The headlines about MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred’s announcement this week focused on Pete Rose’s reinstatement. Pete Rose was a piece of shit, but the evidence against him was shaky. Consider the source: John Dowd, who defended Trump during the Mueller probe, ran the investigation. In fact, there’s a good chance that President Pennywise had an impact on the Rose reinstatement:

The first question about Pete Rose’s reinstatement is obvious: Why did Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred reverse course? Though Rose’s attorney and oldest daughter surely made heartfelt pleas on behalf of the all-time hit king, it’s reasonable to wonder if pressure on Manfred from President Donald Trump had a greater impact.

 

If Trump did indeed help persuade the commissioner, it leads to another question: Can the president succeed in lobbying Rose into the Hall of Fame? Here’s guessing that influencing the Hall’s committee process would be more challenging, but after Manfred’s stunning decision Tuesday to posthumously remove Rose, Shoeless Joe Jackson and others from the permanently ineligible list, who can say for sure?”

Is anyone surprised that the crooked president is a fan of the crooked ballplayer? I thought not.

Is there anything the Kaiser of Chaos cannot turn to shit? Apparently not.

As you can tell from the post title and featured image, I’m more concerned that the players who threw the 1919 World Series, collectively known as the Black Sox, have been delisted. The Chairman of the Hall of Fame has already said that delistees will be eligible for induction. Does that mean that the corrupt and illiterate moron Shoeless Joe Jackson will be admitted?

Jackson’s supporters paint him as an ignorant dupe. He was certainly too stupid to be one of the ringleaders, but he was in on the plot and took the money. He deserves to remain banned for life and barred from Hall of Fame admission. Bill James said it best in his book, The Politics of Glory:

My personal opinion is that the people who want to put Joe Jackson in the Hall of Fame are baseball’s answer to those women who show up at murder trials wanting to marry the cute murderer.”

Nailed it.

What’s next? A posthumous presidential medal of freedom for World Series fixer, Arnold Rothstein? Imagine a ceremony at which the Insult Comedian praises Rothstein as “one smart Jew” for paying someone to destroy the evidence in the Black Sox trial allowing them to escape justice.

Back to Eight Men Out. Eliot Asinof’s book was the first baseball book for grown-ups I ever read. It made a lasting impression on me. It’s why I groan at the thought that the Commissioner’s edict has moved Joe Jackson, Eddie Cicotte, Chick Gandil, Happy Felsch, Fred McMullin, Swede Risberg, Lefty Williams, and Buck Weaver from baseball hell to purgatory.

Buck Weaver’s claims of innocence were bunk: He appears not to have taken the money BUT he was in on the plot and could have blown the whistle but stayed silent. He deserves the label of Black Sox.

One of my favorite writer-directors, John Sayles, adapted Eight Men Out for the big screen in 1988. He’s a bit too soft on Jackson and Weaver but otherwise does an excellent job of conveying this sordid scandal. The Black Sox *were* underpaid but that doesn’t excuse taking a bribe from gamblers to throw the World Series.

Sayles appears in many of his films. In Eight Men Out, he played the great sportswriter Ring Lardner who changed the word bubbles to ball games in this song he serenaded the Black Sox with:

I might as well post the trailer:

Grading Time:  I give Eight Men Out 4 stars and an Adrastos Grade of A-. It was dunned a grade step for going soft on Jackson and Weaver. They had it coming.

I’ve written several times recently about how Trump has damaged American ethical standards. The Manfred announcement is an excellent example of the ethics erosion. He’s pandering to Trump with Pete Rose’s reinstatement, but he opened the floodgates by including the crooks who threw the World Series. Why? Gambling. It’s now acceptable in professional sports, if anything the NFL is more culpable in that regard than baseball.

I don’t give a shit if Pete Rose is elected to the Hall of Fame. I do give a shit if Joe Jackson is honored. It could lead me to do this:

I can’t resist posting this undersized GIF with Curley Howard as the shoe tosser:

Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.

My shoe would be aimed at Rob Manfred. As the Brits would say, he’s a tosser.

The last word goes to Madness: