Charlie Hustle sprinted from home plate for the last time, fittingly, on the day after the baseball season ended. But when he reached the Pearly Gates, it wasn’t Saint Peter who greeted him.
In the waiting area on this side of Heaven (which looked like Cooperstown to Pete), Shoeless Joe Jackson said, “Welcome to Baseball Purgatory . . . or maybe it’s Baseball Hell.”
“I thought my exile would end when I died,” The Hit King said to Shoeless.
“It’s not that simple,” answered the poster boy for the 1919 Black Sox. “Frankly, I don’t think it will ever end.”
* * *
Upon hearing the news that Pete Rose had died, my first thought was that, finally, he’d be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
For a long time, I figured those in charge of the Hall would consider the ultimate punishment to be granting him admission to the place that meant so much to him ONLY AFTER he couldn’t enjoy it.
But now I’m not so sure.
After looking into the case of Joe Jackson, I’m thinking maybe there’s no forgiving in baseball (just as there’s no crying, as Tom Hanks’ crusty character said in the movie A League of Their Own.)
Shoeless Joe was one of eight Chicago White Sox players indicted for taking bribes from gamblers to ensure that Cincinnati would win the 1919 World Series. Baseball’s first Commissioner, autocratic Kenesaw Mountain Landis, barred them from baseball for life—even though they were never convicted. (Over the decades, quite a bit of doubt has been cast on Jackson’s role, if any.)
Rose, on the other hand, admitted to betting on his team, after denying it for a long time.
But the similarity between Shoeless Joe and Charlie Hustle doesn’t have anything to do with guilt or innocence. Being banned from baseball is not what that fictitious exchange outside the Pearly Gates is about.
Major League Baseball’s Rule 21 addresses every conceivable kind of misconduct, including throwing a game, of which Shoeless Joe was accused. The punishment for that is being kicked out of baseball for life.
And in Rose’s case, the relevant part of Major League Baseball’s stern notice reads, clearly and unequivocally:
(d) GAMBLING.
(2) Any player, umpire, or Club or League official or employee, who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has a duty to perform, shall be declared permanently ineligible.
But no part of the warning says anything about being denied eligibility for induction to Cooperstown.
In its posted Mission Statement, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum states that it exists to “preserve the sport’s history, honor excellence within the game and make a connection between the generations of people who enjoy baseball.”
Based on that, it would seem the all-time leader in major league base hits, and a guy whose career batting average is fourth highest in history, both belong in the Hall.
But “honor(ing) excellence within the game” apparently does not extend to baseball pariahs.
Unlike steroid abusers, who inflated their stats by breaking the rule against performance-enhancing drugs, absolutely nothing on which their banishment from baseball was based helped either Rose or Jackson achieve their lofty exploits.
In 24 seasons, Pete Rose collected 4,256 hits—surpassing Ty Cobb’s seemingly unattainable total by 67—and finished with a lifetime batting average of .303, in a whopping 15,890 trips to the plate. (Cobb—no angel in a uniform—also played 24 seasons and went to bat 13,103 times.)
Rose also selflessly moved from second base to third base to left field to right field to first base—playing wherever he was asked—for the good of whichever team he was playing for—and won two gold gloves for his defense.
Jackson’s 12-year career batting average of .356 ranks just 10 points behind Cobb’s. He set the record for batting average by a rookie in 1911 when he hit .408.
Those are performances that should be recognized and celebrated in the hallowed Hall.
But in 1991, the HOF’s holier-than-thou Board of Directors formally voted to ban those on MLB’s “permanently ineligible” list from consideration for induction.
And in 2020, the Hall clarified that passing from this life wouldn’t change a thing.
“The death knell,” Shoeless Joe told Charlie Hustle.
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Denny Dressman is a veteran of 43 years in the newspaper business, including 25 at the Rocky Mountain News, where he began as executive sports editor. He is the author of 16 books, nine of them sports-related. You can write to Denny at dennydressman@comcast.net.