Throw Ty Cobb out of the Hall of Fame if Barry Bonds can't get in

I’m on a mission to get Ty Cobb (December 18, 1886 – July 17, 1961) kicked out of the Hall of Fame.

I know it’s ridiculous to suggest that the hall dismiss arguably the greatest baseball player of all time. He was inducted as a member of the inaugural Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936, receiving 222 out of a possible 226 votes.

Cobb set 90 Major League Baseball records, including the highest career batting average (.367) and the most career batting titles with 12.  He held records for half a century after his retirement, including most career hits (4,191), most career runs (2,246), most games played (3,035) and most stolen bases (892). When discussing the legends of baseball, Cobb and Babe Ruth are the first to come to mind.

I have a good argument to kick both of them out of the Hall of Fame. I’m willing to let it slide if the Hall of Fame votes Barry Bonds in as a member.

You can’t do that! I can hear the echoes bouncing off the walls at Cooperstown.  Bonds is a cheater.  He defrauded the integrity of the game by juicing up with steroids. That’s what sportswriters are using to justify keeping one of the best ever to play out of the Hall of Fame. 

Bonds has become the poster boy of a corrupt era.  He’s not the only player to juice up.  The list is so long that it’s tough finding a person who passes the smell test.  To his credit, Bonds has credible statistics prior to his head enlarging and body pumping up to resemble a NFL linebacker.

MLB may need a poster boy to distance itself from the juice era.  I get that, but I refuse to allow it to happen without calling the league on its hypocrisy in claiming innocence of all things pre steroids.

The truth is both Cobb and Ruth were racist.   Cobb’s racism is documented in Al Stump’s book Cobb: The Life and Times of the Meanest Man Who Ever Played Baseball. In 1994, the book was used as the basis for Cobb, a film starring Tommy Lee Jones as Cobb. Cobb’s racism is trumped only by his fits of rage and violent playing style.

Ruth was no better than Cobb.  Ruth was known for his racism, womanizing and mean ways with fans.  Both Ruth and Cobb made it into the Hall of Fame because of their play on the field.  Fans are now asked to measure the worth of players based on their reputations off the field.  We’re also challenged to consider the cultural context in which the bigots from the past played.

Cobb apologists argue that the “Georgia Peach” was no different than his peers.  Cobb was born and reared within a racist Southern environment, and shouldn’t be ridiculed for being like everyone else.  Implied in condoning Cobb’s ways, based on the context of a racist society, is the negation of how he and others benefitted from the policy that prohibited the inclusion of black players. 

In other words, Cobb, Ruth and others were great, in part, because of the cultural norms of the day.  They thrived, in part, because of racism.  Despite the advantages of living within a culture that affirmed and celebrated his game - despite the advantage of bigotry - we allow bigots in the Hall of Fame.  We’re told it’s not Cobb’s fault.  It was normative for the day.

The rules are altered with Bonds.  The aftermath of the steroid era exposed how vast it was used.  Not only was it used, the league allowed it to happen.  I was not illegal.  The Commissioner, owners, managers, coaches and players were all complicit in the management of steroids, cocaine, amphetamines, methamphetamine and other drugs.  Players assumed they needed the juice to compete.

It was part of the culture of baseball.

Like Cobb, Bonds lived within a historical context that normalized what we consider horrific.  The difference is Cobb, and the other racist, are inducted into the Hall of Fame, while Bonds is denied entry for doing what was normal for his era.

Fans of the game will argue a difference between racism and steroids.  They argue that the integrity of the game is compromised by drugs.  Given baseball is a game of numbers, how can we stand by numbers smeared by performance enhancing drugs?  Can we credit those who are awarded for playing with an advantage?

This is when my blood begins to boil.  Aren’t the numbers of Cobb, Ruth, Musial and Williams blemished by who wasn’t allowed to play the game?  Should we authenticate the play of those who lived within a culture that honored their position of white privilege, allow them into the Hall of Fame despite that advantage, while denying entry to others who played within a culture that affirmed similar advantage?

Like I said, I’m calling for the Hall of Fame to throw Cobb out of the Hall of Fame.  If he’s allowed to stay as a racist, then nothing that follows will bear meaning. The game was tarnished by race and the league allowed it to happen.

Now we’re told to honor the integrity of the game.

Don’t make me cuss!

