Swinging strike three for Charlie Hustler

Throneberry Fields Forever ^ | 14 December 2015 | Yours Truly

[BluesDuke]

Yes, I would rather be thinking aloud about such things as Jeff Samardzija’s slightly ridiculous contract. (Shades of Bud Black.) About whether John Lackey’s and (especially) Jason Heyward’s signings with the Cubs really do make them a 2016 World Series entrant. (Berra’s Law still applies, as the 2015 Nationals can tell you.) About how much financial flexibility Michael Cuddyer’s retirement leaves the Mets. (Some, but maybe not quite enough to think about re-signing Yoenis Cespedes.) Or Johnny Cueto signing with the Giants. Among other things.

But commissioner Rob Manfred has let it be known that Pete Rose isn’t going to be reinstated to baseball on his watch, either. Manfred on Monday made official what The New York Times reported about the ban being kept in place. He might have taken what the Times called “a quick, and genuine interest in Mr. Rose’s case” when he succeeded Bud Selig formally last January, but that didn’t necessarily mean Rose was going to be removed from purgatory.

It ended with a telephone call to Rose from Manfred, and with a somewhat lengthy but stone cold sober statement in which the commissioner said in essence that Rose has not only failed to glean the complete depth of why he’s banished but has failed to “present credible evidence of a reconfigured life.”

Rose petitioned Manfred last March to consider his reinstatement, and Manfred said then he wanted to hear what Rose would have to say, refusing to decide on reinstatement until hearing it, after he first made certain of the Dowd Report’s details and the decision then-commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti made. Well, Manfred has heard what Rose now has to say, and he decided accordingly. As if it would have been a terrible shock once Manfred let it be known he wouldn’t reinstate Shoeless Joe Jackson, either.

Manfred also wrote of Charlie Hustler’s failure to present “a rigorous, self-aware and sustained program of avoidance by him of all the circumstances that led to his premanent ineligibility in 1989.” Meaning Rose bets on baseball even now. He might be entitled to do so legally, but it isn’t exactly the wise thing to do, when trying to convince the chief executive officer of the game that banished him that he gets why baseball has formal rules against its personnel gambling.

Rose’s noticeably shrinking community of defenders probably won’t let Manfred’s decision be the absolute end of things. There will remain those, whether they support or oppose Rose’s banishment, who think it’s entirely irrelevant to whether Rose belongs in the Hall of Fame. Never mind that the Hall has a rule saying those on baseball’s permanently ineligible list are likewise ineligible to stand for election to the Hall. And there will also remain those who think it’s entirely fatuous to think that a man banned from baseball for breaking one of its cardinal rules is worthy of Hall enshrinement.

In June, ESPN’s Outside the Lines uncovered a smoking gun that blasted Rose’s final line of defense away, a notebook once belonging to a man through whom Rose bet with mob-connected bookmakers, showing Rose bet on baseball extensively, including on his own team, during the final year he was a player-manager. The program revealed that in April 1986 Rose bet twenty-one times on the Reds one or another way, including a few games in which Rose might have played.

“During our meeting,” says Manfred’s statement, “Mr. Rose told me that he has continued to bet on horse racing and on professional sports, including baseball. Those bets may have been permitted by law in the jurisdictions in which they were placed, but this fact does not mean that the bets would be permissible if made by a player or manager subject to Rule 21.”

And, in this footnote to that section, Manfred reveals just how badly Rose swung on and missed. “Even more troubling, in our interview, Rose initially denied betting on baseball currently and only later in the interview did he ‘clarify’ his response to admit such betting.”

What about the Hall of Fame? Manfred had something to say about that, too: “The issue of whether Mr. Rose should be eligible for Hall of Fame election under the bylaws of that organization presents an entirely different policy determination that is focused on a range of considerations distinct from the more narrow question before me—i.e., whether I believe that Mr. Rose’s reinstatement would be consonant with the policy rationale underlying Rule 21. Thus, any debate over Mr. Rose’s eligibility for the Hall of Fame is one that must take place in a different forum.”

The Hall of Fame settled the question in 1991. There’s no known hint that the Hall is even thinking about modifying that settlement. Manfred’s denial makes for a third time a Rose reinstatement petition has failed. Does a man like Rose, whose comprehension of the rules depends on what your definition of the rules is, understand what happens when you swing with two strikes and miss?

