Jim Bunning, labor activist

Jim Bunning hasn't always been a cranky nutcase Senator. He was as you so often hear, a very good pitcher. He was also instrumental in the hiring of Marvin Miller and the formation of the players' union.

Miller met with Bunning and the search committee in 1965. Free agency wasn't even a gleam in Andy Messersmith's eye yet, and the players' complaints at that point centered mostly on a pension plan that its union had long underfunded. "I was doing my level best to try and understand what their problems were," Miller says, "what they hoped their organization could become. I was having a terrible time, because whenever I would manage to steer the conversation that way, I would get responses about the pension plan and almost nothing else. Finally, I said, 'You know, there are other things to be concerned about.' At that point, Bunning opened up a little. He talked about scheduling problems, about back-to-back doubleheaders, getaway days, playing at night and having to take a plane in the middle of the night to another city and having to play the next day — all kinds of problems like that. And he was pretty voluble about such things once I primed the pump a little."

Of course, even then, says Miller, "He was way to the right."

And now?

Miller and Bunning remained friendly over the years, even after the latter entered politics. (He sought out Miller's advice when he was mulling a run for governor of Kentucky.) From afar, Miller followed Bunning's 2004 Senate campaign, during which the senator did just about everything short of howl naked at the moon. "Peculiar" is Miller's gentle characterization of his old friend's behavior. "I tell you," he says with a small sigh, "I'm a little worried about him."