756: Who Cheated Who

It’s over. Let the celebration begin. On Tuesday, August 7, 2007, Barry Bonds hit his 756th home run, making him the home run king of Major League Baseball. Problem is most people aren’t celebrating. The record, they say, is tainted by accusations of steroid usages that transformed Barry from an incredible player into superhuman.
The reports on ESPN after the game were each laced with comments about the S-word. They reported the surge in Bonds home run totals after he hooked up with the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO) and allegedly started taking the “Clear”-a steroid so sophisticated that testers couldn’t pick it up.

Bonds critics point to the massive changes in his body as further evidence that he doped up to increase his home run stats. The headline for one of our local newspapers, The News & Observer, read “Bonds hits 756th homer, blurring record’s meaning.” The article read, “He (Bonds) took a swing at everything the record represented."

Yes, its true, a segment of America hates Bonds. The disdain is for numerous reasons. They hate his arrogance and the way he implies racism whenever things aren’t going his way. He’s no media darling. His teammates, at least some of them, say he’s aloof. All of that may be true.

Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams helped mold the negative public perception surrounding Bonds. Their book “Games and Shadows” went into the details of how Bonds used the “Clear” to improve his game. They threw in that Bonds cheated on his taxes and had an affair. The conclusion coming from the book is Bonds is a bad man. Don’t cheer for him when he passes Hank Aaron.

There’s a twist to this story that won’t get told due to the way the national media controls what we read. There is a serious divide in America related to the way we should view Bonds. Most black people don’t care about the allegations of steroid usage. Most contend that the statistics used by Major League Baseball to define greatness are nothing other than a reminder of how race played a role in measuring worth. If Bonds cheated, and many African Americans don’t believe he did, it doesn’t matter because those who played the game cheated for years.

The numbers are a reflection of the scandal of the game before Jackie Robinson entered the league in 1947. Before then, and even after, many of the greatest players of the game were prevented from showing their skills on the same playing field as white players. Willie Mays spent three years playing in the Negro League before getting a chance to play in the Major League. He played briefly with the Chattanooga Choo-Choos in Tennessee and the Birmingham Black Barons. Mays signed with the New York Giants in 1950, playing with their Class-B affiliate in Trenton, New Jersey. He began the 1951 season at AAA Minneapolis Millers of the American Association. After he hit .477 in 35 games, he was called up to the major leagues in May 1951.

Race cheated Mays out of a chance to break Babe Ruth’s record of 714 home runs. Mays missed breaking the record by 55 home runs. If given two of the four years of his prime spent in the Negro League and the minors he would have certainly broken the record. The argument against this is the longevity of his career. When Mays retired he was the oldest player in the league. Then there’s Josh Gibson.

By many accounts, Gibson is the greatest power hitter of them all. His Baseball Hall of Fame plaque says he hit “almost 800” home runs in his 17-year career. Some estimates have him hitting over 900. He hit 75 home runs in 1931. He hit 69 home runs in 1934. He batted .467 with 55 home runs in 137 games in 1933, and swatted 84 home runs in 1936. His lifetime batting average is said to be higher than .350, with some sources putting it as high as .384. Gibson did well against white major league players. According to the baseball historian John Holway, Gibson went 21 for 56 against white major league pitchers in all star games between the Negro League and Major League. Included in the group was Hall of Fame pitcher Dizzy Dean. The Negro League won more than its share of those games.

The Sporting News of June 3, 1967 credits Gibson with a home run in a Negro League game at Yankee Stadium that struck two feet from the top of the wall circling the center field bleachers, about 580 feet from home plate.

Barry Bonds mentioned Gibson when he broke the single season record. “No, in my heart it belongs to Josh Gibson,” he said in July 2003 referring to Gibson’s 84 homers in 1936. “Why doesn’t that count? Why don’t any of those statistics count..If Josh Gibson is the home run king, recognize it.”

That’s part of the burden of history. What do we do with all those consequences? The statistics don’t mean the same among those who refuse to honor their worth because they fail to acknowledge the role of those denied access. It’s like Mark Twain said, “There are lies, there are damn lies, and then there are statistics.”

The record was blurred long before Bonds stepped into a batters box. It has been distorted since January 1947. That’s when Josh Gibson died from a brain tumor at the age of 35. Two weeks later Jackie Robinson broke the color line in major league baseball. For those who saw Gibson play, they can only speculate about how great he would have been if race wasn’t used to cheat black people from their day of fame.