[BluesDuke]

It was Charlie Hustle, , not that skank-filled magazine hustler.

I hate ignorant journalists that are too lazy to spend 20 seconds checking themselves. AArgh.\

I'm not even a baseball fan, but know about Pete Rose...

I've been calling him Charlie Hustler for years, for reasons having nothing to do with a magazine skank-filled or otherwise and everything to do with what got Rose banished from baseball in the first place.

I'm getting close enough to hating people who can't comprehend a mere pun.

[BluesDuke]

Look, if the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) won't vote in Shoelsss Joe Jackson into the Hall of Fame, they will NEVER vote in Pete Rose into the Hall of Fame.

They can't even if they wish to. The Hall of Fame itself---as I noted in the original essay (I am "Yours Truly")---enacted a rule in 1991 that says anyone on baseball's permanently ineligible list cannot stand for election to the Hall of Fame.

[Don W]

If Hustle”R” was meant as a pun, it was weak.

JMHO, YMMV

[Hot Tabasco]

I didn’t put all those bizarre symbols where apostrophes ought to be!

Riiiiiiight, blame it on the cat.......

[BluesDuke]

If Hustle'R' was meant as a pun, it was weak.

If you can come up with something better to describe a man who violated baseball's most sacrosanct rule, lied about it for years, and still behaves as though he really doesn't get what got him thrown out of baseball's good graces, be my guest.

[Don W]

FCOL get over yourself already. Good grief.

I care about as much about baseball as you care about my previous thought.

Good day, sirrah.

[BluesDuke]

I care about as much about baseball as you care about my previous thought.

It's always revealing when people who don't care about something weigh in in the first place. Who should be getting over whose self?

[Colonel_Flagg]

Basically, when you copy and paste into a window these days, you need to go back into the window and remove all the commas and apostrophes and replace them with new ones. That removes the symbols. And always ‘preview’ before you post.

Thanks for this one, by the way.

[BluesDuke]

You're welcome! And I've been well reminded about the retroactive removals. I couldn't imagine where the Euro symbols came from, because I know I didn't use them when I wrote the essay in the first place!

(On the other hand, it could have been worse---the program could have inserted hammers and sickles!)

[Colonel_Flagg]

True enough. And “Throneberry Fields Forever” might date you, but it’s a great name.

[BluesDuke]

True enough. And "Throneberry Fields Forever" might date you, but it's a great name.

*chuckling* I've been a Met fan since the day they were born. I saw the Original Mets---including Marvelous Marv himself; my first live ball games were in 1962, watching the Mets, at the Polo Grounds, a doubleheader against the Cubs. And I lived to tell about it! (The old wreck was so old and wrecked---with the Mets playing there awaiting the completion of Shea Stadium---that I can remember some wags calling it the Polio Grounds.)

For the record, the first game was the one in which Marvelous Marv banged a long extra base hit to the back of the old horseshoe and ran like his life depended on it until he reached third unmolested. Unmolested, that is, until Ernie Banks, the meanie, called for the ball and stepped on first and got an out call. Whereupon manager Casey Stengel hobbled out of the dugout bent on dismembering the first base ump until coach Cookie Lavagetto halted the boss: "Forget it, Case---he didn't touch second, either." The two runs Throneberry drove in (Gene Woodling and Frank THomas) stood, leaving the game 4-3, Cubs.

The next Met hitter, Charley Neal, ripped one off the upper deck facade for a game-tying home run. Neal wasn't three steps up the line when Stengel halted him dead in his tracks. Then, the Ol' Perfesser pointed to first base and stamped his foot. Only then did Neal dare run to first base. When he glanced back, he saw Stengel pointing to second and stamping his foot likewise. Manager and player performed this little comedy until Neal crossed the plate safely.

That happened in the bottom of the first, tying the game at four. In the top of the first, the Cubs jumped the Mets for four runs thanks to Ron Santo hitting a two-run triple and Lou Brock---of all people---hitting one for the books to follow: Brock drove one to the absolute rear end of the ballpark, 460 feet from the plate and into the bleachers that were bisected by the old Polo Grounds clubhouse in dead center field.

Bless him, Brock gunned it out of the box and was about to cross second when he saw the second base ump giving a signal. Brock in his fool innocence thought the ump was telling him he had a shot at an inside-the-park home run. He had no idea of what he'd actually done until he crossed the plate and was swarmed by teammates, with Santo bulling his way back through the mob to holler at him, Did you see where that ball went? Man, I needed binoculars!

