Blog

Never Too Old to Learn

Going with the theory that you are never too old to learn--yes, even me--I attended a story telling workshop last week at the newly reorganized Appalachian Center in Hindman.  The original center close to the post office is now being leased for office space I was told.  The new center is in the old hardware building near the courthouse.  

It is a beautiful facility which includes a rooftop dinning area among the giant air conditioning units and a conference room that is glass walled and looks out among downtown Hindman--beautiful view.  That was the room in which the workshop was held.  Angelyn DeBord from Virginia was the leader and I was amazed at how much he accomplished in only two hours.  

She did not lecture --actually spoke very little during the whole thing--but she put us right to work in small groups.  She had us draw topics from a hat and then encouraged and raised questions about the story we were trying to tell then put us back to work.  Finally we performed our skit for the other groups who then guessed to whom  our story had actually happened.  

I'm still enjoying the feeling of satisfaction I received from participating in the workshop and am looking forward to plying my new skills in upcoming storytelling performances.  The next one I'm planning on giving will be in Seville, Ohio on November 5.  Seville is located about 20 miles from Akron and is the place Martin VanBuren Bates and his bride Anna Swan settled on a 130 acre farm and were later buried after finishing their circus careers.  I love to tell their story and this will be special for me.  

Their small museum of the giants needs a new furnace before the snow flies.  My appearance will be a fund raiser for that project.  If you would like to help ensure continued success for their museum you may send a donation to them-The Giants Museum, c/o Richard Crowe, 5 Jasmine Court, Hazard KY 41701.  I will make sure they get your donation and they will send you a receipt for tax purposes.

Should Pete Rose Be In the Hall of Fame?

I was in Dayton last week at a wonderful event celebrating 100 years of baseball, jazz and literature.  Wright State University hosted the two day seminar that drew baseball experts from far and wide.

One speaker was Hal McCoy, the longtime Reds beat writer for the Dayton Daily News.  Hal is enshrined in the writers wing of the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown N.Y.  Among his 30,000 published pieces were the original reference to the “Big Red Machine” and scooping the Pete Rose  gambling story.

Hal asked this question from the podium, Should Pete Rose be in the Hall of Fame?  I must confess that I have gone back and forth on this question for years.  The answer from Hal McCoy and the majority of this well informed audience of baseball writers and fans was positive.  We all agreed that based strictly on statistics, Rose should be in the Hall of Fame but based on Pete’s misconduct, lack of candor and remorse, however, the answer has gone the other way.

The discussion made me wonder what would have happened to Pete if he had played when former Kentucky Governor and U.S. Senator Albert B “Happy” Chandler was baseball’s second commissioner.  Happy had his own gambling problems to deal with. I assure you  that  Pete Rose was not the first baseball player to gamble on baseball.  During the time Happy was Commissioner he had to tell Dizzy Dean that he would lose his television broadcasting gig if he didn’t quit gambling on games he was calling.  He  banned  Dodger Manager Leo Durocher for one year for gambling.  He also used his personal secretary to investigate Dan Topping, one of the owners of the New York Yankees.  Topping’s construction company had build a casino in Las Vegas and Chandler wanted to know how much more Topping was involved in the business of gambling.

Happy was sympathetic with the plight of Shoeless Joe Jackson, a grade school dropout who could neither read nor write but who had batted .375 (19 points higher than his career average) and fielded centerfield  flawlessly during the 1919 World Series. A total of 7 Chicago White Sox players allegedly threw games allowing the  Reds to win that championship.  Shoeless Joe was found innocent by the courts as were the other White Sox players but Judge Lands banned them anyway without an investigation.  Happy thought that Jackson was  innocent of any wrong doing.

He also thought that Ty Cobb was the greatest player to ever perform on a major league diamond.  When Pete Rose passed him on the all time hit list at 4,256 hits, Happy concluded that Pete had batted 3,462 more times than Cobb.  He liked Rose’s hustle and enthusiasm on the field but thought Cobb the better all time player.  When Pete Rose was playing he first encountered A. Bartlett Giamatti in his new role as President of the National League.  Rose had shoved umpire  Dave Pallone and Bart suspended him for 30 games.

Commissioner Giamatti  suspended one other player during his two year term as N.L. president.  Dodger pitcher Jay Howell was suspended for 3 days for using pine tar to doctor his fastball.

I’m sure Pete, a high school graduate, never met Giamatti in his previous job.  Bart was the son of an English Literature professor of Italian descent.  He, himself, graduated magna cum laude from Yale in English and Italian literature where he then earned a Ph.D in Literature .  During the next few years he taught at Princeton then returned to Yale for 11 years of scholarly writing, research and  teaching.  During that time Bart authored hundreds of articles and books followed by 8 years as President.

It would be fair to say that these two  followed different paths to their eventual meeting during Giamatti’s  51 weeks as Commissioner.  They came from opposite  sides of the tracks as had Shoeless Joe Jackson and Commissioner Landis.  During the brief period of time that Bart served as the 7th Commissioner he was able to hire an investigator named John M. Dowd who took 9 months to  produce a 225 page report( including 7 volumes of exhibits) indicating that Rose had gambled on baseball including on his own team.  Rose loudly  denied the charges but accepted a lifetime ban from baseball that would be revisited one year later.

Who knows what Giamatti’s decision would have been if he had lived to make that meeting twelve months later. Bart, who was a chain smoker, died of a heart attack at his summer home before the one year passed.   When asked to review Shoeless Joe Jackson’s case during his year as Commissioner he declined saying that the decision had been exposed to historic debate and should remain there rather than have a later Commissioner reopen the case.

I think that would have been his decision on  Pete Rose too.  But I do think that  if Happy Chandler had been the  Commissioner deciding this case that his growing up poor on his father’s  farm in western  Kentucky, playing and coaching high school and college sports, earning a  degree at Transylvania by working his way through school then doing the same at  law school at Harvard and Kentucky before being named Commissioner would have impelled him to find a quieter way of handling the actions of the all time hits leader of our national game.

If Happy had been the ruling Commissioner, I think Pete Rose would be in the baseball Hall of Fame  in Cooperstown right now and baseball would be no worse off for the experience.