“Rob” being Rob Manfred, mentioned in this lede:
NEW YORK — Pete Rose and “Shoeless” Joe Jackson were reinstated by baseball commissioner Rob Manfred on Tuesday, making both eligible for the sport’s Hall of Fame after their careers were tarnished by sports gambling scandals….
At least our fellow South Carolinian Joe Jackson got mentioned in the lede (and the headline) in The Boston Globe. The NYT only named Pete.
I suppose that makes sense, in an era in which news media seem to be unaware of things that happened a week ago, much less a century back. I suppose it’s a bit of a miracle that they remember Pete Rose, who died way back in September.
I remember Pete mainly from my one in-person meeting with him. I was probably about 14, and he was still in his crewcut days. (He never looked quite right to me with his hair grown out. Not like himself. It looked unnatural, like he was wearing a wig that didn’t fit him right. Like he was impersonating Moe Howard.)
This was in those glorious days when we lived in Tampa, with at least three teams — the Reds, the Cardinals and the Mets — having their spring training bases right there in the bay area. We went to a lot of games, although we only went to see the Mets once, after my little brother walked all the way across a training field next to Tom Seaver, begging him for an autograph, and Seaver never even looked at him. (This was the spring after they had shed their rep as the Joke of the World and actually won the World Series. Their heads were very swollen.)
That was an outrage because it violated the established spirit of informality that characterized spring training in those days. Tickets to the exhibition games were cheap, the players were entirely accessible, and if you couldn’t get at least a dozen good autographs at a game, you weren’t trying.
The Reds were right there in Tampa, and we enjoyed going to see the team that included not only Charlie Hustle, but that great rookie Johnny Bench. Anyway, to get to my story…
After one Reds game, my Dad told us to wait outside a minute while he stepped into the locker room. Yeah, you could do that. It would ever have occurred to me to try, but my Dad had played sports at a high level all his life, which paid for his college education, and I suppose he was more at home in such a sanctorum. Of course, it might just have been that he was a great Dad.
I waited outside holding my then-new Rawlings glove, the best glove I ever had. My Dad came back out and told me to go on in, because Pete Rose had promised to sign it for me. I felt about like a medieval urchin who’d been told to cross the drawbridge and go on into the castle because the King wanted to knight me.
But I went, and there he was. He was sitting on a table with his feet on the bench seat. He was in the middle of an interview. The sportswriter had interrupted him in the middle of preparing to shower. He had removed his shirt, but was still in his pants and cleats. He never really looked at me, being intent on the sportwriter’s questions, his head slightly cocked to one side as he listened, and then answering. But he reached out and took the glove and signed it, out on the thumb, while talking.
It was a beautiful autograph. He had a great, clear, handwriting — as clear as the “Willie Mays” autograph that came on the Rawlings glove from the factory. I was amazed he had managed to write that clearly under the circumstances.
I showed it off proudly while it lasted. But it didn’t last. This was my everyday glove that I played ball with. I’m not the “don’t take the figurine out of the package” type. After a couple of years, it had worn off, and I suppose any force that it might have transmitted from Charlie Hustle to me faded with it. Maybe that’s why you don’t hear any anecdotes from me about playing in the big leagues.
But I appreciate Pete signing to this day, and yeah, he should definitely be in the Hall.
So should Joe Jackson. Not only was he a better hitter than many who are in the Hall already, but unlike Pete, he was innocent. Or at least relatively so. That’s what we hear, and I find the tales persuasive. Joe just went along with the other guys, but delivered nothing to the gamblers — he played his heart out in the 1919 Series.
Of course, Rob Manfred didn’t exactly say it ain’t so. But he’s saying Joe should be reinstated, and he certainly should. Pete, too. Whatever happened off the field, their accomplishments ON it deserve to be remembered, and honored…
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