Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?

In a way, the 2008 Hall of Fame ballot sent out last month by the Baseball Writers' Association of America was another Dear John letter to a pretty special, and largely vanishing, breed of player.

The non-steroid-using participant? Well, maybe, but that's not what I had in mind.

Guys who spent at least parts of their careers cavorting in double-knit, polyester pajamiforms? Pitchers who started every fourth day, rather than every fifth? The last eligible hurler (Tommy John) to have pitched to Mickey Mantle and the last eligible batter ( Dave Concepcion) to have faced Jim Bunning

Yes, yes and yes, actually. But I'm thinking of a different endangered species: The one-team player.

One year ago, when Cal Ripken (98.5 percent of the vote) and Tony Gwynn (97.6 percent) were overwhelmingly chosen for enshrinement, they entered Cooperstown as a Baltimore Oriole and a San Diego Padre, respectively. Period. One-team, one-city, one-fan base guys. No questions about which caps they would wear on their plaques. No rainbow of colors in the audience on induction weekend (orange and black for Ripken, a little more variety for Gwynn but lots of brown for earlier Padres outfits and navy blue from more current versions).

It was the first time a pair of one-team stars went into the Hall together since 1999, when Kansas City's George Brett and Milwaukee's Robin Yount were joined by well-traveled Nolan Ryan. And only the second time since Cincinnati's Johnny Bench and Boston's Carl Yastrzemski were easy choices in 1989.

This year the well-traveled Goose Gossage, who played for nine teams, was the only player elected. Among the top 10 finishers who fell short of the required votes (75 percent), only Red Sox slugger Jim Rice, Reds shortstop Concepcion and Tigers shortstop Alan Trammell started and completed their major league careers with a single franchise. So did Yankees first baseman Don Mattingly (11th among runners-up).

Meanwhile, of the 11 newcomers to the 2008 ballot, none of them was a one-team guy. Not Brady Anderson, not Shawon Dunston, not David Justice, not Chuck Knoblauch and certainly not Tim Raines, the most qualified of the freshly eligible. Raines spread his 23 seasons across six different teams, including 13 with Montreal but another 10 with the White Sox, the Yankees, the A's, the Orioles and the Marlins

And from here, it gets worse. Next year, not one of the 18 likely names on the Hall ballot will be one-team guys. In 2010, there will be two -- Seattle's Edgar Martinez and Cincinnati's Barry Larkin -- out of 15. It will be one out of 18 -- Houston's Jeff Bagwell -- in 2011. Then, in a blip in 2012, three of the seven newbies expected to be showing up on the ballot were one-team guys, though none even remotely resemble a shoo-in: the Twins' Brad Radke, the Angels' Tim Salmon and the Yankees' Bernie Williams

That means just six of the 60 players coming up for consideration over a five-year period (2008-12) spent their whole careers with one team, demonstrating their Hall worthiness (or not) for a relatively loyal and constant group of home fans while weaving himself into his team's local narrative.