Ghosts in the Hall
Thierry Nihill
Something occured to me as I was looking at a beloved book about
Baseball's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. I am planning an excursion
to the Hall in the early spring - call it a Pilgramage, if you will.
I flipped through the pages of that book, and came across a photo of
Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis. Beneath the first baseball
commissioner's photo are the words, "Despite his successful attempts to
clean up gambling for baseball, Landis is also responsible for its
tragic legacy of exclusion."
My God. Pete Rose, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Buck Weaver, Phil Douglass,
Eddie Cicotte, Lefty Williams and Hal Chase are all ineligible for the
Hall of Fame because they gambled on baseball games.
John Rocker is suspended and vilified by baseball fans everywhere for
making ill-timed racial statements.
And here - one of the CHARTER MEMBERS OF THE HALL OF FAME, it's first
Commissioner - is the man responsible for keeping some of the best
players in the game in the 1920's and 30's OUT of Major League Baseball
because of the colour of their skin. Ty Cobb, an admitted racist, who
once called Babe Ruth a "baboon" in reference to his alleged racial
heritage, is in the Hall. Cap Anson, the man responsible for the
"crusade" against Moses Fleet Walker at the turn of the Century, is in
the Hall. There is a photo of the Brooklyn Dodgers in this book. In
that photo is Dixie Walker, the man who demanded a trade from the
Dodgers when Branch Rickey brought Jackie Robinson up from Montreal.
I am NOT a proponent of Pete Rose being in the Hall of Fame. If the
RULES are that you are ineligible for the Hall because you got caught
betting on baseball games involving your own team, then so be it.
But how can baseball keep Rose, Jackson, Weaver, et all, out of the Hall
of Fame for a *social* sin like gambling and include men like Landis,
Cobb and Anson for an all too *HUMAN* sin?? To me, the Hall is openly
stating it is acceptable to discriminate against a man because he's a
darker skin colour, but it frowns on *gambling*.
I believe this "double standard" is wrong. Landis, Cobb and Anson are in
the Hall because of their ACCOMPLISHMENTS, not because they were
upstanding and moral citizens. There is no need to re-introduce the
ACCOMPLISHMENTS of Pete Rose, Shoeless Joe and Bucky Weaver.
Open the doors, Mr. Selig. As much as I *hate* to say this because I DO
NOT think Mr. Rose should just be handed a ticket to the Hall, it is
time to open the Hallowed Halls of Cooperstown and invite him in.
But the ghosts of Mr. Jackson, Mr. Weaver, Mr. Cicotte, Mr. Douglass,
Mr. Chase, and Mr. Williams had better be standing right behind him, in
front of their OWN bronzed plaques while Pete Rose is giving his tearful
acceptance speech on Induction Day.
Thierry Patrick Nihill
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
samuel m. hutcheson
>But how can baseball keep Rose, Jackson, Weaver, et all, out of the Hall
>of Fame for a *social* sin like gambling and include men like Landis,
>Cobb and Anson for an all too *HUMAN* sin?? To me, the Hall is openly
>stating it is acceptable to discriminate against a man because he's a
>darker skin colour, but it frowns on *gambling*.
your mistake is the assumption that gamblers are kicked out of
baseball because of their **social** shortcomings. NOONE is banned
from baseball because of their poor social skills. the men you
mentioned are banned because they **bet on baseball WHILE PLAYING OR
MANAGING**. that's the key. that's the kicker that you can't avoid.
that is the transgression which pushes them past mere moral cretins
and into the realm of pariahs of the game.
a man who bets on a game in which he is involved removes that game
from the context of competitive believability. his actions undermine
the very structure of the idea of sport, that everyone is playing
simply to win. being a racist, being a drug addict, being an asshole,
being a moron, none of these things undermine the integrity of the
game, merely the integrity of some of its players.
people aren't banned for gambling. lockerrooms across the nation run
betting pools on everything from the NCAA basketball tournament to
scratch golf matches on off days. what gets you banned is betting on
BASEBALL, and rightly so.
and the HOF has decided that people who are banned are not eligible
for induction. them's the rules. play by them.
s/
***
"It could be worse..... It could be Chipper's toe."
Wally Joyner, 02/24/2000
Colin T. William
> your mistake is the assumption that gamblers are kicked out of
> baseball because of their **social** shortcomings. NOONE is banned
> from baseball because of their poor social skills. the men you
> mentioned are banned because they **bet on baseball WHILE PLAYING OR
> MANAGING**. that's the key. that's the kicker that you can't avoid.
> that is the transgression which pushes them past mere moral cretins
> and into the realm of pariahs of the game.
Whiel I agree with this, I do think the original poster had a point.
Landis's actions had a much more direct effect on the field than any of
the actions of these other guys.
