Through the back door — shame and the Hall of Fame

The National Baseball Hall of Fame held its 2018 Induction ceremony this past weekend—that’s one of the reasons I took Thursday off to visit Cooperstown; I wanted to avoid the Induction Weekend crowds.

front door to the field. Pete Rose can't slip in this back door.

Entrance to the ballpark in Cooperstown that hosts the Hall of Fame Induction. (my own photo)

Cooperstown remains a lovely New England-y village. A friend of mine, a former sportswriter, compares it to Brigadoon because “it comes alive only in the summer.” Brigadoon on the fast track, you might say.

On this lovely summer day as I walked down the main street, I passed an elderly man sitting nonchalantly on a bench opposite a memorabilia shop, periodically announcing that a ’70s-era baseball star was inside, signing autographs.

The deal was, you’d go in the shop and buy a ticket to see the player. But then you had to exit the shop and find your way to the back of the building, whereupon you could re-enter and make your way into His Presence.

Now, this arrangement probably makes sense for many perfectly non-metaphorical reasons. If the shop let the autograph-seekers line up in the front door, it might prevent other customers from coming in. Or they may have been taking a cue from Disneyland, creating the longest possible line in the smallest possible space.

Shame & the back door

But the afternoon I was there, I saw no line. Didn’t seem to be much of a rush to buy tickets, either. Maybe things would change once the crowds appeared over the weekend, but on Thursday the old baseball player could have been sitting next to guy touting his presence on the sidewalk and he wouldn’t have stopped any traffic.

Still, I found it appropriate that fans wanting to see him had to sneak in the back door. Because the player sitting somewhere in the recesses of that musty memorabilia shop, earning a living by wielding a Sharpie, was Pete Rose.

The greatest baseball commissioner of the modern age, A. Bartlett Giamatti, banned Rose from baseball for life. Rose had developed a gambling addiction and bet on baseball games—a major no-no. He’d even bet on some games he managed, though he swore he never bet against his own team. Later, when he had a book to sell, I think he abandoned even that excuse.

I know, I know, betting on baseball hardly merits an “oopsie” in the current age—when ethical violations at the highest levels seem to occur about as often as Starbucks sells lattes. While our government holds tiny children in cages after ripping them from their families, outrage about betting on a baseball game seems almost quaint.

But for those of us who love the game—and ethics—nothing short of Giamatti’s lifetime ban would do. Today’s commissioners, drawn from the ranks of baseball team owners, seem to care less about ethics than about cash and star-power. The “lifetime ban” on one steroid-using pitcher will last about three years. And not because the guy has died.

Maybe the shop owners hid Rose inside because if he’d been out on the sidewalk, people would have told him what they thought of him. And it wouldn’t have all been polite, believe me.

Rose is tip-toeing back toward baseball now, hoping a commissioner with less spine than Bart Giamatti will let him back in the front door. So far, no; I hope that holds.

He’s a color commentator for one of the networks that broadcasts games nationally (maybe Fox?). But notwithstanding his prowess as a baseball player, the back of a memorabilia shop should be as close as Pete Rose will ever get to a Hall of Fame induction.

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  • 2 comments on “Through the back door — shame and the Hall of Fame

    1. Stephen Pastorino on

      He served less than one year. How is he the greatest modern-era commissioner? Just curious… and asking as a huge baseball fan…

      • Elaine Bennett on

        Really less than a year? He looms so much bigger in my mind. I guess it depends on how you define “modern era,” but I don’t think anyone before or since would have had the guts to ban Rose for life. Certainly not since they’ve started elevating team owners to the commissioner’s chair. Also I have huge affection for Bart as a baseball writer. And thank you for your comment, because in looking up the name of the book he wrote just before he died -“Take Time for Paradise” – I see there’s now a collection of all his baseball writing, “A Great and Glorious Game.” Excuse me, I’ve got some reading to do!

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