HALL OF SHAM
A GROUP picture can be worth a thousand words.
Baseball’s Hall of Fame publishes a terrific quarterly magazine, “Memories and Dreams.” It is loaded with fascinating stories, copies of documents and photos about baseball past and current, here, there and everywhere.
The magazine regularly occupies a place in the small room containing my Seat of Highest Literary Regard, if you get my drift — it is among my favorite downtime companions.
Wednesday, the spring edition arrived carrying a cruel joke and a worse reality. The front cover was a group photo of this year’s inductees, all of them wearing smiles and baseball jerseys with “Hall of Fame” in cursive on their fronts.
Tim Raines, Ivan Rodriguez, Jeff Bagwell, John Schuerholz and, smiling the widest, first-ballot inductee Bud Selig. It is a sickening photo. The cover was the latest slap in the head, one more reminder that the most respected, renowned and cherished of all Halls of Fame is now open — wide open — to those who sold out the integrity of our national pastime. We’ll save the worst, Selig, for last. Schuerholz, as GM of the Royals (1981-90) then Braves (19902007), was and is regarded to be among the shrewdest and most alert judges of talent.
Thus, it is inconceivable to me he didn’t recognize the sudden, colossal and conspicuous change of the anatomies of players across the league as their record-demolishing accomplishments were suddenly occurring for no good reason.
Or did Schuerholz have a feeling Sammy Sosa would soon and suddenly bulk up to start hitting more than 60 home runs rather than 15? Did he have a similar good feeling about Barry Bonds at age 36 — and his body, starting with his head, swollen by muscles with no place to hide — would hit 73?
How could Schuerholz not see what he couldn’t miss? Was his silence purchased? Or was he just unwilling to “get involved?”
The players? It doesn’t matter if they deny steroid or HGH use. Selig, in concert with the team owners who empowered him and paid him tens of millions per annum, and Donald Fehr’s MLBPA, ensured that they and all else who stood out in the Steroid Era would be guilty until proven innocent.
We didn’t do that to them; baseball, on Commissioner Selig’s eyesclosed watch, did that to them.
When asked whether he used steroids, Rodriguez, who went from a pint-sized catcher to a quart, then gallon — then quickly back to a pint — answered, “Only God knows.”
That is up there with those testimonies before Congress — Sosa’s claim that he just remembered he doesn’t speak English, Mark McG- wire’s repeated, “I’m not here to talk about the past” and Roger Clemens’ explanation that Andy Pettitte “misremembered.”
That, and plenty more, all went down on Selig’s lead-sentry duty. And he is arriving at Cooperstown via the express lane.
What shall Selig’s plaque read as per his achievements?
Served as the team owners’ point man as MLB became infested and corrupted by drugs that obliterated pre-existing records achieved by drug-free, legendary players.
Lacked the foresight to see that the PED corruption on his watch inevitably would be revealed to place MLB in disrepute.
Along with the MLBPA, placed the careers and aspirations of clean, honest players at a huge competitive and financial disadvantage.
Made tens of millions in drugdirty dollars for team owners, drug-dirty players and himself.
And so here we are and here we go. There is no turning back. The new standard is no standards. To have sat on the throne counting the take as The Game became thoroughly corrupted is not a barrier to enshrinement, and in Selig’s case, ASAP.
And the Hall of Fame’s formerly wonderful magazine, “Memories and Dreams” arrived written in sand then lost to the wind.