Landis compromised the sport in a major way - he denied the game a good
percentage of good players and instead subjected us to a bunch of players
who would have had no place on the field if they'd had to compete with
their jobs with minority players.
There is no telling the extent to which this messed up the competitive
balance - when we consider records set in the pre-integration era we have
to take all with a grain of salt because of dilution of competition - how
does Ruth do if you replace the bottom 15-20% of crappy white players with
the top minority players.
While I think what Rose did was reprehensible for the game, and I believe
he should be banned, I think having a place of honor for Landis is absurd.
One can appeal to the cultural context, but given the extent to which he
weilded absolute power for such a long time, I don't think he gets that
benefit. He was strong willed and it's a point of his rep that he was so.
It doesn't appear he kept out minorities because he had no social
backbone, it appeared he did so by explicit choice and will.
He absolutely messed with the game on the field, and to a much deeper and
more pervasice extent than any other individual in the history of the
game.
Colin
Russ Burrell
"Thierry Nihill" <tni...@home.com> wrote in message
news:38CA0825...@home.com...
> Good morning ...
Buenos dias.
> Something occured to me as I was looking at a beloved book about
> Baseball's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. I am planning an excursion
> to the Hall in the early spring - call it a Pilgramage, if you will.
>
> I flipped through the pages of that book, and came across a photo of
> Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis. Beneath the first baseball
> commissioner's photo are the words, "Despite his successful attempts to
> clean up gambling for baseball, Landis is also responsible for its
> tragic legacy of exclusion."
>
> My God. Pete Rose, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Buck Weaver, Phil Douglass,
> Eddie Cicotte, Lefty Williams and Hal Chase are all ineligible for the
> Hall of Fame because they gambled on baseball games.
Thank God.
> John Rocker is suspended and vilified by baseball fans everywhere for
> making ill-timed racial statements.
>
> And here - one of the CHARTER MEMBERS OF THE HALL OF FAME, it's first
> Commissioner - is the man responsible for keeping some of the best
> players in the game in the 1920's and 30's OUT of Major League Baseball
> because of the colour of their skin.
A sad era in MLB history, no doubt.
> Ty Cobb, an admitted racist, who
> once called Babe Ruth a "baboon" in reference to his alleged racial
> heritage, is in the Hall. Cap Anson, the man responsible for the
> "crusade" against Moses Fleet Walker at the turn of the Century, is in
> the Hall. There is a photo of the Brooklyn Dodgers in this book. In
> that photo is Dixie Walker, the man who demanded a trade from the
> Dodgers when Branch Rickey brought Jackie Robinson up from Montreal.
Let's face it. You can be a complete ass as a human being and still be a
great baseball player. If you want to be.
> I am NOT a proponent of Pete Rose being in the Hall of Fame. If the
> RULES are that you are ineligible for the Hall because you got caught
> betting on baseball games involving your own team, then so be it.
Absolutely.
> But how can baseball keep Rose, Jackson, Weaver, et all, out of the Hall
> of Fame for a *social* sin like gambling and include men like Landis,
> Cobb and Anson for an all too *HUMAN* sin?? To me, the Hall is openly
> stating it is acceptable to discriminate against a man because he's a
> darker skin colour, but it frowns on *gambling*.
As sam so eloquently put it, its *gambling on baseball" that is the problem,
not *gambling*. Las Vegas is okay. Arnold Rothschild will get your
suspended. I don't see the Hall making any statement at all, except that it
is about baseball quality, not about human quality.
> I believe this "double standard" is wrong. Landis, Cobb and Anson are in
> the Hall because of their ACCOMPLISHMENTS, not because they were
> upstanding and moral citizens. There is no need to re-introduce the
> ACCOMPLISHMENTS of Pete Rose, Shoeless Joe and Bucky Weaver.
Except that their accomplishments in the game were negated by the "negative
accomplishment" (gambling on baseball) *in the game*. On a net basis, they
detracted, not added, to the game (assuming Rose did in fact bet on baseball
games). The Hall is and should be about what you do about in reference to
baseball, not about whether you are a nice person.
I think the stand is
RotisMLB
One can appeal to the cultural context but given the extent to which he weilded
absolute power for such a long time, I don't think he gets that benefit.<<<
I disagree. Landis and his "absolute power" didn't want lots of things.
Things such as night baseball and games on radio. Those things happened
though. Landis could want all he wanted... but he couldn't stop the will of
society/baseball. There is no way *he* kept blacks out of the game all by
himself. He had a simply massive assist from like-minded individuals.
Individuals that were the rule, not the exception in the era Landis lived (post
Civil War to WW2). I think it's unfair to not take that into account and give
him the benefit.
Colin T. William
> I disagree. Landis and his "absolute power" didn't want lots of things.
> Things such as night baseball and games on radio. Those things happened
> though. Landis could want all he wanted... but he couldn't stop the will of
> society/baseball. There is no way *he* kept blacks out of the game all by
> himself. He had a simply massive assist from like-minded individuals.
