Atabey previously said:




The dynamic duo team up

Tu Papa has "doctor Dread" had his meningitis vaccination or booster-shot? Just asking

As for Marichal and Roseboro: I believe the Roseboros and Marichals have the last words here, and both are in agreement that BOTH WERE RESPONSIBLE for the incident. Both Dread and you make the Torquemada excess of thinking that such an act should discredit Marichal's HOF career. As I've stated on numerous occasions, you guys are TOO driven by "purity of thought and action" on the part of human beings. People or at least REAL people are never devoid of some missteps in their lives. I know it's not the case with you and Dread; but the rest of humanity has for eternity had to deal with less than perfect individual

What is the Hall of Fame now?
Baseball's 'museum' must decide how it will acknowledge the game's tarnished stars

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Stark By Jayson Stark
ESPN.com
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Every once in a while, it's almost spooky how the forces in the universe converge to make you step back and think about where it's all heading. In baseball, this has been one of those weeks.

It was the week Barry Bonds got convicted of a PED-related felony in a federal courthouse in San Francisco.

It was the week Manny Ramirez took his positive test results, pulled the plug on his career and headed home.

It was the week baseball's banished Hit King, Pete Rose, turned 70.
[+] EnlargeBarry Bonds
AP Photo/Jeff ChiuIt's hard to overlook Barry Bonds' home run records, regardless of his steroid use.

So it was a week made for reflection about this great sport and its tarnished heroes. And, especially, it was a week that should inspire all of us to ponder what to make of a special museum in Cooperstown, N.Y., where those heroes once were destined to shine.

Here at World Rumblings Headquarters, we love the Hall of Fame. Like so many people we know, we have indelible memories of the first time we walked through the Hall, of the memories and emotions that day stirred, and of the thrill of sharing those memories and emotions with our kids.

But the Hall of Fame is in trouble now. Big trouble.

We've talked and written about this before. And our buddy, Tim Kurkjian, spoke eloquently about it again this week all over the airwaves after the Bonds verdict had crashed down on a sport that had long ago pronounced him guilty of way more than obstruction.

We are heading for a day when the Hall of Fame might be more famous for the players who aren't in it than the players who are. And we all need to ask ourselves: Does that make any sense?

The man who got more hits than any other player who ever lived (Rose) won't be in that Hall of Fame. Neither will the man who hit more home runs than any player in history (Bonds).

The guy who broke Roger Maris' home run record (Mark McGwire) will be missing. So will the second-winningest right-handed pitcher since World War I (Roger Clemens). Not to mention a fellow who might wind up atop the all-time lists in a dozen offensive categories (A-Rod). And that's just the short list.

So we ask again: Does that make any sense?

We've pleaded in the past for the folks who run the Hall of Fame to give all of us confused voters some guidance on this issue. But the question we're raising now is a larger, more powerful question, and it isn't about us:

What is the Hall of Fame, anyway?

And what do we want it to be? Do we want it to be a museum? Or do we want it to be a shrine?

The easy answer here is "shrine." Obviously. We'd love to live in a world where we could walk through that gallery, gaze on every plaque and hear trumpets blaring as tears fill our eyes. Hey, that would be great. Sign us up for that.

But do we really live in that world? Really?

If you do your homework, you know there are already plaques hanging in the Hall that glorify players who doctored baseballs, corked bats, gulped amphetamines and worse. There are Hall of Famers who have been arrested, Hall of Famers who went to jail, even a Hall of Famer (Tyrus Raymond Cobb) who is rumored to have killed a man.

Amazingly, the voters who elected them, the Hall of Famer players who welcomed them and the fans who parade through that gallery are willing to overlook all of that.

But not this?

Why are steroids different? Why are steroids worse? Because they dumped Babe Ruth out of the record books? Because they ruined the most hallowed records in sports?

Who among us isn't outraged by that? It's sad. It's tragic.

But it's also reality. The people who run this sport allowed it all to happen, every bit of it. Can they close their eyes now and wish it didn't happen? You bet. But it's too late.

The '90s happened. That was reality, like it or not. It's all right there in the books, right there in the box scores.

So another important question we ask today is: Is it time for the Hall of Fame to get real, to reflect that reality?


[+] EnlargePete Rose
Malcolm Emmons/US PresswirePete Rose might never be enshrined in Cooperstown despite being the career hits leader.

We don't have a good answer. We certainly don't have an answer that will make everybody happy. We know that when we try to imagine Barry Bonds' induction day, or Roger Clemens' induction day. Hoo, boy.

"You know who'd be standing behind him?" one Hall of Famer once told us when we asked how Bonds' induction day might go. "His family. And that's it -- because there wouldn't be any Hall of Famers there."

It pains us to think of that day, to imagine that scene. The magic of induction day, the outpouring of affection for a beloved figure in the game, has long been something every baseball fan should experience.

But not all induction days include that same magic because not all inductees inspire the same sort of love. So why does every induction day have to be a celebration?

Why can't some induction days also be a cause for reflection?

We can go on pretending that no bad stuff ever happened in baseball until the steroid era. Or we can be honest -- about all of it.

About steroids. About the Hit King and his gambling. About segregation. About decades of amphetamine use. About life -- real life -- and how it has colored baseball through every generation, not just this one.

We can allow that honesty to seep into the gallery in all sorts of ways -- in the kind of informational posters Bob Costas has proposed, even in the wording of the plaques themselves. If we're going to allow Barry Bonds and Pete Rose into the Hall of Fame, the world should know everything they did, not just the good stuff. That would, and should, be a mandatory condition.

But is that what we want? Or would we rather have a Hall of Fame that allows such gaping holes in history that it's willing to pretend all these men who towered over their sport never even existed?

Maybe we would. You tell us (uselessinfodept@yahoo.com). But as one friend of ours put it: "Go to any history museum. You see guys like Genghis Khan in there. It's not all good guys."

But is this museum different? Do we even consider it a museum at all? The Hall of Fame can be anything we want it to be, we suppose. But what should we want it to be? It's a very difficult, very complicated question.

This was one of those weeks, though, where it has felt impossible not to ask it.


Sorry to burst some cherished cherries this Palm Sunday

dreadlocks previously said:

wazzup, Atabey? no response? playing ball with the kiddies?

Atabey previously said:

TuPapaupa previously said:


Atabey, in case you missed this posts by "mistake", here it goes again:

He was provoked, BIG DEAL!.

I guess it would've been ok with you had Marichal killed him, right?.

After all, he was provoked.