We’re going to talk at length today about Pete Rose and baseball’s hall of fame, which is as solid a way as any to further spoil a dreary Thursday. Apologies. But we’re also going to have fun and probably going to piss off the game’s insufferable purists because I’m proposing a radical shakeup of the hall of fame. 

But first, let’s deal with the late “Charlie Hustle” of the Cincinnati Reds.

Pete Rose hit a lot of baseballs very well for a very long time. Pete Rose also was a Grade A, 24-carat, 190-proof asshole. I lived in suburban Cincinnati as a teenager when his gambling scandal erupted and when actor Paul Giamatti’s father, baseball Commissioner Bart Giamatti, struck the 1989 deal that Rose accepted to become permanently ineligible from any formal association with Major League Baseball. Two years later, the independent National Baseball Hall of Fame, aka Cooperstown, formally adopted its rule to bar anyone on MLB’s permanently ineligible list from induction.

That remained the status quo for more than 30 years, and an absurd amount of ink and airtime has subsequently been wasted on the merits of Rose’s punishment, crimes, and hall of fame eligibility. I’m contributing to that but hear me out.

Rose set many MLB records, particularly for hits, at-bats/plate appearances, and games played. And then he spent the second half of his life making an obscene nuisance of himself. He was never convincingly or consistently contrite about what he did. He failed every chance to truly come clean and get some measure of absolution during his lifetime. His repulsiveness extended far beyond illicit gambling, and he made the wrong enemies for someone who needed help to achieve his dream of experiencing Cooperstown induction.

But his morally and intellectually bankrupt life did make him one powerful ally, albeit a calculating sympathizer who waited until Rose was dead to use his influence on his behalf.

Rose, who died at age 83 last year, was a grotesque rube and criminal, which is certainly why the flamboyantly corrupt Donald Trump has been such a fan and advocate for Rose, going so far as to tweet that he planned to pardon Rose, which isn’t possible but ultimately worked in spirit. Current MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred ended Rose’s exile on May 13 in what looks like a sop to Trump, who in April had personally talked to Manfred about the topic. Manfred never credited Trump, a failed gambling den owner and multiple felon, for his de-banishment decision, but the commissioner is the consigliere for the owners and MLB’s teams are the playthings of the nation’s aristocracy that put Trump in power. The ruling class seeks to curry favor with, or avoid angering, our mad oaf-king who for years has championed scumbags like Rose.

It also signals that Manfred recognizes that American morals and ethics are rotting in a fascist hothouse, as The Nation’s Dave Zirin noted last week in a piece calling the hall of fame “baseball’s moral slophouse.”

Zirin also points out that MLB is awash in lucrative sports betting deals and gambling marketing, so keeping Rose out for his prohibited wagering seems silly to people that think that’s all OK.

Rose’s accomplishments have long been in Cooperstown and in baseball’s record books. There’s a display in the hall of his photo and other ephemera related to setting the career hits record. What Rose does not have is an induction plaque that signifies personal enshrinement. He didn’t get the ceremony and adulation that he craved but sabotaged in his lifetime. Thanks to Manfred currying favor with MAGA yokels and their dipshit sovereign, that could now happen post-mortem if the hall’s Veterans Committee opts to vote him in. Whether they do or not, we’ll see. Trump surely will continue to apply pressure on this issue vital to our national interests.

Amusingly, Rose has been in the WWE Hall of Fame’s celebrity wing since 2004, joined in 2013 by Trump, which feels so very on-brand for both men.

While functionally pardoning Rose, Manfred also dropped “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and the other Chicago “Black Sox” accused of throwing the 1919 World Series. People have long argued that Jackson should be enshrined (hopefully with a Cleveland Naps hat on his plaque since he played more games for them), and there’s merit because his stats in the crooked World Series are the opposite of a player trying to tank. His career .356 batting average is the fifth best in MLB history since Negro Leagues stats were included last year. But it sure appears that Manfred brought those guys back in from the cold as cover so he could more easily restore Rose to mollify Trump.

Also, keep in mind that these were not lifetime bans. One could reasonably make the case that a lifetime ban should end when the player dies. But these men were on the permanently ineligible list. Forever banned. But it’s a list subject to the whims of the commissioner of baseball, a job not always occupied by the best and brightest and most moral humans (irony noted). Manfred has unilaterally decreed that anyone on the permanently ineligible list drops off of it when they die, thus triggering hall of fame eligibility. Foolish or not, that’s within his authority to do. The fearsome power of an actual permanent ban for truly fucking up has been squandered for the dumbest of reasons — to placate a corrupt dunce.