> Individuals that were the rule, not the exception in the era Landis lived (post
> Civil War to WW2). I think it's unfair to not take that into account and give
> him the benefit.
I don't mean to imply he did so by himself, but the indications I have
read do not paint him as trapped in the constraints of his society, but
rather an active participant in perpetuating this problem. I think at some
level baseball has to take responsibility for its role in society's
treatment of minorities, and I think that responsibility ultimately falls
not so much on assholes like Cap Anson and Ty Cobb, but rather on the
shoulders of those who led baseball in that period.
Landis's job was to act in the best interests of the game. Perhaps it can
be argued that the best interests of the game meant keeping it segregated,
but I'm not convinced the public would have abandoned MLB if that was the
case. It certainly cannot be in the interests of the game to actively try
to keep out minority players and force upon the public inferior white
players in their place.
I do understand that it is problematic to try to separate events from
their cultural context, but that does not automatically excuse the
participants.
Colin
samuel m. hutcheson
>On Sat, 11 Mar 2000, samuel m. hutcheson wrote:
>> your mistake is the assumption that gamblers are kicked out of
>> baseball because of their **social** shortcomings. NOONE is banned
>> from baseball because of their poor social skills. the men you
>> mentioned are banned because they **bet on baseball WHILE PLAYING OR
>> MANAGING**. that's the key. that's the kicker that you can't avoid.
>> that is the transgression which pushes them past mere moral cretins
>> and into the realm of pariahs of the game.
>Whiel I agree with this, I do think the original poster had a point.
>Landis's actions had a much more direct effect on the field than any of
>the actions of these other guys.
>Landis compromised the sport in a major way - he denied the game a good
>percentage of good players and instead subjected us to a bunch of players
>who would have had no place on the field if they'd had to compete with
>their jobs with minority players.
the only problem i see with this is that hindsight is **always**
20/20. did landis hurt the game? yes. did he perpetuate a savage
social injustice? yes. did he knowingly break the rules of the game
and laugh in the face of it's most sacred covenant with its fans? no,
i don't think he did.
it would have been nice to see what josh gibson could have done
against the best competition. it would have nice to have seen
satchell paige dominate white hitters. it would have been nice. but
it didn't happen. is it questionable to laud praise upon the man
mostly responsible for the fact that it wasn't nice (to the extent
that any single man was so responsible)? perhaps.
there is no perhaps with rose and/or the black sox. they made a
mockery of the game itself. that is not acceptable.
David Marc Nieporent
Colin T. William <cwi...@emory.edu> claimed:
>On Sat, 11 Mar 2000, samuel m. hutcheson wrote:
>> your mistake is the assumption that gamblers are kicked out of
>> baseball because of their **social** shortcomings. NOONE is banned
>> from baseball because of their poor social skills. the men you
>> mentioned are banned because they **bet on baseball WHILE PLAYING OR
>> MANAGING**. that's the key. that's the kicker that you can't avoid.
>> that is the transgression which pushes them past mere moral cretins
>> and into the realm of pariahs of the game.
>Whiel I agree with this, I do think the original poster had a point.
>Landis's actions had a much more direct effect on the field than any of
>the actions of these other guys.
>Landis compromised the sport in a major way - he denied the game a good
>percentage of good players and instead subjected us to a bunch of players
>who would have had no place on the field if they'd had to compete with
>their jobs with minority players.
There's no doubt that Landis was "racist" by today's standards, and
there's no doubt that his attitudes didn't encourage integration, but the
earlier poster's claim (or secondhand claim, if you prefer) that Landis
was responsible for the color barrier is just revisionism.
Baseball was segregated before Landis had ever seen a baseball game, let
alone become commissioner. EVERYTHING was segregated at the time. The
army, the schools, the hotels. There's no evidence, other than one
debunked claim by Veeck, that anybody in baseball was interested in
integrating the game but was stopped by Landis. Blaming him for
segregation would be like blaming Pete Rozelle for the lack of black
quarterbacks in the NFL.
It's not like baseball integrated after Landis died. Hell, even after
Jackie Robinson, it took baseball more than a decade, not to become a
multicultural game, but for every team to have even *ONE* black player.
This was 14 years after Landis was dead.
--
David M. Nieporent R.I.P. Charles Schulz
niep...@alumni.princeton.edu 1922-2000
3L - St. John's School of Law
Colin T. William
> the only problem i see with this is that hindsight is **always**
> 20/20. did landis hurt the game? yes. did he perpetuate a savage
> social injustice? yes. did he knowingly break the rules of the game
> and laugh in the face of it's most sacred covenant with its fans? no,
> i don't think he did.
Hindsight is 20/20, a fact I acknowledged in my reply to Rotis. And yes,
to respond to David this same email, segregation existed before and after
Landis ran the game.
