Heaven and Hell
The novel that made James Fenimore Cooper famous was The Spy: A Tale of The Neutral Ground, published in 1821. Set against the backdrop of the Revolutionary War, it is a twisting story of intrigue, romance and battle. Think A Tale of Two Cities if one of the cities was Rye, New York, and one of the characters was George Washington.
Two hundred years later, another complicated tale of intrigue, romance and battle is being played out in Cooperstown, where Cooper lived for much of his childhood and the last 15 years of his life. He would have been around when a village lad named Abner Doubleday supposedly invented baseball in 1839. Supposedly.
This time around, it’s about the failure of the Baseball Writers of America to elect a new member to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Cooper might have appreciated the machinations, recriminations and frustrations that went into this drama. Curt Schilling, one of the best starting pitchers of his generation, fell seven votes shy of the necessary 75% threshold, in large part because his politics are such that he was rooting for the rioters who stormed the Capitol on January 6. Now that was a scene out of A Tale of Two Cities.
In short, the presence of malice resulted in the absence of a new plaque. To make matters more disappointing, the Hall of Fame has lost 10, count ‘em, 10 members in the last year or so: Al Kaline, Tom Seaver, Phil Niekro, Bob Gibson, Joe Morgan, Lou Brock, Tommy Lasorda, Whitey Ford, Don Sutton and perhaps the greatest of them all, Hank Aaron.
Who’s going to replace them? Well, not Schilling, at least for the time-being. He was snubbed because of the “morality clause” baked into the description of HoF eligibility. It wasn’t just his Stop The Steal stance—it was also his incendiary views on Muslims, Jews and transgender people. As Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson said: “Freedom of speech got your ass out of Cooperstown, bro!”
And it’s not going to be some of the biggest names/biceps at the turn of the century. At least half the voters feel that Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens, and Alex Rodriguez should be disqualified because they used performance-enhancing drugs. ((One couldn’t help but notice ARod sitting on the Inaugural stage, the site of the riot two weeks before, because his paramour Jennifer Lopez performed… well, she actually knocked it out of the park.)
All of this mishigas—sorry, Curt—is turning Baseball’s Eden into a war zone. And that pains me no end. I am a hopeless romantic about the Hall of Fame, as this feature I did for Sports Illustrated for the 50th anniversary of the museum shows:
It’s not just me who feels this way. Many of the players do, too. For years, Ted Williams avoided Induction Weekend, but once he came back for the induction of Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey in 1980, he was hooked like the fish he sometimes caught in Otsego Lake. Here’s The Splendid Splinter: “The fun part for me is reminiscing with the older players. Talking with Joe Sewell about the year he struck out three times in 100-something games—he was still mad at the pitcher who struck him out twice in one game…
“I’m just sorry it took me so long to realize just how special that place is. It’s 100 years of the greatest game ever invented. It revives players and plays that might otherwise be forgotten, and it makes you forget all the bad things about baseball.”
Williams, who passed away in 2002 after championing the candidacies of Negro league and other forgotten players, would not like that the Hall of Fame voting has become one of the bad things about baseball. Somewhere along the line, the voters began taking themselves too seriously and losing sight of the true measure of greatness.
If you want a comp for what’s happened to Schilling, consider the plight of Steve Garvey, a 10-time All-Star—that’s right, 10 times—who set the National League record for consecutive games played. When he retired after the 1987 season, he seemed like a shoo-in. But then he fell victim to schadenfreude—the writers saw him as two-faced—and the outrageous numbers that overshadowed his own, numbers put up by the very players whose use of juice has now put them in purgatory.
As regards Bonds, Clemens, A-Rod et al, that is a thorny question: To be in, or not to be in. Next year, when David Ortiz becomes eligible, the issue will once again raise its ugly head. Over the years, I’ve softened a bit on allowing them into the Hall, but I’m still not there yet, Clemens’ 7 Cy Youngs—that’s right, 7—be damned. The only one of them who has helped his case is A-Rod, who seems genuinely contrite.
There are other wrongs that need to be righted, and here’s where the writers and veterans committee members need to do a little self-examination.What is the heart of a team’s defense? That’s right, the double play combnation. And what is the greatest double play combination in the history of the game? That’s right, Alan Trammell at shortstop and Lou Whitaker at second base. Their numbers are remarkably similar—Trammell has the edge in batting average and stolen bases, Whitaker in home runs and RBIs. But only Trammell is in Cooperstown, alongside inferior second baseman like Johnny Evers, Bobby Doerr and Joe Gordon.
The point is that the Hall of Fame needs to be more inclusive, and the voters need to look for reasons why players belong, not reasons why they don’t. They need to see George Kell tear up when he spots his sliver bats in a display case, they need to feel the warmth between Ted Williams and Joe Sewell, they need to hear Charlie Gehringer say, “It’s something like going to heaven.”
So, please.let’s stop making it a living hell. I’m guessing James Fenimore Cooper was thinking of Cooperstown when he wrote, “All places that the eye of heaven visits/Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.”
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