Notes from the Shadows of Cooperstown
Observations From Outside the Lines |
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NOTES FROM THE SHADOWS OF COOPERSTOWN
Observations from Outside the Lines
By Two Finger Carney (carneya6@borg.com)
#290 MARCH 16, 2003
IS IT SPRING YET?
It is really hard to believe that baseball is on deck. Even though we are having a heat wave here in the shadows of Cooperstown -- a weekend in the forties, with more "warm" weather ahead -- the snowbanks are still high and there are still chunks of ice on my roof.
This issue came together slowly, because I have been editing a book out of the last 21 issues of Notes. And I'm almost there. Definitely in the late innings. And it's coming out pretty well, I think. There were lots of wrinkles to iron out -- the first draft was literally patchwork, cutting and pasting pages or paragraphs from what I've written here since last September, into something that flows.
Anyway, that project explains why this issue is "late" -- nearly two weeks after #289. Actually, in previous winters I often cut back to one or two issues a month. So this is not that off-schedule, really.
It's not the Spring Training Issue you might want. For some of the best ST/Opening Day stuff I've written, go to #231 in the Archive.
Here, I take a sad look at Kirby Puckett, in an old poem and a new expose by SI; a poetic look at Judge Landis (I wrote the poem in November 1992); a Doug Pappas look at the HOF Veterans Committee vote; a very brief look at some tidbits concerning Games 7 & 9 of the 1919 Series; then a stolen look at Cecilia Tan's on-line journal as she visits Joe Jackson's gravesite. I think she writes extremely well, and I bet some of you will bookmark her web page and start following her travels.
And that's it! I looked at where I was a year ago about this time, and was reminded that I was not at all excited about the new season. A strike loomed on the horizon, so why let myself get emotionally hooked on a summer that might end like 1994? That cloud hung over last summer too long. Good riddance.
I noticed that the Pirates picked up Kenny Lofton the other day. If he's healthy, he will be the center-fielder and leadoff hitter the Bucs have needed for years -- since Van Slyke, as far as fielding goes -- I can't recall the last legit leadoff man. And, Kenny will be flanked by Brian Giles and Reggie Sanders. So they just might score some runs this summer. We'll see.
LOYALTY
Players used to seem proud
To play all their seasons
With one organization
Fans used to believe
They would stay
Even if they had a choice
To move on
To greener paychecks
They didn't, of course
So today it's hard to say
What was loyalty and what mirage
Stuck with the city
For better or for worse
In sickness and in --
Yes, it was a lot like
Old-fashioned marriages
Fans were just as stuck
With their players:
Made the best of it
Tried to make it work out
Cheered and clapped
Asked for autographs
Loved even the least of them
Because they were family
After all
So when Kirby signs with the Twins
We remember Yaz and Roberto
And Mr Cub and Mr Tiger
And fathers who worked
Thirty-some seasons with Company A
And stayed fifty-some with Wife A
And we bask in nostalgia
And we wonder if the past is possible
And we worry about a future
Built on pillars less rooted
And we hope that our kids
Are more like our grandparents
We know Kirby is a throwback
But something in us roots
That he's also a pioneer
I wrote the poem above in celebration of Kirby Puckett signing with the Minnesota Twins. That seems so long ago, and it must seem even longer for Kirby. I was saddened to read Frank DeFord's "The Secret Life of Kirby Puckett" in the March 17 Sports Illustrated. It is always troubling to read of fallen, or exposed athletes -- or other celebrities -- or anyone, really.
The last time I saw Kirby Puckett he was waiting to receive his bronze plaque on an outdoor Cooperstown stage. I was there for Maz, but was very impressed with the number of fans who came the distance from Minnesota, to honor Kirby Puckett. And I was impressed with their enthusiasm, their emotion.
I remember being saddened when I learned that Kirby had lost his ability to play ball, due to eye problems. His smile seemed like part of the game at the time. Kirby would be missed.
Now, unless DeFord is 'way off base, it appears that we have in the Hall of Fame, someone who has not exactly lived up to the saintly image that was crafted by his team and the media, with the help of his wife. I suppose this will help Pete Rose some -- "See? It ain't about character, it's what you did between the lines."
I am overly sensitive these days to cover-ups, to the rewarding of the guilty and the punishment of innocents (or the less guilty.) Say it ain't so, Kirby, but he declines to comment. Maybe in court, maybe not. I suppose most of us will remember Kirby for his playing days, and not for DeFord's revelations.