I’ve long opposed Rose being removed from the list and then enshrined. He bet on the game, the third rail of baseball’s rules, written or unwritten, a more egregious sin to many than performance-enhancing drugs or corked bats. A 2014 piece in The Atlantic (not The Athletic) helpfully explains why that was corrosive even if he bet only on his team to win — bookies got the message when Rose chose not to bet on the Reds to win. And Rose was a supreme dickhead about all of it. He never stopped betting on baseball. Rose died in fucking Las Vegas, of all places. He rattled public trust in the integrity of the game, and trust is existential for a major league worth billions of dollars.

Rose also was credibly accused of statutory rape of underage girls, which he grossly dismissed when asked about in 2022, and did time in federal prison for tax evasion (nothing that would bother noted financial scoundrel and convicted rapist Donald Trump). Yes, there are plenty of moral monsters in the hall of fame, and I understand the argument about enshrinement for only on-field accomplishments. Rose’s numbers merit induction. Rose’s actions as a human being do not, in my unsolicited opinion. I’ve felt that way for thirty-plus years. As parasitic legalized gambling consumes everything, and baseball embraces legal wagering, there will be more Pete Roses.

But my views about Rose being in the hall of fame now are shifting. Not because of anything to do with Rose or Manfred, but because my thinking about the hall of fame itself has changed. Manfred was wrong to remove him from MLB’s permanently ineligible list — my views on that will never change — but now that it’s done, perhaps the hall of fame itself should be reconsidered, too.

It’s colloquially referred to as Cooperstown because of its location in a village of that name in south central New York state. It’s formally known as the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. It’s a physically beautiful shrine to baseball and filled with wonderful things beside great players.

But let’s think about the name. Hall of Fame. Fame. Not Hall of the Greats. Not Hall of Record-Setters. Not Hall of Advanced Metrics Kings. Not Hall of Friends and Favorites of Voters.

Fame.

Pete Rose is one infamous motherfucker. That we can all agree on. Infamous is still famous.

So I propose a revolutionary reformation of Cooperstown. Let’s induct baseball’s truly famous and infamous into a single hall. No wings. Nothing ghettoized. Anyone genuinely famous linked to baseball gets into the hall of fame. A single hall. The true big tent. The good, the bad, the tragic, the hilarious, the weird. All of it is part of baseball’s fabric, its culture and zeitgeist. Baseball is more than great players. It’s everything, and the strange, the funny, and the bad should get equal treatment, not be squirreled away in the shadows of just the best players and the moments that baseball’s gatekeepers choose to spotlight and valorize and sanitize for back-patting.

My idea is basically merging the wonderful unofficial Baseball Reliquary and its Shrine of the Eternals with Cooperstown and then adding insane, weird, and gonzo shit that’s part of baseball’s complicated culture — the game’s rich tapestry should hang alongside a black velvet “Dogs Playing Poker.” Equality with moral clarity. Give fans the whole story instead of a bowdlerized Little Golden Book.

The Baseball Reliquary is a nonprofit launched almost 30 years ago. Here’s how it describes its mission: “The Baseball Reliquary is a nonprofit, educational organization dedicated to fostering an appreciation of American art and culture through the context of baseball history and to exploring the national pastime’s unparalleled creative possibilities.”

The Baseball Reliquary is fucking awesome, and to me its more honest. But it’s also incomplete.

It’s mostly online but also has had a small physical presence since 2015 at California’s Whittier College. It differs from Cooperstown in that it seeks to recognize the culture of baseball beyond box scores, honoring the unconventional, overlooked, unexplored, fans, and other things that help make up the game beyond hits and strikeouts.

Pete Rose was voted into the Baseball Reliquary in 2010 as part of the organization’s annual “Shrine of the Eternals” that inducts people (and Charlie Brown) for “merits other than statistics” good or bad.

Rose certainly qualifies. And that’s why I advocate for a single, holistic hall of fame. The Baseball Reliquary currently stands outside of Major League Baseball and Cooperstown and their deep pockets. It’s obscure but should not be. Merging these halls gives people a better understanding of the game, including the weirdness and ugliness that often surrounds the sport.

I understand that my idea may piss off The Baseball Reliquary faithful that see their mission is a separate corrective to Cooperstown’s Hallmark version of the game. But hear me out.

