BaseBRAWLING II: The Hall Of Flaw
"You were flawed. You were all like me. You were all alone. You were looking for something you couldn't find out there. I chose you because you needed this place as much as it needed you."-Jacob from LOST, Season 6.
Yep, I quoted LOST in a baseball blog. I would have quoted something biblical, but I like LOST more.
We, as human, are flawed. No one is perfect.
Baseball is perfect. Well, in theory. A beautiful and romantic game full of mathematics and athletic entertainment. Every pitch tells a story. Every hit and run. Every walk off home run. Its the unofficial start of spring and the unofficial start of the dredge we call winter.
The players are far from perfect. The owners are far from perfect. They are human. They are flawed.
And the Hall of Fame? Super flawed.
Lets just start with the basics. It is located in Cooperstown, NY, the supposed birthplace of baseball even though that story has been proved a myth for years.
In 1936, Stephen C. Clark petitioned then-National League President Ford C. Flick to support a Hall Of Fame in Cooperstown, not only to celebrate our nations past time, but as a economic "engine" for his small town....Money. Greed. Flawed. (credit: http://baseballhall.org/museum/experience/history).
Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson, and Babe Ruth were the inaugural members of the Hall. You don't have to do a Google search to know that Cobb and Ruth were no choir boys.
Cobb, a violent, rude, and racist cheater. This piece of garbage used to do his best to spike shortstops and second baseman daily. He may have even got away with murder. The OJ Simpson of baseball??? But he hit .366 for a career and there wasn't a Internet in his era, so he gets a pass.
Babe Ruth, American hero and candidate for worst husband ever. Could you imagine how many headlines on TMZ.com the "Babe" would have gotten daily? His famous "called shot" against the Cubs in 1932? Myth.
But we create these false heroes. For every Derek Jeter or Dale Murphy, who keep their noses clean, we seem to get 10 Sammy Sosa's, Mark McGwire's, Barry Bonds', and so on and so on. Isn't is sad that it takes serious thought to come up with quality human beings in baseball, but we rattle off the controversial players non-stop?
With no inductions into this years Hall of Fame, the sports writer sent a message: If you used PED's, there is no place for you here. At least that was their intention. And unfortunately they failed.
Instead of giving the nod to worthy players like Mike Piazza, Don Mattingly, and Jack Morris (to name a few), they kept everyone out. Punished everyone for the sins of a few men. Is that fair?
The Hall of Fame is never going to be perfect. Everyone knows that. No one is perfect. And its OK. But where do we draw the line?
Facts are facts: Mark McGwire, Cal Ripken Jr., and Sammy Sosa saved baseball. Baseball was dead after the '94 strike and this men saved it. And two of them now will forever be damned because of their steroid use.
Barry Bonds was the greatest player of our generation. And also a total d*ck. Steroids or no steroids, Bonds could hit. And had an eye. But he will forever be damned.
Pete Rose. All-time hits leader. A record that may never be broken. But he had flaws. He loved to gamble and cheat on his wife. Now, he will forever be damned.
The Hall of Fame can not ignore the accomplishments of these men and the argument will go on forever about who deserves in the Hall of Fame. Do you let the cheaters in? Do you make them guilty until proven innocent?
My plan: Asterisk Alley. A special wing for the Pete Rose's, Roger Clemens', Gaylord Perry's, Barry Bonds', Sammy Sosa's, and Mark McGwire's. Tell their stories on their plaques. Show baseball fans the good they did...and the bad. Let the fans decide if they were good guys or not.
And the players in Asterisk Alley agree to only do mandatory autograph sessions and endorsements through a partnership with the MLBPA, MLB, and the Hall of Fame, where they give 50% of all earnings to charity.
Would you buy a official Pete Rose 8x10 for $20 if you knew that he had to give to $10 to Stand Up 4 Cancer? Would you spend $50 having Barry Bonds sign your 1992 pre-gas Pirates shirt, knowing $25 of that would be going to Autism Awareness? I would.
Give me your thoughts. This is a subject that will be debated for decades and there really isn't a wrong answer. Leave a comment on the blog or email me at Steve@WorldOfCORINO.com. I will post a few next week.
I ended my first season as GM-Manager of the Emerald Isle Bull Sharks (Phillies) 80-82 and as expected my owner was not happy.
Last weekend, I literally spent it not spending time with my soon to be wife, but in front of the computer putting together my "2013 team".
My key pickups where Ryan Dempster (3 yr, $63m), Michael Young (2 yr, $3m), Ben Revere (trade with Minnesota for Johnny Damon), and Delmon Young (trade with Detroit for John Mayberry Jr.).
I kept $18m under budget and lost Roy Halliday and Matt Holliday through free agency (both wanted $20m each a year) and have now started the year off 0-4!
Expect next weeks BaseBRAWLING to start off with me being fired from my simulation baseball game!!!
Talking about OOTP, you can now buy it directly through www.WorldOfCORINO.com. Go to the main page and click on the link. OOTP '14 comes out soon. Get your pre-order in now.
With no inductions into this years Hall of Fame, the sports writer sent a message: If you used PED's, there is no place for you here. At least that was their intention. And unfortunately they failed.