I'm attending a reunion next July, and I have very mixed feelings about it. I'll be seeing lots of people that I haven't seen in over twenty-five or thirty years. Part of me -- the part that will recall Kirby's smile -- doesn't want to go, doesn't want to replace the images in my memory with new images, of men who have aged some, now gray or bald on top, now wrinkled, now worn down by the steady tides of life.
But I'll go, of course -- I'm addicted to reunions. And I'll have a ball, "basking in nostalgia." Kirby never was perfect, we all knew that, if we thought about it at all. No one is. We all make mistakes. The trick is to learn from the ones we make (and those of others), and to forgive, and to move on.
THE FIRST COMMISH
While looking for that poem above, I found this one on baseball's first Commissioner, Judge Landis.
KENESAW MOUNTAIN
Carved from granite,
Named for a Civil war battle site,
Landis was entered the Game
Looking for the save,
Dusting off all
Who would dig in against him
And dominating.
When the black sox were burned,
White smoke rose,
Signalling the beginning
Of his pontifical reign.
His terrible swift decisions
Were meted out with iron fists
And without mercy --
Given absolute power to act on
Despite the caveat of Acton
The judge did without
Courts of appeal
Which might have offset
His all too human justice.
Craggy countenance,
Grim glare like a bird of prey
Below the silver crown,
Struck those prone to bribe and gamble
With fear and trembling,
His steely words
Ended careers --
Benched even the Babe
Even as they restored confidence
If not integrity.
Since the Czar stepped down,
Twenty-some summers of
Giving not an inch
Over at last,
Other Commissioners have ruled,
But none quite like Judge Landis --
For better and worse.
MORE ON THE VETERANS COMMITTEE VOTE
Last issue, I included a sampler from SABR's Deadball Era Committee, to illustrate the quality of conversation and resources on just one of SABR's internet digests. Reprinted below is an example of the excellent material provided several times a year by Doug Pappas, in his SABR's Business of Baseball Committee newsletter. Thanx to Doug for his OK to share here.
In August 2001, the National Baseball Hall of Fame overhauled the Veterans Committee and its voting procedures. Of particular interest to this Committee are the changes affecting the ballot for managers, umpires and executives. As the players' ballot has been argued to death elsewhere, this article will concentrate on the non-players in general, and the owners/executives in particular.
The former 15-member Veterans Committee met once a year. Only those attending the meeting were eligible to vote, and vote totals were never released. The new system expanded the Veterans Committee to include all living Hall of Famers; all living recipients of the Ford C. Frick Award (broadcasters); all living recipients of the J.G. Taylor Spink Award (writers); and two members of the former Veterans Committee whose terms would not expire before 2003, Ken Coleman and John McHale. The new Committee, which for 2003 contained 85 eligible voters, would cast two separate ballots by mail: one for up to 10 of the 26 players ultimately selected for the Players Ballot, the other for up to 10 of the 15 managers, umpires and executives chosen for the Composite Ballot.
To qualify for the Composite Ballot, a nominee had to have been retired from baseball for five years. This waiting period was reduced to six months for candidates over 65. The rules expressly provided that those who both played and served as a manager or executive would appear on only one of the two ballots, but should be judged by their total contribution, and that "voting shall be based upon the individual's record, ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character and contribution to the game."
The process of creating the ballot began with a 10-member Historical Overview Committee appointed by the Baseball Writers' Association of America's Board of Directors. The Committee (Bob Elliott, Steve Hirdt, Rick Hummel, Moss Klein, Bill Madden, Ken Nigro, Jack O'Connell, Nick Peters, Tracy Ringolsby and Dave Van Dyck) took the first cut at reducing the pool of eligible candidates, compiling lists of 200 players and 60 non-players potentially worthy of consideration.
The original list of 60 managers, umpires and executives included 17 managers or coaches (Roger Craig, Charlie Dressen, Fred Haney, Whitey Herzog, Ralph Houk, Fred Hutchinson, Billy Martin, Gene Mauch, Danny Murtaugh, Steve O'Neill, Paul Richards, Billy Southworth, George Stallings, Chuck Tanner, Birdie Tebbetts, Patsy Tebeau and Dick Williams); 10 umpires (Bill Dinneen, Larry Goetz, Doug Harvey, Hank O'Day, Steve Palermo, Babe Pinelli, Beans Reardon, Cy Rigler, Bill Summers and Lee Weyer) and 33 executives.
