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Authors: Zev Chafets
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induction were infinitely contestible. It is probably more fun that way. And it is certainly closer to what Stephen Clark and Judge Landis envisioned. Clark, after all, was a great patron of the arts, and Landis was a lifelong moralizer. Together they created a Hall of Fame without statistical criteria of any kind. The only criterion they insisted upon was that the members of the new Hall be men of integrity, virtue, and character.
In the beginning, this went without saying. It got said in 1944, in Rule 5 of the Hall’s election requirements: “Voting shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played ” [italics added].
Known as the “Character Clause,” Rule 5 is the only condition imposed by the Hall on its electors. There is a Kantian moral self-assurance to the formula. It assumes that sportswriters, Veterans Committee members, and the general public will share a common understanding of what constitutes integrity, sportsmanship, and character. This is the sort of thing that a man like Stephen Clark might well have believed in 1944. For all I know, men like him believe it today. But, in an age of moral relativism and cultural diversity, character evaluation isn’t always clear-cut. And in no age would sportswriters be regarded as qualified arbiters of virtue.
Cooperstown is the model for hundreds of halls of fame around the country, but very few of them have insisted on virtue as a qualification. It is impossible to imagine the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame or the Boxing Hall of Fame insisting on such a thing. In the fall of 2007, the Idaho Hall of Fame inducted Senator Larry Craig into its ranks. Only months earlier, Craig had been arrested in a Minneapolis airport men’s room for attempting to play inter-stall footsie with an undercover vice cop. Some hardliners, such as Kootenai County Republican precinct chairman Phil Thompson, wondered if Craig deserved to be honored in the same institution as Boise State football coach Chris Peterson or hospitality magnate Duane Hagadone. But Craig had done his job in Washington, D.C., bringing home billions in pork over a twenty-year career. And, for the Idaho Hall of Fame, that’s what counted.
But baseball isn’t boxing or rock ’n’ roll, or even the U.S. Senate. Cooperstown celebrates not just a game but the National Pastime, and its immortals are supposed to represent the country’s best, most wholesome moral values. In the early days of the Hall, Commissioner Landis even proposed enshrining “Harvard” Eddie Grant, an outfielder of modest ability who died in combat in World War I. Grant didn’t make it. Ty Cobb did. And this posed a problem that the Hall still wrestles with today—what to do when great things happen to terrible people, and when ideals bump up against reality.
For most of the Hall’s history, reality has suffered, starting with the first inductee, Ty Cobb.
Nobody disputes that Ty Cobb was a transcendent baseball player. His lifetime .366 batting average, compiled over more than two de-cades, is a measure of professional greatness that will last as long as baseball. As kids in Detroit, we grew up on Cobb’s legend as a fierce competitor. We were told that he sharpened his spikes to intimidate infielders, and we emulated him by filing down our own rubber cleats. We were also aware that he sometimes got into fights on the field, a form of trying hard that our coaches admired. What we didn’t know—or care about—was that Cobb was a sociopath, a nasty drunk, a raving racist, and maybe a murderer.
In August 1912, newspapers in Detroit reported that Cobb had been accosted by three men and defended himself. He told one reporter that he had knocked a mugger down and caused two others to flee. He told another that he beat one of his attackers until the man fell to his knees and begged for forgiveness.
In 1959, in an authorized biography,
In the beginning, this went without saying. It got said in 1944, in Rule 5 of the Hall’s election requirements: “Voting shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played ” [italics added].
Known as the “Character Clause,” Rule 5 is the only condition imposed by the Hall on its electors. There is a Kantian moral self-assurance to the formula. It assumes that sportswriters, Veterans Committee members, and the general public will share a common understanding of what constitutes integrity, sportsmanship, and character. This is the sort of thing that a man like Stephen Clark might well have believed in 1944. For all I know, men like him believe it today. But, in an age of moral relativism and cultural diversity, character evaluation isn’t always clear-cut. And in no age would sportswriters be regarded as qualified arbiters of virtue.
Cooperstown is the model for hundreds of halls of fame around the country, but very few of them have insisted on virtue as a qualification. It is impossible to imagine the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame or the Boxing Hall of Fame insisting on such a thing. In the fall of 2007, the Idaho Hall of Fame inducted Senator Larry Craig into its ranks. Only months earlier, Craig had been arrested in a Minneapolis airport men’s room for attempting to play inter-stall footsie with an undercover vice cop. Some hardliners, such as Kootenai County Republican precinct chairman Phil Thompson, wondered if Craig deserved to be honored in the same institution as Boise State football coach Chris Peterson or hospitality magnate Duane Hagadone. But Craig had done his job in Washington, D.C., bringing home billions in pork over a twenty-year career. And, for the Idaho Hall of Fame, that’s what counted.
But baseball isn’t boxing or rock ’n’ roll, or even the U.S. Senate. Cooperstown celebrates not just a game but the National Pastime, and its immortals are supposed to represent the country’s best, most wholesome moral values. In the early days of the Hall, Commissioner Landis even proposed enshrining “Harvard” Eddie Grant, an outfielder of modest ability who died in combat in World War I. Grant didn’t make it. Ty Cobb did. And this posed a problem that the Hall still wrestles with today—what to do when great things happen to terrible people, and when ideals bump up against reality.
For most of the Hall’s history, reality has suffered, starting with the first inductee, Ty Cobb.
Nobody disputes that Ty Cobb was a transcendent baseball player. His lifetime .366 batting average, compiled over more than two de-cades, is a measure of professional greatness that will last as long as baseball. As kids in Detroit, we grew up on Cobb’s legend as a fierce competitor. We were told that he sharpened his spikes to intimidate infielders, and we emulated him by filing down our own rubber cleats. We were also aware that he sometimes got into fights on the field, a form of trying hard that our coaches admired. What we didn’t know—or care about—was that Cobb was a sociopath, a nasty drunk, a raving racist, and maybe a murderer.
In August 1912, newspapers in Detroit reported that Cobb had been accosted by three men and defended himself. He told one reporter that he had knocked a mugger down and caused two others to flee. He told another that he beat one of his attackers until the man fell to his knees and begged for forgiveness.
In 1959, in an authorized biography,
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