A new hall in the hall
So the debate has begun as to whether or not Mark McGwire belongs in the baseball hall of fame. It'll be a quiet topic for the time being, with the matters of the BCS and whatnot taking up ink and airwaves for the next week or two. When the results are realeased though, in early January then this will be all the sports talk rage. All signs currently point to McGwire not gaining admittance to the hall this time around. There are good logical arguments to keep him out and also to vote him in. Well, as discussed here earlier, there are people in the hall of fame who committed transgressions much worse than McGwire. Here's a breif list of some who did themselves not so proud, but are still enshirned in Cooperstown.
Cap Anson - On of the games first stars, he was also one of the games first prima donnas. It's not so much his hubris that land him here, but the fact that before baseball was officially segragated he refused to play against any teams that had minorities on them. Suffice to say his attitude towards minorities extended beyond the ballfield and one can't help but wonder if one of the games first stars didn't exhibit racist attitudes that would keep minorities off of major league fields for decades to come.
Ty Cobb - Where to begin? If you ever want to read a great character study, read "Cobb" by Al Stump. It'll give you some insight into one of the greatest baseball players of all time and perhaps one of the most despicable people of all time, but back to the case at hand. Cobb would sharpen his spikes before every game he played so they would be better to spike his opponents with. Cobb was a constant insitgator of fights both on and off the field. Most notourious was the time he jumped into the stands to assault a heckler. Cobb had to be forceably removed from on top of the man whose face he was peppering with punches by his teammates. It should be noted the fan was bound to a wheelchair and this didn't deter Cobb from savagely beating the him. Cobb was also a racist, assualting men on more than one occaision because of the color of their skin. Cobb also drank heavily and abused his wives and children. That is just scrathing the surface of what this man was like, but I think you get the idea. (Please note that these stories of horror do have some context to them that I am not including that are included in the book, seriously read the book, even if you don't like baseball you'll like the book).
Rogers Hornsby - Hornsby, for all of his baseball prowess was apparently a very unlikable man, to the point where he was traded multiple times in the course of his career because he was so disagreeable. Of course though, that's not his greatest sin. Can you figure out what it was? If you said racist, you would be correct, but he took it to another level as he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, enough said.
Tom Yawkey - And yes, I'm aware of the fact I may be beating a dead horse here, but Tom Yawkey's biggest problem was the he was a horrendous racist. Though not a player, he set a horrible standard for race and the team he owned, the Boston Red Sox. Boston was the last team to integrate, Pumpsie Green the player and 1959 the year, a full twelve years after Jackie Robinson crossed baseball's color barrier. The Red Sox actually had a chance to sign Robinson and Willie Mays, but such deals were nixed in large part to Yawkey's slanted sight. Yawkey's attitudes set a standard in Boston for years that still unfortunately lingers today.
Kenesaw Mountain Landis - Baseball's first commisioner did some great things as baseball's first commisioner, most notably clenaning gamblers and crooked ballplayers from the game. Unfortunately, the man in baseball with ultimate power also was one of the biggest forces in keeping the game segragated. It wasn't until after his death that baseball saw it's first full time black player.
Gaylord Perry - Alright and here we have our first case of where a guy isn't a racist, he was just a horrendous cheater. Perry, a pitcher, was infamous for scuffing the ball when he pitched, along with loading the ball up with any number of foreign substances ranging from Vaseline to spit to whatever he could get to run out of his nose. A pitcher putting anything on a baseball to alter its delivery is illegal. So the questions is why was is ok for Perry to cheat, but not Mark McGwire?
Joe Morgan - I have no real reason to put Joe Morgan here other than he's an ass who seemingly does little to no preparation for his job as a comentator and seems to contradict himself continously while also discussing everything under the sun but the game itself.
Charles Comiskey - A notouriously cheap and thrifty owner, whose lack of class and respect towards his players drove eight of them to conspire to throw the World Series in 1919 and give baseball a great black eye. Comiskey continually shortchanged his players in salaries and bonuses despite running one of the most profitablte franchises of his time.
That is just a sampling of some people of questionable character who are currently in the baseball hall of fame. There are certainly more and the men listed here certainly did more than I mentioned. Hopefully, you get the idea, that there are plenty of people in the hall of fame whose transgressions are at least as bad, if not worse than McGwire's.
Fear not though, I have a solution to the problem though so we don't have to weigh the moral imperatives here. I propose that there be a new wing added to the hall of fame. It should be somewhere in the hall's basement, maybe even below it. It should be down a long dark and drab corridor with water dripping from the ceiling. The room where the plaques are housed should have no windows and it should be lit with only a 60 watt light bulb. Let the men be enshrined in the hall, but let where they are enshrined be a disgrace. It's certainly what they deserve. Hell, this would solve the problems that will face voters whenever Barry Bonds is up for the vote. Put in him in the hall, but put him where it'll be hard to see him. This will even let Pete Rose in, though I think his room should in a darker room that is lit only by a candle, but that's another ramble for another time.
It's a hall of fame, meant to recognize great accomplishments in a game, so if the player was great they should be enshrined. However, if they chose to disrespect the game and aspects of society through various ways, then why should they be treated with the utmost respect once they're in? Simply said they shouldn't be. So lets put a new hall in the hall, so these men and the others that follow will have a chance to be honored in a place where they deserve it...where no one will see them.