My argument is that to some extent we still should not absolve people like
Landis from any responsibility. The leaders are the ones who make the
final decisions on these things, and Landis, despite having the advantage
of a bully pulpit, did not. He knowingly and intentionally perpetuated
these practices.
The BlackSox players took their money within a cultural context where
gambling was considerably less frowned upon and more pervasive in the
sport than it is today. That has not given us pause to evaluate them
within their cultural context.
Yes, society was flawed and continues to be flawed, but
if you are one of the leaders who is contributing in a major way to those
facts, then I think you need to bear some responsibility for it. Should
you be enshrined in the Hall of Fame? Personally, I don't think so. I
don't think baseball should do a retroactive "Landis was an asshole" kind
of statement, but I don't know either that he should be celebrated as an
individual for all to see within that context.
> it would have been nice to see what josh gibson could have done
> against the best competition. it would have nice to have seen
> satchell paige dominate white hitters. it would have been nice. but
> it didn't happen. is it questionable to laud praise upon the man
> mostly responsible for the fact that it wasn't nice (to the extent
> that any single man was so responsible)? perhaps.
It's not just a question of the extent to which it was or wasn't nice.
It's a question of the extent to which it distorted the game. Imagine the
game today with only its white players, to what extent would it have any
sort of semblance of being the best game for its fans? If McGwire hit his
70 HR against such a diluted opposition, would we take that seriously? Of
course not. And why? Because the game would have been corrupted. (Though
for some reason we continue to take very seriously all the records fo
players from that era; most people consider Babe Ruth the best player ever
despite his dominating a diluted opposition within a context when all
players were having to adjust to new rules and playing conditions.)
> there is no perhaps with rose and/or the black sox. they made a
> mockery of the game itself. that is not acceptable.
And there is no question that the actions of Landis, continuing previous
practice, undermined the quality of the game on the field. That is not
acceptable either. This was way more than just not being nice, this got
the fundamental structure of the way the game was played. He was in charge
for a long time, and he should bear some responsibility for it.
Colin
Colin T. William
> It's not like baseball integrated after Landis died. Hell, even after
> Jackie Robinson, it took baseball more than a decade, not to become a
> multicultural game, but for every team to have even *ONE* black player.
> This was 14 years after Landis was dead.
But how long did it take after he was dead for the changes to _start_? I'm
not holding him responsible for starting the segregation, I'm holding him
responsible in part for actively continuing it. He, the powerful longtime
leader of the sport, chose not to even try to start change within the
game.
The appearance of Robinson in, what, 1947?, came a long time before
desegregation in society became a large movement. If baseball had chose to
not even attempt integration for those years, we'd probably look back and
still judge the social context and say the people perpetuating shouldn't
have been condemned for doing so. Clearly, though, it could have been done
then, all it took to get it started was the will.
I'm not blaming Landis for the entire problem by himself. What I am
saying is he should not be absolved of any responsibility for it at all
just because of the social context. It's leaders like him who perpetuated
the social context, and in turn, distorted the game on the field much more
so than Rose (whom I despise) ever did.
Colin
RotisMLB
I don't mean to imply he did so by himself, but the indications I have read do
not paint him as trapped in the constraints of his society, but rather an
active participant in perpetuating this problem.<<<
Landis was part of the problem. There is no doubt about that. I'd probably
view him more harshly if I thought there were those within baseball fighting
him to integrate. And, I might feel differently if society were a little
different. But... so much of the US was segregated. It seems like you're
dinging Landis for not being one of the great moral crusaders of his time.
(and by the way... I'd question if integration across baseball was even
possible in his lifetime)
Colin T. William
> Landis was part of the problem. There is no doubt about that. I'd probably
> view him more harshly if I thought there were those within baseball fighting
> him to integrate. And, I might feel differently if society were a little
> different. But... so much of the US was segregated. It seems like you're
> dinging Landis for not being one of the great moral crusaders of his time.
> (and by the way... I'd question if integration across baseball was even
> possible in his lifetime)
I think of myself as dinging Landis for not trying to improve the game on
the field in an area where it could have been improved, that is, replacing
inferior white players with obviously talented minority players. The fact
that he made no attempt to do so, despite having a huge amount of moral
authority (especially in the wake of the Black Sox scandal), is what makes
me view him as a weak figure, not deserving of the reverence with which he
is often treated.
In my mind it's simple: someone on Rose hurt the game on the field out of
disregard for what was best for the game, a disregard for the rules, and
personal weakness. He is deserving of our contempt for that.
Landis's inaction perpetuated a greater harm to the game than did Rose's
action; one may label Landis less culpable because fo the social context,
but I think it is absolutely too forgiving to absolve him of any
responsibility at all. I find the harm he inflicted on the game to be a
far greater offense, even if we consider only the impact between the
lines.
Colin