always ask me about unwritten rules, about catchers and stuff like that. Then we have the unwritten rules about voting, because he wasn't on a winning team. You guys gotta get your unwritten rules together."

Ah, good ol' unwritten rules. And that's the rub, isn't it? (In the world of performance-enhancing drugs, there's the Clear, the Cream and the Rub.)

There's nothing actually written anywhere saying "you'll be stripped of the MVP" if you get caught using banned substances. If Braun's appeal is denied this month (as it probably will be), he will be suspended for the first 50 games of the upcoming Milwaukee Brewers season. That's his penalty. That's the punishment any player in his position can expect. Enacting some kind of ad-hoc retroactive justice would be bad news bears. There's no precedent for going back and re-voting for awards, and to go looking for one invites chaos.

If we're going to slip into our time machine and strip Braun of the award, why stop there?

Will Ozzie Guillen, Albert Pujols or Nolan Ryan be among those featured on "The Franchise?" (AP photos)

One of 2011's most pleasant surprises was the success of Showtime's "The Franchise," the MLB Productions creation that embedded itself with the San Francisco Giants and aired throughout the summer. Though the debut episode was a bit broad, the unfiltered look at a title defense gone sour was great as it became more concentrated on the individual stories in the Giants' clubhouse. From the late-career rise of Ryan Vogelsong to getting behind the beard of Brian Wilson, "The Franchise" became must-see TV for baseball fans who had pined for a "Hard Knocks" view on their favorite sport.

For those of you who also enjoyed the show, the good news is that I'm hearing rumbles that "The Franchise" will return for a second season. The bad news is that no one is yet willing to cough up the identity of the squad. I'm told that it will be announced in the near future.

Intrigued by the mystery of which franchise will be tabbed to drive ratings and premium cable subscriptions, I've created a "wish list" of possible teams and ranked them in loose order with the pros and cons of their separate cases. Which one would be your choice?

Juan Nicasio faced live hitters for the first time since breaking his neck in August. (AP)The scariest injury of the 2011 baseball season is shaping up to become 2012's most inspirational story: Colorado Rockies right-hander Juan Nicasio has taken a major step in his recovery from the broken neck he suffered on Aug. 5.

According to Troy Renck of the Denver Post, Nicasio, who has been throwing off a mound for several weeks in the Dominican Republic, graduated to facing live hitters in a controlled environment (behind the protection of an L screen) on Monday, just five months after Washington's Ian Desmond struck him in the side of the head with a line drive. The contact momentarily knocked him unconscious, causing him to fall and fracture his C-1 vertebrae.

His quick comeback is remarkable. Astonishing even. Those are the words that come to mind when I think about how devastating this injury had the potential to be, compared to where Nicasio is now. The moment it happened, the worst fears going through my mind and the minds of most didn't revolve around a resumption of his playing career, but rather would this 24-year-old man have the opportunity to enjoy a normal life again.

Now, a return to big leagues doesn't just seem possible, but very likely.

What's the best piece of Barry Larkin memorabilia out there? (AP)

It's a tale as old as time: Player is elected to the Hall of Fame, profiteers try to make a buck with their player-related relics, CNBC's resident Twitter maniac Darren Rovell dedicates one of his 300 daily tweets to the newfound demand (or lack thereof).

Curious to see what a few dollars from my Paypal account might get me to commemorate Monday's election of Cincinnati Reds shortstop Barry Larkin to the Hall of Fame, I turned to eBay. Here are some of the items that turned up.

Barry Larkin joins Ron Santo in the Hall of Fame's 2012 class. (Getty)In his prime, the only real question about Barry Larkin was his durability. Would he be healthy enough, and would his career last long enough, in order for him to make the Hall of Fame?

On Monday, he got the call from Cooperstown.

On his Hall third ballot since retiring in 2004, Larkin achieved baseball immortality by getting 86.4 percent of the vote. He got 62.1 percent a year ago, with 75 percent necessary to win. Larkin, who played his entire 19-season career with the Cincinnati Reds, is the 22nd shortstop in Hall history.

In an interview on the MLB Network, Larkin said "it was almost an out-of-body experience" to learn he had been selected. But it was his physical body that had everyone questioning how long he would last. He managed to play in at least 150 games in a season only four times. Only seven times did he play in at least 140 games. But he was able to overcome periodic injuries. After all, here he is — a Hall of Famer.

Former Detroit Tigers and Minnesota Twins pitcher Jack Morris fell short with 66.7 percent of the vote (after getting 53.5 percent a year ago), but appears in decent shape to be elected next season. Former Houston Astros slugger Jeff Bagwell, who probably would have made the Hall already if not for a dubious association with steroids, saw his percentage jump from 41.7 percent to 56.

Former Montreal Expos great Tim Raines had his best showing to date, jumping from 37.5 percent to 48.7. Someday, probably, all of these players will reach Cooperstown. Alan Trammell's chances improved too, after he jumped from 24.3 percent to 36.8; perhaps Larkin's election will get more voters to focus on Trammell's also-worthy career as a shortstop. Here's a link with the full list of results, including those for Larry Walker, Edgar Martinez and Mark McGwire.

But this day belongs to Larkin, a Cincinnati kid who grew up to play with the hometown team, dominating on both sides of the ball and winning a World Series in 1990.