Month: January 2004

THE ROSEY TRUTH

The revelation that Pete Rose did, in fact, after all — stop the presses, if you will — bet on baseball is a perfect 21st-century news story: lots of volume and very little depth. Rose’s formal admission — made public last week in his new book, My Prison Without Walls — is akin to acknowledging that, yes, the Kennedys have chased a few skirts.

Since his 1989 ban from the sport that made him a household name, the Hit King (as Rose likes to call himself) has denied vehemently that he (1) gambled on baseball, (2) did so on the very Cincinnati Red team he managed at the time, and (3) placed the alleged bets from major league clubhouses. (He admits to the first two in his book, still denies the third.) But the fact is, there’s no way Bart Giamatti — the baseball commissioner in 1989, a former president of Yale, and a tried-and-true Boston Red Sox fan — would suffer the smoke of an intense and very public investigation were there not an all-too-destructive fire to extinguish. It goes without saying that the stress of Rosegate played a role in the heart attack that killed Giamatti merely weeks after Rose’s ban was announced. Not until the 1995 trial of O.J. Simpson would we witness the kind of over-the-top denial in the face of damning evidence that Rose screamed from beyond baseball’s proverbial fence.

So the recent “news” is hardly worth a pause. The story, as it were, remains the same we baseball fans have debated for 15 years now: does Rose, gambling warts and all, deserve a place in baseball, and eligibility for the Hall of Fame?

Let’s begin with the latter question. Pete Rose (Charlie Hustle, as I like to remember him) played in more baseball games and accumulated more hits than anyone else in the history of the sport. (Considering modern salary structure, which will shorten careers, and the dramatic shift in priority to power hitting, I’d argue Rose’s 4,256 hits belongs on the short list of unbreakable baseball records.) He engineered the second-longest hitting streak (44 games) in the history of the game. He was an instrumental member of three world champions. And he should bow to no one in terms of candidacy for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Remember, this is not the Character Hall of Fame. Rogers Hornsby, Ty Cobb, even Babe Ruth would hardly be the kind of person you’d want babysitting your children. But the Hall of Fame would be incomplete without them. For youngsters to visit Cooperstown and not learn about Pete Rose . . . you might as well hit Disney World and skip Mickey Mouse. (As for the character issue, as long as Simpson retains his bust in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, no such shrine anywhere should look beyond the athletic feats of any player, any sport.)

So Rose gets his plaque, which will feature an engraved line about his ban (as much a part of his legacy as the head-first slide or sprints to first after ball four). What about a job, presumably of the managerial sort? Sorry, Pete. This is where we — the protectors of baseball’s integrity as a national pastime — draw the line. No can do.

Posted in every major league locker room is a strong admonishment on the subject of gambling. Even if a player is ignorant of the Black Sox scandal of 1919 (and the sad fate of Shoeless Joe Jackson), the consequences of gambling on baseball is spelled out for a player to read before, during, and after every game he plays. Rose can read. A hubris born of his transcendent achievements on the field — combined with an addiction for playing the odds — led Rose to defy his game’s most sacred law. And there shouldn’t be a second chance here, not when it involves Rose again taking a leadership role in a big-league clubhouse. Returning Rose to such an environment would be the equivalent of asking a recovering alcoholic to tend bar at the New Year’s bash.

I visited Cooperstown in July 2002 for Ozzie Smith’s induction. The day before the ceremony, I walked into a memorabilia shop, quite literally across the street from the Hall of Fame museum. In the back of the shop, behind a table with two “officials” — one to monitor the line snaking out to the sidewalk, the other to count cash — was the Hit King himself, signing autographs for a fee well in excess of the Hall of Famers I’d see in similar venues that weekend. Pete Rose, you see, has profited as a pariah. Turns out a baseball legend is hardly as attractive to the masses as a baseball outlaw. The time has come to legitimize Pete Rose in relation to the pantheon of baseball greats. As for his impact on the game’s history, there’s still a lesson to be taught.

JUST SAY NO TO JOE

During the election campaign of 2000, when Vice Presidential candidate Joe Lieberman appeared at a local fundraiser, the crowd found him to be cordial and funny. Most had decided it was time to forgive his sanctimonious prime time backstabbing of President Clinton from the Senate floor on the night of the Impeachment.

Despite his repulsive demonstration of disloyalty to his Party and President through his moralizing, self-righteous sermon, his selection on the ticket with Al Gore inspired a sense of confidence in Lieberman’s integrity, honor, and trustworthiness. Obviously, Gore chose poorly and the faithful were misled.

Lieberman’s inability to gain votes on his own merit, leave him with only cheap shots designed to undermine Dean and other front runners. With his recognition of that fact and all his fundraising frustrations, Lieberman can only offer undecided voters cheap shots aimed at his rivals without regard to the long-term cost to the Democratic Party. When it comes to money, the Republicans, and their corporate donors will spend almost a quarter of a billion dollars to gain victory this fall. What Democrats resent is Lieberman’s willingness to cut Bush slack, his inability to define what our country would look like today had Al Gore been properly recognized as President of the United States and providing Karl Rove sound bites ad nauseam about Howard Dean’s Republican media fabricated deficiencies.

