Hall of Fame

[MGrage]

Good afternoon y'all,

I just saw on ESPN2 that Wage Boggs and our very own Ryne Sandberg were elected to the Hall of Fame today. He might not have been a first ballot guy but he's close. Now if we can just get the Veteran's Committee to put Santo in there ....

Matt

[Nick's Picts (archived)]

yay Ryno!

I'm not as hep on Boggs, but I suppose I can see it [partisan Cubs fan]. The one I feel is really being left out is Tommy John. Honestly, is there any name other than maybe Ruth or Mantle that is more associated with the game of baseball?

He deserves his own special spot in the HoF even if he doesn't make it via balloting. ;D

[MGrage]

ROAD TRIP!!

Hey, who wants to go to Cooperstown for Ryno's Hall of Fame introduction? I heard on the news that it'll be on July 31st so you guys have plenty of time to cajol your loved ones into letting you free that weekend. I've never been to the Hall before so I thought this would be a perfect time to go. Mahalo

Matt

[Nick's Picts (archived)]

No HoF in my future. They're on the permanent boycott list for cancelling a 15th anniversary celebration showing of Bull Durham and un-inviting Tim Robbins during the run-up to the invasion in Iraq. If the HoF cannot separate baseball from politics, then neither can I.

Reprinted for your convenience:

National Baseball Hall of Fame
April 7, 2003

Mr. Tim Robbins

Dear Mr. Robbins:

The President of the United States, as this nation's democratically-elected leader, is constitutionally bound to make decisions he believes are in the best interests of the American people. After months of careful deliberations, President Bush made the decision that it is in our nation's best interests to end the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein, and to disarm Iraq of deadly weapons which could be used against its enemies, including the United States. In order to accomplish this, nearly 300,000 American military personnel are in harm's way at the moment. From the first day we opened our doors in 1939, The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum--and many players and executives in Baseball's family--has honored the United States and those who defend our freedoms.

In a free country such as ours, every American has the right to his or her own opinions, and to express them. Public figures, such as you, have platforms much larger than the average American's, which provides you an extraordinary opportunity to have your views heard--and an equally large obligation to act and speak responsibility. We believe your very public criticism of President Bush at this important--and sensitive--time in our nation's history helps undermine the US position, which ultimately could put our troops in even more danger. As an institution, we stand behind our President and our troops in this conflict.

As a result, we have decided to cancel the April 26-27 programs in Cooperstown commemorating the 15th anniversary of Bull Durham.

Sincerely,

Dale Petroskey
President

Bull Durham is one of my favorite movies in the baseball genre and the Hall of Fame has no business wrapping itself up in the flag as the one true arbiter of American Patriotism. I'll cheer the recognition bestowed upon the greats of the game, but I'll not lend money or support to the institution that performs the coronations.

[stones]

Wow, Nick! You suffer from selective memory.

I don't really want to get deep into this, but as I recall, Tim Robbins and his lovely wife where stumping in front of any camera that would record them, and in other very public fashions, their personal politics at the time that this event was supposed to have taken place. As I recall, they even directly threaten to use the opportunity of the 15th Anniversary showing of Bull Durham to preach their left-wing bull crap.

So when you call out one side, why call out both. IMHO, the folks running the Hall of Fame had the wisdom to recognize that the actual movie would be the sub-plot and Robbins politics would have taken front stage. Unfortunately the public that considers the movie to be the premier baseball movie ever made were denied their day due to the misdirected desires of the few. The HOF was not willing to give a free soapbox to another Hollyweird couple to make anti-Bush claims in the high political season of an election year. In fact the HOF simply made a countering statement distancing itself from them. I believe they had a right to do that.

It’s unfortunate that the landscape of American politics is now in the incapable and fashionably misguided hands of the extreme wealthy likes of anyone with some modicum of fame. I really don't care what Bono, Springsteen, Jimmy Buffett, Britney Spears, Michael Moore, Leo DeCaprio, Tim Robbins, Charlton Heston, Howard Stern and Puff Daddy think. Talk about corporate America. I wonder what the combined gross national product contribution is of this group.

Thankfully, America isn't as stupid they would like to think.

Whatever your politics, enjoy the movie and take it for what it is...entertainment. Nothing more, nothing less.