Brock was only the second major leaguer to hit a home run into that part of the Polo Grounds. Joe Adcock (Milwaukee Braves) did it against the Giants in 1953. Prior to that, Luke Easter did it in a Negro Leagues game in the late 1940s.

Banks went on to bust the tie with a solo bomb in the third. Richie Ashburn re-tied it when he led off the Mets fifth with a bomb. Brock re-broke the tie when he doubled home Banks in the eighth; Billy Williams hit a two-run triple in the ninth to make it 8-5. The Mets landed two in their half of the ninth (an RBI double by Woodling and an RBI single by Frank Thomas) but it wasn't enough. Final: 8-7.

Game Two of that doubleheader was another one-run loss, 4-3, despite Throneberry driving one in on a sac fly and Cliff Cook doing likewise a couple of hitters later for an early 2-1 Met lead. Only who the hell needed that? The first game was way more fun!

By the way, I'm also a Red Sox fan since the 1967 pennant race. Would you care to know who sank Omaha, Nebraska's pharmacies singlehandedly (I was stationed there when I was in the Air Force) in October 1986? ;)

[Colonel_Flagg]

By the way, I'm also a Red Sox fan since the 1967 pennant race.

As a Twins fan since 1969, I am told that I should be allergic to the 1967 pennant race (I was a pre-schooler at the time).

But love your history of the Amazin's. National League baseball in New York is special.

[BluesDuke]

I know a Twins fan who says you should be allergic to the Twins, period, but we won't go there!

You can still get Jimmy Breslin's marvelous little book about the 1962 Mets, Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?.

[Colonel_Flagg]

I know a Twins fan who says you should be allergic to the Twins, period, but we won't go there!

Then he isn't much of a Twins fan. A Brooklyn Dodgers fan would never have said that about the Bums.

83-79 last year with a very young core and the Manager of the Year. We've got a good future.

I remember reading a book on the '69 Mets as a boy because I was a fan of Jerry Koosman, a Minnesota-born player, and the "Tom and Jerry Show" from that year. The name of it escapes me but it was a history of the team from 1962-69.

[Hoodat]

I loved seeing Marv Throneberry on the Miller Lite commercials.

[BluesDuke]

Then he isn't much of a Twins fan. A Brooklyn Dodgers fan would never have said that about the Bums.

Actually, he is a she, and after she let fly about them I thought to myself, "And I thought Cub fans were fatalistic."

I think the book you may be thinking about is an updated edition of Jerry Mitchell's The Amazin' Mets, first published in 1965 (and featuring a generous helping of Willard Mullin's cartoons!) but updated after the 1969 Series triumph.

[BluesDuke]

I loved seeing Marv Throneberry on the Miller Lite commercials.

After he left baseball, Throneberry became first a Memphis beer distributor and later worked in the trucking industry. He was said to have had a unique business card: a fold-over card in which the top flap had an oval cutout through which you could see, on the inside of the card, a head shot of Throneberry in his Mets cap. At the bottom of the fold-over, in gold embossed lettering, the caption: Eight million New Yorkers called him Marvelous Marv.

The nickname, by the way, came by way of Leonard Shecter, then a sportswriter for the New York Post, and later to become the man who hammered Jim Bouton's running diary of his 1969 season in Seattle and Houston into Ball Four.

And Shecter's original notoriety came not from Bouton, not from Marvelous Marv, but from the 1958 Yankees---Shecter was aboard the team plane when, during the Yankees' pennant clinch celebration in-flight, relief ace Ryne Duren playfully poked a cigar into the mouth of Ralph Houk, then a coach, and Houk decked him in reply. (Duren never quite understood why Houk reacted so violently to a gentle joke.) When Shecter's editor asked him how he could miss the story of GM George Weiss siccing private detectives on some Yankees' tails, Shecter told his editor he had something better---the Duren/Houk dustup.

Shecter didn't write the actual story; he gave the details to his editor, who gave them in turn to then-managing editor Paul Sann, and Sann and assorted other editors wrote the final version. The New York sports press credited that revelation with the beginning of the end of hagiographic sports reporting, even if the final version proved to be a tabloid-style exaggeration (the paper made it sound like a hearty brawl instead of a one-punch idiocy on Ralph Houk's part) of what actually happened.