Senator Lieberman’s willful attempts to defeat the other candidates, specifically Howard Dean, by name calling and character assassination are desperate attempts that could potentially destroy the Democratic party’s chances of beating George W. Bush. In fact, they serve as a demonstration of his continual promotion of Bush. His barb that Howard Dean is so divisive that he is unfit to lead the nation is both below the belt and over the top. While claiming Dean had crawled into a spider hole of denial regarding the capture of Sadaam Hussein, it appears Senator Lieberman has crawled into his own hole of denial regarding his party affiliation. His pronouncement that Governor Dean is not electable because he makes all Democrats look like untrustworthy weaklings is beyond the pale. That outrageous comment makes Lieberman look desperate and weak. No respectable candidate would assail another with such reckless abandon in the distinct hopes of taking down the entire party. Most are finding this contentious lashing out to be inexcusable and it is likely the reason the senator’s polling numbers have fallen into single digits. Apparently, Lieberman has decided to prove he is the Democrat mostly likely to assist in helping the re-election of George W. Bush by slicing and dicing members of his own party. The old saw, “with friends like this…”is definitely applicable.

Howard Dean has become the front runner because, unlike Lieberman, he’s not afraid to act like a Democrat. He talks about the things that matter to Democratic voters: healthcare, education, jobs, and the security of their retirements. He is candid with the working middle-class about losing their status and how with another four years of Bush, they could wind up becoming part of the exploding population of unemployed bankruptcy filers with little chance of recouping their lost wages. Dean recognizes the Democrats’ anger and frustration with their party’s leadership who have spent the last three years rolling over and playing dead while the present White House occupant has looted the Treasury, turned over the government to corporate special interest groups, and exploited 9/11 with attacks on civil liberties and the unilateral invasion of Iraq. Most Democrats want a strong voice of opposition to Bush and his wrong headed policies and Dean is delivering the truth, unvarnished, about the crookedness of the path and the darkness of the road.

While Americans appreciate Senator Lieberman’s years of contributions to civil rights, women’s rights, and affirmative action, most Democrats find alarming his close alliances with high profile advocates for the Republican party such as Bill Bennett, Gary Bauer, Ralph Reed, and Jerry Falwell. These relationships are wholly inconsistent with most Democrats’ view of the nation. He is clearly out of touch with his support of the war in Iraq, the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, school vouchers and calls for the partial privatization of Social Security. In other words, when it comes to most of the issues, he offers little change and virtually no opposition to the Bush way of running America.

The Democrats have had enough of the back room guffaws from the party in power. The only belly laughing and back slapping Democrats want to hear in November are celebrations and congratulations on a job well done in taking back this country.

City employees have confirmed that Darrell Eldred, Mayor Willie Herenton’s rejectewd nominee for the position of general services director, has resigned effective Friday, January 9.

In a appointment hearing before the city council Tuesday, Eldred was grilled about malfeasance in the general services division, as well as two possible instances of using racial slurs. The deputy director of the division, Eldred told the council he had never had a complaint against him until he and former division director Rodney Eder started an investigation into wrongdoing at the division last year.

Not all council members were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Tajuan Stout Mitchell started to say she appreciated Eldred’s 17 years of service with the city, but then changed her mind and said that she “acknowledged” his time with the city.

Eldred could not be reached for comment.

REJECTED! BUT WHAT NOW?

It was pretty decent political drama when the City Council chewed up Mayor Willie Herenton’s nominees for division directors, you have to give them that.

The questions were to the point and unflinching.

Who knew genial E. C. Jones had a mean streak — unless you remember that he used to be a police officer? He played tough cop to city attorney-nominee Sara Hall, ill-fated former finance director Roland McElrath, and especially to Darrel Eldred of General Services, all but accusing him of complicity in misuse of public property.

Rickey Peete picked his spots, but his vigorous head-nodding or Buddha-silence showed which way several of the votes were going to go. Edmund Ford vowed that the council won’t play pushover for Herenton or anyone else. And newcomer Carol Chumney, a lawyer, was as dead serious and dead on as a prosecutor in cross-examination. “No more questions,” she said at the end of one foray. Class clow Brent Taylor and Personnel Committee Chairman Tom Marshall supplied the wisecracks, as usual. “Don’t bring us no mess!” could become the new Memphis mantra or at least a T-shirt slogan.

Herenton’s insults and cockiness caught up with him. He may have won a fourth consecutive term, but the city council isn’t going to approve a slate of what it perceives to be yes-men and women and school board rejects. It was actually a little uncomfortable watching the council make McElrath and Human Resources nominee Inetta Rogers take their turns on the hot seat without a chance in hell of prevailing. How, you had to wonder, could Herenton have nominated them in the first place knowing they faced such opposition? McElrath, a soft-spoken guy whose biggest sin was refusing to be nickel-and-dimed by council members’ off-the-books funding requests, hardly got a kind word from anyone before being dispatched 12-0.

Twelve to nothing! That will teach him to deny a councilman a favor. Adding insult to injury, some council members suggested McElrath’s core problem is that he wasn’t man enough stand up to Herenton like his predecessor Rick Masson and his successor Joseph Lee.

So what now? Probably a stalemate for a while — Lee has to stay on at finance, the MLGW presidency stays vacant while the sham of a national search is conducted — followed by a Herenton counterstrike. Then a messy four years of tax increases, the second stage of the utility rate hike, cold war with the school boards, maybe even some layoffs of public employees. Fiery Joe Brown as chairman of the council. Already Herenton has reminded him, “you don’t run nothin’!” Top it all off with a big fat dose of holier-than-thou religious righteousness in public life, now bearing the official stamp of approval from the President, the mayor, and the daily newspaper. Bring us some mess for sure.

The council was overdue to assert itself. It has watched the Center City Commission and Riverfront Development Corporation and Public Building Authority steal its thunder and much of its power. Individually, none of them can topple Herenton, but collectively they can show him who’s boss, or at least who’s not.

Only three years and 51 weeks left to go in this term.