PART THREE POINT SIX SIX REPEATING:
Rule 3E: “Any player on Baseball’s ineligible list shall not be an eligible candidate”
Some of the game’s biggest cranks and gamblers do not appear on the ineligible list and are actually in the Hall of Fame. This is another reason why one could easily question the credibility of the Hall and its practice of defaming some people while immortalizing others.
The Hall of Fame is a private institution. If it saw fit, the Hall could cut any and all ties to Major League Baseball. By all means, they can allow anyone they want to be inducted into their museum and plaque room, but at what point are we going to stop caring what they do?
Cooperstown wants to watch its own back. That is the only reason for the politics surrounding cocaine, steroids, or gambling. What will the final straw be? – In terms of the loss of credibility…
In my opinion, leaving some people out of the Hall is potentially more damaging that letting some questionable inductees in.
“Shoeless” Joe Jackson was a hitter so skilled that Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth both modeled certain aspects of their swing off of his. He was a better fielder than hitter. He was also one of the only players who Ty Cobb consistently had decent things to say about. He was illiterate, slow, and naïve; other than that, it was hard to say anything negative about him.
Jackson meets all of the obvious criteria for induction except for rule 3E. In fact, his enshrinement would be inevitable. But he has never appeared on a ballot due to his alleged participation in the 1919 World Series fix.
The guy’s career batting average is .356 (third highest in history) he finished in the top ten in MVP voting for four consecutive years. He once struck out 34 times in a season… … that’s it, that’s the stat… …that was his career high (34 SO in 453 ABs) – he finished that season with a .338 average. The guy was amazing. He also wasn’t smart enough to be greedy which makes me question his role in the fix – maybe I just watch too many cop shows on TV. Anyway, I feel the Hall loses credibility without him in it.
Pete Rose is the all time hits leader in the history of baseball. If you took away all of his extra base hits (1041) and only left him with singles, Rose would still rank thirteenth in hits, all time, and be a sure-thing Hall of Famer. He has more hits than Cobb, is tied for the second longest hitting streak ever with Willie Keeler (44), and is a 17 time All Star. The Hall is lacking without him too.
However, Leo “The Lip” Durocher, who I mentioned in the steroid column, was a Hall of Fame inductee in 1991 – he won three pennants, one World Series, and reinvented the Brooklyn Dodgers. He was also close with Las Vegas gangster “Bugsy” Siegel and, as a result, close to some of mob boss Lucky Luciano‘s closest companions. To say the least, Durocher was no stranger to organized gambling/ crime. Due to his choice of friends Leo was suspended for almost the entire 1947 season– he was still, technically, Jackie Robinson’s first Major League manager. He was almost ushered out of baseball for good due to his shady dealings but ‘The Lip’ chose simply to zip it instead.
Leo Durocher sporting his fiery personality. Photo: Boston Globe (archival)
His 1947 suspension followed continued bitterness between Durocher and his former boss, the then owner of the Yankees, Larry MacPhail. As it is written, MacPhail pressured his friend, Commissioner ‘Happy’ Chandler, to punish Leo for his associations with known gamblers. It was no secret that who Durocher’s friends had been.
MacPhail, a hot tempered alcoholic and keeper of some quite shady company himself, was far from a model of Character Clause idealism. He is a Hall of Famer too. So what if he was a baseball and marketing genius?
Like I stated with reference to Fergie Jenkins, where is the line drawn?
Durocher was sold to the crosstown rival Giants halfway through the 1948 season and later to the Chicago Cubs. [For a good read check out this source: Durocher, Leo. Nice Guys Finish Last. (University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1976)]
Our good friends Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker were also found guilty of throwing a game or two. “Smoky” Joe Wood (another Hall of Famer and the original Rick Ankiel) was involved with a fix in at least once account as well.
It was a fix that made it take a Kevin Costner movie for most people to learn about Joe Jackson. And a fix that still keeps him out of the Hall.
However, at the end of the 1919 season as things were winding down, the White Sox had the AL locked up by more than three games. Detroit was fighting for third and would be playing Cleveland who had second all squared away. Speaker and Wood were the Indians stars outfielders and could guarantee the Tigers a win. Cobb wanted in on that action and was willing to put some money down on the matter.
With the bets in place, Wood and speaker wound up winning about $300 a piece. Cobb wound up winning nothing because he was slow place his wager. However, he definitely took part in the fix. Dutch Leonard , a Tigers Pitcher with one great season on his record and a couple decent ones, presented proof of the situation to AL President Ban Johnson seven years later.
In 1926, with the stink of the Black Sox scandal still in the air, Johnson didn’t think that baseball could handle two of its biggest stars going down in this fashion. Johnson suspended Speaker and Cobb indefinitely and tried to force them to hang up their freshly sharpened spikes voluntarily. Ban Johnson even bought all of the evidence from Leonard for $20,000 so that this situation could be covered up in the press.
Ty Cobb, friendly with Judge Landis in 1921. Photo: Chicago Daily News and Library of Congress
Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the same guy who banned the eight members of the 1919 White Sox for life in 1921 cleared Cobb and Speaker and reinstated them. Landis had been involved in a power struggle with Johnson since he had become commissioner and wasn’t going to let get rid of two of his game’s best players.
Since there had been no trial, and neither player had been convicted of anything formally, Landis believed he was justified in his decision. Ironically, the Sox hadn’t been convicted of anything either – in fact, they had been formally acquitted of their conspiracy charges by a grand jury – But I guess that doesn’t mean anything in Joe Jackson’s case.
Cobb and Speaker finished their careers two years later as teammates in Philadelphia.
[Source: Chafets, Zev. Cooperstown Confidential (Bloomsbury. New York: 2009) pp 52-57 and ESPN Classic article: "Baseball's Gambling Scandals"]
Ty Cobb had a Hall of Fame career, so did Jackson, so did Pete Rose. But why do only one of these people have plaques hanging up in Cooperstown? What reasons are there for letting the ineligibility rule hold up? What is a real character exclusion? – Steroids?