The same goes for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Its apolitical. Its a forum for the adoring public to recognize the few great ones to pass this way while playing a game! Its not the Vietnam Momerial for goodness sake!

By the way, I vote with Weird Al Yankovic! He is my political voice.

"Weird Al, You da Man!"

[Nick's Picts (archived)]

Steve, I don't want to take this there either. This will be my last post on the matter so you can have the last word if you'd like. I really only have three things to say:

1. April 2003 was nothing even remotely resembling an election year in which President Bush would be participating.

2. I couldn't give a rat's keister about Mr. Robbins' or Ms. Sarandon's politics, or about their claims of victimization. This event was not about them. This movie is much bigger than the both them.

3. The HoF is, in fact, blatantly political. They were the party that politicized the movie and this event. While the, as you called them, 'Hollyweird couple' in question are most definitely a pair of media wh0res [heh, the censor substituted 'sleepers'] and were definitely luxuriating in the attention at the time, I do not recall either of them making a public statement or allusion to the effect of using the HoF appearance as a soap box. I may be wrong, but at the time of the cancellation I searched the public record to the best of my abilities and found no such statement. I wanted to believe the HoF, but all I found were counter examples. In fact, I have a whole folder in my bookmarks of links to articles during that time. Most of them are dead or behind a pay archive, but here is text from one that is not:

Tim Robbins

April 9, 2003

Dear Mr. Petroskey,

As an American and as a baseball fan, I was dismayed to read your letter canceling my appearance at the Baseball Hall of Fame due to my public criticism of President Bush. I had been unaware that baseball was a Republican sport. I was looking forward to a weekend away from politics and war to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of Bull Durham. I am sorry that you have chosen to use baseball and your position at the Hall of Fame to make a political statement. I know there are many baseball fans that disagree with you and even more that will react with disgust to realize baseball is being politicized.

As an American who believes that vigorous debate is necessary for the survival of a democracy, I reject your suggestion that one must be silent in time of war. To suggest that my criticism of the President puts the troops in danger is absurd. If people had listened to that twisted logic we'd still be in Vietnam. I must remain skeptical of the war plans of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, all of whom have never been in battle, one of whom skirted service in Vietnam for a cushy stateside job. It does not surprise me that these men, in their current federal budget have cut $844 million dollars from Veteran's health care. Yes, let's support the troops. For Life.

I wish you had, in your letter, saved me the rhetoric and talked honestly about your ties to the Bush and Reagan Administrations. You are using what power you have to infringe upon my rights to free speech and by taking this action hope to intimidate the millions of others that disagree with our president. In doing so, you expose yourself as a tool, blinded by partisanship and ambition. You invoke patriotism and use words like freedom in an attempt to intimidate and bully. In doing so, you dishonor the words patriotism and freedom and dishonor the men and women who have fought wars to keep this nation a place where one can freely express one's opinion without fear of reprisal or punishment. Your subservience to your friends in the administration is embarrassing to baseball and by engaging in this enterprise you show that you belong with other cowards and ideologues in the Hall of Infamy and Shame.

Long live democracy, free speech and the '69 Mets; all improbable glorious miracles that I have always believed in.

Sincerely,

Tim Robbins

Again, please disregard all his self-aggrandizing rhetoric if you will, but he does explicitly state that this weekend was to be specifically about the movie. Unless you would care to provide something other than conjecture that Mr. Robbins would have politicized this event then I think we should all take him at his word. I guess I'm more of a give a guy enough rope to hang himself sort of person in this way. See, because all we can to at this point, if we were to carry on with this discussion, is bicker about whether or not they would have used the HoF event to spew political rhetoric.

If they had done so, then I'd think of them as total bastards for screwing over one of my favorite baseball movies. As it stands, I do know it was the HoF that actually screwed over one of my favorite baseball movies in the name of politics. If it was fear about what Robbins and Sarandon might do during this event, then they could have just un-invited the two of them. Instead they cancel the whole thing and the 15th anniversary of the movie goes unmarked. It's not so much that the anniversary should have been marked but to make public plans to and the scuttle them based on political rumor is messed up—hence they get to be the object of my disaffection.

Which, undoubtedly, causes them to lose aheckuvalotta sleep at night.