The 33 executives can be further subdivided into 17 who were primarily owners or owner/GMs (Gene Autry, Sam Breadon, Charles Bronfman, Gussie Busch, George W. Bush, Barney Dreyfuss, John Fetzer, Charles O. Finley, John Galbreath, Calvin Griffith, Ewing Kauffman, Walter O'Malley, Joan Payson, Alfred Reach, Ben Shibe, Charles Somers, Chris Von Der Ahe and Phil Wrigley); nine who were primarily GMs (Buzzie Bavasi, Harry Dalton, Bob Howsam, Frank Lane, Paul Owens, Gabe Paul, John A.R. (Robert) Quinn, Bill Rigney and Cedric Tallis); five who were primarily major league officials (Chub Feeney, Garry Herrmann, John Heydler, Bowie Kuhn and Bill White), and one who was a labor leader (Marvin Miller).
On balance, the list of 60 looks solid. The candidates presented by the Historical Overview Committee span more than a century of Major League Baseball, from the 1880s through the 1990s. Although it would be easy to trim a dozen names from this roster, the only real clinker is George W. Bush, whose nine years as an owner of the Texas Rangers hardly qualify him for induction. Indeed, under the Hall of Fame's rules Bush shouldn't even have been considered: Bush didn't officially sell the Rangers until June 1998, less than five years before the election.
A BBWAA Screening Committee consisting of two writers from each major league city (four from two-club cities) then pared the original list of 60 down to a final 15. These included four managers (Herzog, Martin, Richards and Williams); four owners (Busch, Finley, O'Malley and Wrigley); three general managers (Bavasi, Dalton and Paul); two league officials (Kuhn and White); one umpire (Harvey) and one labor leader (Miller).
At this stage of the process, unfortunately, the Screening Committee functioned much like the old Veterans Committee, with a marked bias toward the writers' contemporaries. All of the fifteen finalists were active in 1976 or thereafter. It's difficult, verging on the impossible, to come up with any other explanation for preferring Phil Wrigley or Harry Dalton to Barney Dreyfuss or Garry Herrmann -- and if the beer money Gussie Busch brought to MLB was a factor in his nomination, what about Charles Somers, who bankrolled half the American League in 1901?
The fifteen names on the final list were then submitted to the 85-member electorate. With 79 of the 85 voting on the composite ballot, 60 votes were needed to elect any candidate. None of the fifteen received the necessary votes. Indeed, none came close, with only umpire Doug Harvey winning even a majority. Marvin Miller failed to become the first recipient of this newsletter elected to the Hall of Fame, while Buzzie Bavasi did become the first person known to have received votes for the Hall of Fame while a dues-paying member of SABR.
The totals:
Doug Harvey: 48 votes
Walter O'Malley: 38 votes
Marvin Miller: 35 votes
Buzzie Bavasi: 34 votes
Dick Williams: 33 votes
Whitey Herzog: 25 votes
Billy Martin: 22 votes
Bill White: 22 votes
Bowie Kuhn: 20 votes
Gabe Paul: 13 votes
Gussie Busch: 11 votes
Paul Richards: 10 votes
Charles O. Finley: 9 votes
Phil Wrigley: 9 votes
Harry Dalton: 6 votes.
The average voter cast 4.24 of a possible 10 Yes votes.
Doug Harvey was a deserving candidate. Anyone who umpired for more than 30 years, earning so much respect that the players nicknamed him "God," has my vote. So does Walter O'Malley, clearly the strongest of the owner nominees. How could the old Veterans Committee have inducted Tom Yawkey but not O'Malley? And how could Marvin Miller receive fewer than half the votes -- even being left off the ballots cast by a number of modern Hall of Famers who owe their entire standard of living to Miller? (Meanwhile, Miller's nemesis Bowie Kuhn received 20 votes. Voting for Kuhn but not Miller is like voting for the Washington Generals but not the Harlem Globetrotters.)
After just one election, it is already clear that the structure of the Composite Ballot must be overhauled. Although the Players Ballot similarly failed to produce an inductee, there is a fundamental difference between the two ballots. All of the candidates on the Players Ballot have already been reviewed and rejected by the regular BBWAA electorate, but for candidates on the Composite Ballot, the Veterans Committee is their only chance for induction. The current Veterans Committee is unlikely ever to elect a candidate from the Composite Ballot. Marvin Miller probably stands the best chance, but not until the players, writers and broadcasters whose careers predate free agency leave the electorate. Since members of the current Veterans Committee serve for life, that may not happen until about 2020...the year Miller will turn 103.