Instead of giving the nod to worthy players like Mike Piazza, Don Mattingly, and Jack Morris (to name a few), they kept everyone out. Punished everyone for the sins of a few men. Is that fair?
The Hall of Fame is never going to be perfect. Everyone knows that. No one is perfect. And its OK. But where do we draw the line?
Facts are facts: Mark McGwire, Cal Ripken Jr., and Sammy Sosa saved baseball. Baseball was dead after the '94 strike and this men saved it. And two of them now will forever be damned because of their steroid use.
Barry Bonds was the greatest player of our generation. And also a total d*ck. Steroids or no steroids, Bonds could hit. And had an eye. But he will forever be damned.
Pete Rose. All-time hits leader. A record that may never be broken. But he had flaws. He loved to gamble and cheat on his wife. Now, he will forever be damned.
The Hall of Fame can not ignore the accomplishments of these men and the argument will go on forever about who deserves in the Hall of Fame. Do you let the cheaters in? Do you make them guilty until proven innocent?
My plan: Asterisk Alley. A special wing for the Pete Rose's, Roger Clemens', Gaylord Perry's, Barry Bonds', Sammy Sosa's, and Mark McGwire's. Tell their stories on their plaques. Show baseball fans the good they did...and the bad. Let the fans decide if they were good guys or not.
And the players in Asterisk Alley agree to only do mandatory autograph sessions and endorsements through a partnership with the MLBPA, MLB, and the Hall of Fame, where they give 50% of all earnings to charity.
Would you buy a official Pete Rose 8x10 for $20 if you knew that he had to give to $10 to Stand Up 4 Cancer? Would you spend $50 having Barry Bonds sign your 1992 pre-gas Pirates shirt, knowing $25 of that would be going to Autism Awareness? I would.
Give me your thoughts. This is a subject that will be debated for decades and there really isn't a wrong answer. Leave a comment on the blog or email me at Steve@WorldOfCORINO.com. I will post a few next week.
OOTP Weekly Update
I ended my first season as GM-Manager of the Emerald Isle Bull Sharks (Phillies) 80-82 and as expected my owner was not happy.
Last weekend, I literally spent it not spending time with my soon to be wife, but in front of the computer putting together my "2013 team".
My key pickups where Ryan Dempster (3 yr, $63m), Michael Young (2 yr, $3m), Ben Revere (trade with Minnesota for Johnny Damon), and Delmon Young (trade with Detroit for John Mayberry Jr.).
I kept $18m under budget and lost Roy Halliday and Matt Holliday through free agency (both wanted $20m each a year) and have now started the year off 0-4!
Expect next weeks BaseBRAWLING to start off with me being fired from my simulation baseball game!!!
Talking about OOTP, you can now buy it directly through www.WorldOfCORINO.com. Go to the main page and click on the link. OOTP '14 comes out soon. Get your pre-order in now.
Whenever there is a discussion about PED's in sports I always get the response from someone complaining that "they all do it now". It's kinda disheartening but maybe it's closer to the truth than I wanna admit myself.
ReplyDeleteI grew up watching and listening to games on the radio. I collected baseball cards and kept stats. I even subscribed to a baseball magazine to get all the technical aspects of the game and stats that weren't in the newspaper. Sure I knew I was never gonna be the next Wade Boggs or Jim Rice. But knowing that they too were kids at one time with dreams of being in the bigs gave me some solace in thinking that a little kids dream can come true sometimes.
I grew up in new england, a competitive market where the fans live and died on every pitch. I vowed that I would follow my favorite player, Roger Clemens, wherever he went and I did.
As the stories and scandals started to come out and Roger's actions on and off the field started to tarnish that old image I started to become yet another jaded fan.
My excuse, all the enjoyment he brought to me through all those exciting games won him a little slack with me.
Hell, the guy was in his 40's and going against the odds that someone in his age bracket could still compete. With how well he trained his whole career and the advances made in the game there was that slight chance he was doing it on his own.
Then came the evidence, the ruined lives and the dashed hopes of other players who followed in the Rocket's footsteps. The young guys outed through all these investigations. Petite exposed and the Bonds hearings to boot.
It was all too much for me to just chalk it up to "everyone's doing it now".
No, I was a fan and I felt ripped off. The soaring prices for tickets just to see these guys cheat their way through the record books. What examples were they making to the next generation of kids coming up playing ball?
How was I gonna explain the importance of skill and timing to kids who were seeing supersized human beings ripping balls out of parks at an alarming rate?
The PED error completely put a hiccup in the real importance of the game. The real sad thing is that the guys that came before this error will never size up. We are beginning to see the tide of steroids recede and earlier numbers starting to make sense. Maybe the majority are doing PEDs and it's becoming competitive again on both sides of the plate. Who really knows?
The baseball union and the owners have nothing to gain from telling us the truth.
The baseball writers association, the same guys responsible for all the accolades now want to make examples by not voting anyone in.
The only thing this whole mess teaches us is the sport is broken. Until there is a completely new generation of baseball players with a stamp of approval that they are on the up and up, fans will be jaded. They will not even care if the sports writers elect anyone into the hall for years to come.
Awesome reply. Thank you for reading and commenting!
ReplyDelete