Hall of Fame

It was an interesting weekend at Cooperstown.  As if to prove what I’d said about so-called selfish players, a Sun-Times’ columnist wrote of Frank Thomas, “The self-absorbed hitter we had witnessed so often over the years, that guy we media members had no trouble portraying, was nowhere to be seen.”  Who knew the Big Hurt could be gracious?  Well, maybe we all would have a lot sooner had media people bothered to see that part of his personality.  I’ll bet it was there all along.

But my favorite (just kidding) newly inducted HOFer was manager Tony La Russa, who had a score to settle with long dead Harry Caray.  Between La Russa and Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, you’d think the ghost of Caray nearly kept La Russa off the ballot all by himself.  The knock on Caray was that he turned Sox fans against their new manager back in 1979-80.  Talk about bad revisionism.

In 1979, I suspect Caray was portraying La Russa as both a breath of fresh air and a genius who got a very bad team to play .500 ball for him after he took over from Don Kessinger.  And I doubt Caray had much to complain about La Russa when the Sox went 70-90 the next year; God Almighty couldn’t have done much better with that collection of ballplayers.  Yes, Caray did badmouth La Russa in 1981, but here’s the thing:  Caray was let go by the Sox after that season, and La Russa was fired midway during 1986.  Sox fans had 4-1/2 years to decide for themselves about Tony La Russa.

With the Sox, La Russa always seemed to put as much time into his hair as the lineups.  Now, he says Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Mark McGwire should be allowed into the Hall of Fame, but with an asterisk noting suspicions over the validity of the respective records.  He’d also accept putting an asterisk on his own managing mark of 2728 wins-2365 losses given how some people complain that he had McGwire in Oakland and St. Louis.

Now, that’s a good idea.