The Composite Ballot also suffers from a lack of historical perspective. Although the Historical Overview Committee did a fine job of presenting a field of candidates, the writers on the Screening Committee devalued all contributions occurring before their own era -- and even if they hadn't, the electorate as currently constituted will never muster a three-fourths majority for any pre-1970 candidate. Fixing this would require two significant changes.
First, the two-stage process of creating a ballot should be reduced to one. Let the Historical Overview Committee prepare a ballot with 25 or 30 names, to be presented directly to the voters with no winnowing from a Screening Committee. Second, limit the Composite Ballot to voters willing to study the qualifications of the candidates -- and to put them in the context of the Hall of Fame as it currently exists. That doesn't mean lowering the standard to that of the worst inductees, but neither does it mean allowing current Hall of Famers to impose an artificially high standard on those deemed worthy of joining them.
Since 1960 the Hall of Fame has inducted eleven "pioneers or executives": Branch Rickey (1967), Ford Frick (1970), George Weiss (1971), Will Harridge (1972), Larry MacPhail (1978), Warren Giles (1979), Tom Yawkey (1980), Happy Chandler (1982), Bill Veeck (1991), William Hulbert (1995) and Lee MacPhail (1978). Hulbert's induction was the long-overdue correction of a mistake made in 1937, when the Hall erroneously credited Morgan Bulkeley with founding the National League. Rickey, Weiss, Larry MacPhail, Chandler and Veeck were inducted primarily for their accomplishments, while for Frick, Harridge, Giles, Yawkey and Lee MacPhail, election to the Hall of Fame was baseball's version of a super-gold watch presented for long and meritorious service.
Among the leading votegetters, Marvin Miller is in Branch Rickey's class as a nominee: if he's not in, something is seriously wrong with the category, the electorate or both. Walter O'Malley's not far behind. Depending how much credit for the Dodgers' success one gives to O'Malley, Buzzie Bavasi is either George Weiss or, at worst, on a level with Giles and Lee MacPhail. As MLB's first African-American league president, Bill White earns symbolic points, but like Happy Chandler, his candidacy for the Hall ultimately hinges on the value one places on symbolism. Bowie Kuhn and Ford Frick are quite comparable -- Kuhn served longer as Commissioner, but without Frick's prior years as a league president. And although he languished toward the bottom of the ballot, Charles O. Finley has much more in common with Bill Veeck than many of Veeck's admirers would care to admit.
Reggie Jackson recently told Bill Madden of the New York Daily News, "I just feel the Hall of Fame itself should be for only players. The executives, managers, umpires and the others should be separate." That's not Reggie's decision to make, any more than an MVP voter should be free to disregard the explicit directive that pitchers are eligible for the award. A properly redesigned Veterans Committee would require its electorate -- whether players, writers, broadcasters, executives or some combination thereof -- to study the historical record before voting, and would provide that electorate with a ballot designed to present the best possible cross-section of nominees from all eras of baseball history.
TIDBITS
Since last time, I have been reading the newspaper accounts from the Cincinnati Enquirer, October 8-10, 1919. Fascinating. I found just one column that described the problem with ticket sales that resulted in the low attendance for Game 7. (Remember, that's the one where, according to Tom Swope, Garry Herrmann slept in, forgetting that he had the tickets in his suitcase. The article does not mention Herrmann (nor did I expect that.)
And I finally found out where game 9 would have been played -- in Cincinnati. There was a coin-toss after Game 7 -- it took place in Herrmann's office. NL Prez Heydler flipped the coin (a quarter), Comiskey called "heads," and lost. Prior to the Series, there was a coin toss to see where the first two games would be played. Herrmann called "heads," and won. Not Commy's year.
I love old newspapers. The ads are always so distracting. In October 1919, there was advertising on the Cincinnati sports page, under the headline "Whiskey -- Beer -- Wine." For only a buck, the Baltimore Formula Company would send you "complete formulas and instructions for making at home, rye whiskey, real beer, and choice wines." Readers were urged to act quickly, as Congress was threatening to prohibit the same of formulas, as they had restricted the sale of alcohol. The formulas were prepared by "men formerly in the brewing and distilling business." Check, cash, money order or stamps accepted.
A VISIT TO GREENVILLE, S.C.
A post on SABR's Deadball Era Committee digest pointed me to
http://www.ceciliatan.com/Entry133.html where Cecilia Tan is "TRAVELING THE BAMBINO ROAD. Here are some excerpts from Day Three: March 8, 2003.