[Copperfields]

Yikes! Politics!!!

I don't want to fan the flames on this, so like Nick, this will likely be my last post here on the Robbins/Bull Durham/HOF portion of this thread.

When this all came up a couple years ago, I contributed to a discussion about the controversy on another message board. Here's what I posted (in response to someone else's comment):

Originally posted by hombre
Campanis made his idiotic statements, and lo and behold, he was never invited back as a speaker to the LA Business Roundtable (or many other places, one would imagine :-).

But the Roundtable continued sans Campanis, didn't it? They didn't cancel the whole thing, did they?

That's what Petrosky did, and that's what I find so laughably offensive about this. He didn't tell Robbins and Sarandon, "look, you can show up, but I don't want you to speak or even flash a "peace" sign." He didn't allow the event to continue and just uninvite Robbins and Sarandon out of the fear they'd use the platform to make a political statement. He cancelled the whole dang thing.

To me, that says he's not acting out of concerns about the safety of the troops, but out of spite towards Robbins and Sarandon. His message boils down to "Gee everybody, we had this great party planned, but now we've had to cancel the whole thing and it's all Tim Robbins' fault."

I read today that author Roger Kahn cancelled a speaking engagement he had scheduled at the Hall later this summer in protest of Petrosky's actions. By cancelling the Bull Durham event, Petrosky's probably given more exposure to Robbins and Sarandon than if he had just let the event continue.

David

I guess that's still how I kind of feel - pretty well summed up by Nick here:

Nick's said:

If it was fear about what Robbins and Sarandon might do during this event, then they could have just un-invited the two of them. Instead they cancel the whole thing and the 15th anniversary of the movie goes unmarked.

I just don't see how Petrosky could have made the leap from concerns about Robbins and Sarandon directly to canceling the whole event - surely there must have been some less drastic action he could have taken. Costner wasn't scheduled to be there - they could have made it a celebrity-free event and just honored the movie.

All that said, I don't have the same long-term resentment toward the Hall that Nick does. If I had been a subscriber to the HOF at the time, I might have cancelled my membership in protest of their decision, but the unwise choice they made regarding Bull Durham won't discourage me from supporting them in the future.

David

[Copperfields]

MGrage said:

Hey, who wants to go to Cooperstown for Ryno's Hall of Fame introduction? I heard on the news that it'll be on July 31st so you guys have plenty of time to cajol your loved ones into letting you free that weekend.

It's funny you mention this Matt - ever since Sandberg retired (and probably before that) I had this half-serious idea of going to Cooperstown for his induction. As time passed, the idea faded somewhat, until...

Michelle wants to take a family trip out there for the ceremony. I doubt it will actually happen, for a number of reasons, but I think it's pretty cool that she (a former Sox fan) would even suggest it.

David

[Demreb]

First of all I have to hit the important parts. Since I still don't know how to box previous postings, I will recreate it:

From David -

Michelle (a former Sox fan) . . .

What? Are you kidding me? She walked away from the dark side? I always knew I liked the girl.

Second, all these comments about going to Cooperstown - Our very own Matt B. has reservations and family plans for a road trip. He did it late last year since it was possible that either Santo or Sandberg (or both) could be enshrined this year.

His comment to me upon hearing that Sandberg was elected "Since I made the HoF reservations last year before it was official, should I now buy 2005 World Series tickets?"

As for the whole HoF, Robbins, Sarandon thing.

I side with Robbins on this issue. Petrosky created a situation that didn't exist (Robbins putting the troops in harms way). I believe that Robbins and Sarandon probably would have made some sort of comment about Bush or sending the troops to Iraq, but not preventing them to celebrate their movie for fear of what they may say is denying them their freedom of speech while ensuring Petrosky's (you can talk as long as you are positive about the current administration).

That's ridiculous. Chances are anyone that doesn't agree with Robbins/Sarandon's views would have probably tuned them out or skipped past their involvement and moved on to the main celebration of the movie.

I don't know. While Petrosky may not agree with Tim and Susan, him saying that he is calling off the festivities is saying that his opinion is more important than anyone elses.

[stones]

Eh, I was going to write something but I realized that I just don't care enough.

I am just sick of politics. Can you tell?

By the way, Matt, I am not able to make it so have fun.