Revenge of the Birds
The CROH case for Steve Keim might be similarly warranted as Pat P’s.
Professional sports Hall of Fame and Ring of Honor protocols are often a topic of discussion, particularly in this era of performance enhancing drugs and some players’ and front office executives’ off-the-field transgressions.
Perhaps the most discerning of all pro sports’ Hall of Fames is the Major Leage Baseball shrine in Cooperstown, New York, where to this day one will not see the busts of Pete Rose, Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire or Roger Clemons. While Sammy Sosa has not been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, he was, however, inducted to the Chicago Cubs’ Hall of Fame.
Frank Deford of Sports Illustrated wrote a rhetorical masterpiece about the controversy surrounding Pete Rose’s Hall of Fame plight. In Deford’s “Rose’s Thorns: An Idol and a Scoundrel, Pete Perfectly Represents Extremes,” he wrote:
“So now there’s a big fuss because Pete Rose is finally admitting what everybody who is not in the Flat Earth Society already knows: that, when he was a manager, he bet on baseball. Having properly propitiated, Rose may again be embraced by Holy Mother Baseball and then accepted into the warm fold of the shrine at Cooperstown.”
“Or not.”
“In the end, we are all —- however we feel —- just so angry at Rose. That’s the crux. And, invariably, it is the people who love baseball the most who are most torn. If we support Rose’s claim to the Hall of Fame, we’re furious that he’s tarnished his brilliance so by malfeasance and deceit. Yet if we find him unbearable and unworthy, maybe it pains us more because we know that is precisely this curious, flawed creature who, better than anyone who ever played the game of baseball, played it as we wish everyone did.”
The question today for Cardinals’ fans is:
At the crux of this matter is the question as to whether a player should be inducted to the Cardinals’ Ring of Honor based strictly on the accolades he received while playing for the team, regardless of the player’s personal conduct —- or not.
One of the most compelling arguments that Frank Deford made about Pete Rose was that Rose played the game of baseball giving absolutely 100% of himself in every game he played. Heck, the guy even sprinted to first base after a walk. That’s one of the myriad reasons why Pete Rose was nicknamed “Charley Hustle.” Deford concluded with regard to the level of Rose’s effort and unmatched success on the field as a player, “He made us love baseball more.”
The Cardinals for years were graced to see their own Charley Hustle, All-Pro wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald, leave everything he had out on the football field. He stayed completely loyal to the Cardinals. In tough times, he never asked for a trade, even when no one could really blame him if he did.
On numerous occasions when he was a free agent, despite being avidly recruited by...