I cried at Joe Jackson's gravesite today. But I didn't figure out why until I was at Ty Cobb's. [Cobb is buried in a huge mausoleum.]
The day dawned frigid and gray. Thirty nine degrees again. By the time I wended my way across Greenville to Joe Jackson Memorial Park, a chill wind was whipping. Wasn't the forecast for sixty degrees? That would have been after the fog burned off. The fog was so thick that visible clouds of it blew across my path as I approached the commemorative plaque.
It is one of the largest commemorative plaques I have ever seen, perhaps because there was so much to say about Joe Jackson that could not be encapsulated in the typical inscriptions one sees, that tell home town, lifetime batting average, date of Hall of Fame induction. I wondered why it was that the plaque and the accompanying frieze of Jackson were each slivered into three sections? Was it an artistic decision, meant to reflect the fragmented nature of the man and his life? Or did someone just think it would look cool? It made the plaque somewhat hard to read.
The plaque is not, however, the most prominent nor affecting feature of the field. That designation belongs to the gigantic mill complex that stands across the street. Two huge red brick buildings, one low, and one several stories high and hundreds of yards wide, dominate the view. Was this the mill where Joe Jackson worked when he was young, along with his father and his brothers, the mill whose baseball team he played on until he went to the majors?
I did not find out, but perhaps it does not matter if this was the Brandon Mill or another one with another name. The place had quite a presence.
From there I drove through downtown Greenville, looking for the statue of Joe Jackson that was erected just last year. It stands at a crossroads in the middle of the business district, surrounded by quaint buildings. The statue depicts Jackson at the end of his swing, his eyes looking upwards, as if following the path of a home run fresh off his bat. Maybe it is just that I am halfway through reading Eliot Asinof's "Eight Men Out," the definitive book on the Black Sox scandal, but I thought the look on the statue's face quite poignant. It would be just my luck that as I reached the statue, the sun came out, warm and brilliant, but back-lighting the statue so that even with my flash, Joe's face is in shadow in my photos.
Then it was off to Woodlawn Memorial to the gravesite. My drive there was slightly delayed by some kind of charity run through downtown Greenville. I never found out what cause all those people were running for, but I am sure it was a good one. It was around this time I began to think I should have brought something to leave at Joe Jackson's gravesite. The thought just came into my head as I was sitting in the car. I thought to myself, I have a quarter in my pocket. I'll leave that.
When I arrived at the cemetery, I had a moment of panic as I thought, it's Saturday, will the office be open? How will I find Joe in this immense field of graves? Like Alamance Memorial, which I visited yesterday, it was all flat ground, with no headstones sticking up. Just the markers set into the ground. I drove to the office and was relieved to find it open.
"Can I help you?" A nicely-dressed man at the reception desk asked me. It was a much more opulent office than at Alamance.
"Yes," I said. "I'm looking for the grave of Joe Jackson."
He smiled and said "Around here we call him 'Shoeless.'" He dug out a file of newspaper clippings about the burial, attached to which was a map marking the site. He gave me a map and pointed out how to get to the right section from where we were. "Just go on over to this section here, go about thirty of forty feet and then just look around. You'll usually see four or five baseball there, and a bat."
The man has said it would be a companion marker, showing the husband and the wife, so I knew it would be large. And where were the baseballs? I could not see it. I walked to and fro and was starting to think about giving up --but then I saw the baseballs, off to my left. Baseballs, there must have been thirty or forty of them piled up along the marker. Someone had left a pair of sweatsocks, too, and two bats. Some of the balls looked like they had been there a long time--their covers eaten away from the stitching by weather and time. Some were official Major League balls, others were not. One was a Macon Braves souvenir ball, and I imagined a Macon baseball fan leaving it there, asking Joe for help in keeping the team in Macon. (It didn't work, they moved this season to Rome, GA). Some of the balls had people's names and dates written on them.
And there was money. Mostly pennies and nickels, a few dimes. No one but me had brought a quarter. I bent down to place it on the marker and said "Well, Joe, I'm sorry I didn't bring you anything more. If I could ask you a favor, I guess it would be to help me make better decisions in my life about money than you made in yours."
That was all I had planned to say, but then I stood there a few seconds longer. And then I said, "I'm going to play ball this summer." That was when I started to cry. I cried for a couple of minutes before I pulled myself together, said thank you, goodbye, and "wish me luck," and got into my car.