Halls of fame at their core are just museums. Ty Cobb being in Cooperstown for his artwork on the diamond is the same as Jackson Pollock hanging in fancy galleries. And art, like life, appeals differently to everyone. I live ten minutes from the incredible and vast Detroit Institute of Art that’s home to gorgeous, moving works but also to things that make me scratch my head. I love that.

A Cooperstown-Baseball Reliquary merger and expansion removes the fraudulent moral contortions around players like Rose. If you’re a great player who happens to be a degenerate gambler and unrepentant pedophile, your “New Cooperstown” display or mention will give that equal or greater weight to any on-field accomplishment.

The monstrous Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973, but the online entry for his award today gives a much fuller picture of the controversy around that includes the resignation of two Nobel Committee members in protest. That’s vital.

I think Cooperstown is honestly dishonest in the same way the Smithsonian and other institutions fail to provide anything but the occasional and minimal spotlight on the dark side of their topic. At best, the bad things get sanitized and sit in the shadows of larger accomplishments. Maybe the difficult history gets a brief and honest limelight moment before going back into the archives. Or it gets its own separate museum dedicated to those stories and tells them more honestly — and you miss out if you don’t specifically look and have time for these places. I learned more about the nightmares of the Middle Passage from a small museum in Key West than I did as a kid visiting the Smithsonian.

Baseball is a niche topic. It can be done in one place. All of it, and out of the hands of its gatekeepers. Take baseball’s museum away from baseball.

To keep Cooperstown honest, I’d have its non-statistical induction process handled by people unconnected to baseball. I’d use smart people — public intellectuals and others who are not ignorant of the game but also not baseball fanatics biased toward protecting the game as sacrosanct. Do such people exist? Maybe the new White Sox pope gets a seat on the committee? Charlie Sheen? Bill Murray? This is an idea I’m working out in real time.

A revamped Cooperstown obviously includes the great on-field players. The BBWAA and the stat geeks, in their best morally sterile Robert McNamara/Rand Corp. number-crunching mentality, can bicker over which obscure deadball-era left fielder on the Des Moines Asbestos Kings deserves entry. Keep in mind the only unanimous first-ballot hall of famer ever was Mariano Rivera in 2019 (partially because there are more than 400 voters today, but even Babe fucking Ruth got only 95 percent of the vote when the hall balloting began in 1936).

When it comes to a controversial player, the question of induction is handed over to the non-metrics voters to consider and provide input.

That committee also ensures every deserving fringe figure, crook, freak, goofball, degenerate, memorable incident, and experiment that were part of the game’s history and legacy get in, too. Nominations are open to the public. A rotating celebrity chairperson breaks any tie votes. Again, a system to be worked out.

There’s a moral compromise available, too. While a nice guy slugger like Jim Thome and a shithead like Pete Rose both get individual plaques, those that are infamous can be hall of famers without the honor of a personal plaque. Yes, they can say they’re a hall of famer, but visitors to Cooperstown’s digital and physical site will see the contextual difference.

There’s no perfect solution, and I’m open to better ideas. I just want it to be more fun and more honest. A lot of baseball’s most bonkers stuff, some of which is listed below, came out of the carnival brain of Bill Veeck, and under my proposal he gets a whole building of his gloriously insane schemes. He got into Cooperstown in 1991, but all of his batshittery needs a permanent display all of its own. I said earlier no separate wings, but this is an exception. I am inconsistent.

Veeck convinced Congress to pass what’s known as the Roster Depreciation Allowance, which gives pro sports team owners a tax break on player salaries. That’s hall of fame-level fuckery. The museum needs to explain it, and without meddling from the owners and their underlings to water it down.

Of course, we’ll need to find a benefactor for an enormous expansion of the hall. Make it sprawling. Or add basements, like they did to the Alamo. Maybe it’s paid for with a taxpayer subsidy that steals public money from schools and emergency services and is given to billionaires to lavish upon their private luxuries? Sports team owners and leagues love that shit.

Would Cooperstown today ever have a truly honest display explaining that ballparks paid for by the public have been proven to be socialism for the ruling class that keeps all the profits, and is just terrible stewardship of our taxes? Fuck no! But my idea ensures fans get to learn, in simple terms, about this mad immoral bullshit.