Cap Anson - On of the games first stars, he was also one of the games first prima donnas. It's not so much his hubris that land him here, but the fact that before baseball was officially segragated he refused to play against any teams that had minorities on them. Suffice to say his attitude towards minorities extended beyond the ballfield and one can't help but wonder if one of the games first stars didn't exhibit racist attitudes that would keep minorities off of major league fields for decades to come.
Ty Cobb - Where to begin? If you ever want to read a great character study, read "Cobb" by Al Stump. It'll give you some insight into one of the greatest baseball players of all time and perhaps one of the most despicable people of all time, but back to the case at hand. Cobb would sharpen his spikes before every game he played so they would be better to spike his opponents with. Cobb was a constant insitgator of fights both on and off the field. Most notourious was the time he jumped into the stands to assault a heckler. Cobb had to be forceably removed from on top of the man whose face he was peppering with punches by his teammates. It should be noted the fan was bound to a wheelchair and this didn't deter Cobb from savagely beating the him. Cobb was also a racist, assualting men on more than one occaision because of the color of their skin. Cobb also drank heavily and abused his wives and children. That is just scrathing the surface of what this man was like, but I think you get the idea. (Please note that these stories of horror do have some context to them that I am not including that are included in the book, seriously read the book, even if you don't like baseball you'll like the book).
Rogers Hornsby - Hornsby, for all of his baseball prowess was apparently a very unlikable man, to the point where he was traded multiple times in the course of his career because he was so disagreeable. Of course though, that's not his greatest sin. Can you figure out what it was? If you said racist, you would be correct, but he took it to another level as he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, enough said.
Tom Yawkey - And yes, I'm aware of the fact I may be beating a dead horse here, but Tom Yawkey's biggest problem was the he was a horrendous racist. Though not a player, he set a horrible standard for race and the team he owned, the Boston Red Sox. Boston was the last team to integrate, Pumpsie Green the player and 1959 the year, a full twelve years after Jackie Robinson crossed baseball's color barrier. The Red Sox actually had a chance to sign Robinson and Willie Mays, but such deals were nixed in large part to Yawkey's slanted sight. Yawkey's attitudes set a standard in Boston for years that still unfortunately lingers today.
Kenesaw Mountain Landis - Baseball's first commisioner did some great things as baseball's first commisioner, most notably clenaning gamblers and crooked ballplayers from the game. Unfortunately, the man in baseball with ultimate power also was one of the biggest forces in keeping the game segragated. It wasn't until after his death that baseball saw it's first full time black player.
Gaylord Perry - Alright and here we have our first case of where a guy isn't a racist, he was just a horrendous cheater. Perry, a pitcher, was infamous for scuffing the ball when he pitched, along with loading the ball up with any number of foreign substances ranging from Vaseline to spit to whatever he could get to run out of his nose. A pitcher putting anything on a baseball to alter its delivery is illegal. So the questions is why was is ok for Perry to cheat, but not Mark McGwire?
Joe Morgan - I have no real reason to put Joe Morgan here other than he's an ass who seemingly does little to no preparation for his job as a comentator and seems to contradict himself continously while also discussing everything under the sun but the game itself.
Charles Comiskey - A notouriously cheap and thrifty owner, whose lack of class and respect towards his players drove eight of them to conspire to throw the World Series in 1919 and give baseball a great black eye. Comiskey continually shortchanged his players in salaries and bonuses despite running one of the most profitablte franchises of his time.
That is just a sampling of some people of questionable character who are currently in the baseball hall of fame. There are certainly more and the men listed here certainly did more than I mentioned. Hopefully, you get the idea, that there are plenty of people in the hall of fame whose transgressions are at least as bad, if not worse than McGwire's.
Fear not though, I have a solution to the problem though so we don't have to weigh the moral imperatives here. I propose that there be a new wing added to the hall of fame. It should be somewhere in the hall's basement, maybe even below it. It should be down a long dark and drab corridor with water dripping from the ceiling. The room where the plaques are housed should have no windows and it should be lit with only a 60 watt light bulb. Let the men be enshrined in the hall, but let where they are enshrined be a disgrace. It's certainly what they deserve. Hell, this would solve the problems that will face voters whenever Barry Bonds is up for the vote. Put in him in the hall, but put him where it'll be hard to see him. This will even let Pete Rose in, though I think his room should in a darker room that is lit only by a candle, but that's another ramble for another time.
It's a hall of fame, meant to recognize great accomplishments in a game, so if the player was great they should be enshrined. However, if they chose to disrespect the game and aspects of society through various ways, then why should they be treated with the utmost respect once they're in? Simply said they shouldn't be. So lets put a new hall in the hall, so these men and the others that follow will have a chance to be honored in a place where they deserve it...where no one will see them.
posted by MC at 8:17 PM
1 Comments:
Not sure where to post this but I wanted to ask if anyone has heard of National Clicks?
Can someone help me find it?
Overheard some co-workers talking about it all week but didn't have time to ask so I thought I would post it here to see if someone could help me out.
Seems to be getting alot of buzz right now.
Thanks
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