Here are some other random examples of people and things that I think should be in Cooperstown as full hall of fame inductees, not just as museum pieces (some may be already in the Baseball Reliquary):

• Tom Bonda and Carl Fazio, the guys that dreamed up Ten Cent Beer Night in Cleveland? They’re in.
• Eddie Gaedel? In on his own, not just as part of the Veeck stuff. It takes huge balls to stand in an MLB batter’s box if you’re not a professional or taller than 3-foot-7. He’d also be in the hall with a 1.000 on-base percentage.
• The entire 1919 Black Sox roster that took money? In.
• Arnold Rothstein? He’s in, too.
• Morganna the Kissing Bandit? In, and right next to Rose, the first MLB player she kissed on the field.
• Steve Bartman? Totally in.
• Dave Rozema, who once threw behind my head at Comerica Park? He’s in for being one of the game’s great madmen, and for the poor attempt at a karate kick during an on-field brawl.
• Armando Galarraga and umpire Jim Joyce and the ruined perfect game? They’re both in. As is the game itself (I was there).
• Billy Ripken’s “Fuck Face” bat and 1989 Fleer trading card? Both in.
• The White Sox uniform shorts? In.
• Curt Flood? Absolutely in and part of a wall that explains how owners fucked over players for so long.
• Any animal that runs onto the field and delays a game? In.
• The Houston Astros’ trash can lid? In.
• Kevin Costner? C’mon. In.
• Astro Turf? In and will cover the bathroom floors, as it deserves.
• Steve Goodman, who wrote the “Go, Cubs, Go” anthem? In, along with his songwriting BFF and baseball stadium performer and superfan Jimmy Buffett.
• Ball Four author and pitcher Jim Bouton? In, and his book is mandatory reading for every rookie.
• “The Old Man and the Sea”? It mentions the Tigers and Indians, so in.
• Chief Wahoo? In, as part of a much more honest and broad discussion about the casual and overt racism, bigotry, and sexism surrounding the game, such as scrubbing the diversity pipeline to bend to Trump’s racist will. Too woke for you? Fuck you.
• Baseball’s federal antitrust exemption? In, with an understandable explanation of why the owners will commit any heinous crime to protect it as their version of Gollum’s “precious.”
• Charlie Brown? In, and also in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
• All baseball movies and TV shows are in, even the incredible shitty ones like “The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training.”
• Dock Ellis? He and his no-hitting brain on acid couldn’t be more in.
• Mark “The Bird” Fidrych? In, with Big Bird.
• Rusty Kuntz? You better believe he’s in.
• George Plimpton and the guy who posed for the Sidd Finch photos in Sports Illustrated? Both in.
• John Gochnaur? Quite possibly the worst MLB player in history — five errors in a doubleheader, and 98 in the 1903 season while batting .187 in his three seasons. OMG, he’s in. Not famous, but he should be, and I do not mean that cruelly. The BBWAA folks annually will consider the worst players of all time, the guys that put up drunken last-place softball rec league play and numbers in the majors.
• Steroids, PEDs, HGH, and all the cocaine snorted in the 1970s and ’80s? All of it’s in. Not to be glorified, but it’s part of the game’s infamous past. The gift shop will sell MLB-branded edibles. How else could you watch the Rockies without being stoned? They’re 8-41 as of today.
• Magnum PI’s Old English D ballcap? In.
• 50 Cent’s infamous ceremonial first pitch? Like this is even a question?
• The seagull Randy Johnson killed with a fastball in 2001? RIP, and it would be a disgrace not to include this avian tragedy.
• The Clark the Cub mascot image shown on local Chicago TV news with his dick hanging out? He is in or we riot.
• Marge Schott? If Grendel gets in, so does Grendel’s mother. Absolutely loathsome Trumpian human being, and I was there for some of it. Fame and infamous. Light cannot exist without the dark. Duality and stuff, man. Also in is her St. Bernard dog Schottzie, who used to shit on Riverfront Stadium’s outfield artificial turf.
• Trevor Bauer’s moronic finger injury with the drone gets mentioned, but only as part of an area dedicated to the game’s uglier side of player in-person and online behavior and how it’s treated by MLB, the media, and the public. Like with Schott, not all of this is fun, but it’s part of the game’s history.
• Newspaper agate pages and box scores. In, but the display typeface is really small and missing West Coast scores.
• The Trash 80. Old beat writers remember the TRS-80 Micro Computer System and pressbox deadline nightmares. In!
• Oakland Stadium dugout raw sewage overflows? I cannot think of anything more in.
• All bullpen cars are in, and should be brought back and made mandatory by MLB.
• Angel Hernandez? This motherfucker absolutely is in. Maybe there’s an interactive game where every pitch is called incorrectly, then the game kicks out you of the hall.
• Stadium workers? In, even the annoying-ass walking vendors that sing or give you shit about wanting ketchup on hot dogs. Like I prefer. You don’t like that? Fuck you.
• Bobbleheads? OMG, so in, and with a rotating display of the best, worst, and weirdest. They have their own hall of fame. Maybe merge that, too?
• Beer? How can beer not be in a hall of fame? MLB has two stadiums named for beer. Yes, more have corporate sponsorship names for insurance companies, but who the fuck goes to a game thinking, “I think I’ll watch the Guardians and buy Progressive insurance today”? Only a monster.
• Urinal troughs? If you grew up going to Cleveland Municipal Stadium and other old ruins, then you remember these abominations. They’re in, too, but sealed under sterile glass.

We could go on and on with potential inductees, but you get the gist.

Is this an impossibly dumb idea? Of course, but I like it. Yes, there are pitfalls and complexities to work out. There probably are moral questions I’ve left unanswered atop the difficult practicalities. And I understand the preference for keeping Cooperstown a pure, if dishonest shrine, while the Baseball Reliquary is left in unfair relative obscurity for the culture, but I don’t buy into that thinking.

But doesn’t having Babe Ruth and Rusty Kuntz and piss troughs in a single hall of fame dilute the Bambino’s accomplishments? Fuck no. He was a fat guy who hit a ball with a wooden stick. The other guy has a legendary ’70s porn name. Let’s keep this in perspective. It’s a GAME. Yes, games are a critical part of the human experience, but are they more important than medical researcher or teachers or firefighters or farmers?

When I go to a museum, I look at everything and read the explanations. I have enough of a developed cerebral cortex to understand that the Wright Flyer on display is more profound than the bulky old Betamax VCR in the 1980s culture display. I can discern the difference. Both are rightfully in a museum.

Our values as a species are truly fucked, so this is one of my small efforts at a modest corrective. It can be done with a mixture of dignity and goofiness.

Would I advocate Weird Al being in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? Ab-so-fucking-lutely. Isn’t this supposed to be fun? Yes. But it’s also supposed to be honest, and we all know telling the truth sometimes sucks. Our civilization and country are built on myths and on lies we tell ourselves not to go mad, but we don’t have to lie about baseball.

Cooperstown is functionally just one giant museum now and will remain so under my bonkers scheme. It’ll just be more truthful and more fun. Everything comes out of the attic. And it’s more educational without feeling like homework or a stern lecture. We all should come out of a museum a little bit changed. It should spark conversations beyond debates over whose WAR is more worthy of Cooperstown.

Most infuriating to the purists out there is that I’m not even that big of a baseball fan. I’ve never been to Cooperstown, and most likely never will. I usually want to leave a game by the seventh inning. Earlier if it’s hot. I’m a football guy. Baseball, as Jack Kemp once said, doesn’t have a quarterback. But I do enjoy baseball when my team wins, and especially when it beats teams I dislike. I like hearing Tom Hamilton call home runs (” … awaaaaay back …. GONE!”), to see insane catches and hysterical fuck-ups (remember Prince Fielder legging out a triple, but also getting caught at third and then flopping?), and just plain weird shit. Remember when Jose Canseco had a ball bounce off his head and over the Cleveland Municipal Stadium outfield wall for a Carlos Martinez home run in 1993? I love that and it will be in the new and improved Cooperstown. It will be played on repeat.

While you’ll never catch me keeping score at a game unless I’m paid to do so, the new National Baseball Hall of Famous will attract more people like me. And imagine the gift shop possibilities!

So yeah, my idea is imperfect and quite possibly very stupid. Do I give a shit? No. Well, enough to write more than 4,000 words about, so maybe I need to be more honest, too.

Also, the new Cooperstown will have no corporate name, or one so comically absurd and evil like the “Poulan/Weed Eater National Baseball Hall of Famous and Reliquary at Cooperstown Brought to You By Raytheon” that no one actually uses it.

Let’s finish where we started. Pete Rose died in Las Vegas less than a year ago. But if he’s going into Cooperstown one day — and he probably will — he should join a museum that’s fundamentally more honest than he ever was. He belongs with the greats but also with the rest of the game’s vitally important bullshit, absurdities, dickheads, and wickedness.

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