With the recent arrival of a collection of baseball history books, I’ve been doing some reading. It does occur to me that of all the colorful creatures who have inhabited the world of baseball, some are honored whom I believe should not be–at least not without a fair presentation of their dark sides.

A bit about nuance, here. We live in a land ruled by single-bit binary logic: ours good, theirs bad; him demon, her saint; if you’re not for me, you’re against me (probably the stupidest of them all), etc. We developed greyscale and color photography, then forgot how to apply the concepts to life. Fact: The greatest genius almost surely has areas where they are stupid, and the biggest moron likely has some form of genius. I do believe that absolutes exist, but that they are the minority. I have a relative by marriage who takes it too far; I describe them as likely to protest that Hitler liked his dog and Jimmy Carter was a lousy president.

In baseball, as in life, qualities can be mixed. A player could do some horribly racist things, yet do some admirably anti-racist things. Is he a scoundrel? What percentage scoundrel makes a Scoundrel?

Labels are difficult, and rarely come without qualifiers. Describing human beings is messy. You can never quite scrape or razor off that little imperfection in the description. There is much of a person’s life we never know, and we have to consider the accuracy of what we think we do know.

This is why historians are allowed to continue as we are. While some rather famous ones aren’t so trustworthy, many do good work. Most of them do far better than (for example) that stupid book about Rudolf Hess being replaced at Nuremberg by a double, the real one being supposedly killed in a flying boat accident over Scotland. (Because you know that what the British really wanted to do with Hess is take him for a ride in a flying boat, and because it’s really plausible to find an actor willing to behave like an imbecile at a trial and then do life in prison.)

With that in mind…

Anson, Adrian “Cap”: player 1871-1897,  1b-3b, lifetime batting average .334, first to 3000 hits.

Why I consider him a scoundrel: Bigotry with a capital B.

Cap Anson was one of the professional game’s first superstars, with outsize influence on outcomes. A virulent racist, he used his influence to establish an informal but lasting color bar in professional baseball. If one believes in institutionalized racism as one of the most toxic manifestations of the general racism concept–which I do, because it has a lot to do with one’s power to oppress–his impact shows prominently. There were surely plenty of lifetime sub-.200 hitters as bigoted or worse, but that doesn’t get anyone major influence in baseball.

Why one might demur: Most of the country has always been racist, and a good percentage still is–including some of the most influential figures in the land. Why single out Anson when bigotry was the  white social norm? Any number of other players, mostly less prominent, might have taken similar stances.

Chapman, Ben: player 1930-1946, of, lifetime batting average .302; managed 1945-48.

Why I consider him a scoundrel: Anson would have been proud of him.

In 1947, of all the opposing teams that rained bigotry down on Jackie Robinson, Chapman’s Phillies were the worst and he was their worst. He’d always been a bad bench jockey, but this extension of it got him a sordid place in baseball history. It didn’t help that he’d always been a source of anti-Semitic haterade, so much so that as a Yankee player, New Yorkers filed a petition recommending that the team get rid of him. It takes a special kind of stupidity and bigotry–as well as pure evil–to thus alienate a key fan demographic.

And no, those I am singling out here for their racism were not necessarily unrepresentative of the times. Some were just more virulent, and/or in more of a position to do harm by their racism. They’re going to get it.

Why one might demur: I can’t think of a valid reason. Chapman went as far out of his way as possible to strangle integration and encouraged others to do the same. I have read that he expressed regrets later in life, but so have a number of scoundrels. He still tried to excuse it as just heckling, and that’s not much of a reform. Not feeling it–and none of it undid the harm he caused.

Chase, Hal: player 1905-1919, 1b, lifetime batting average .291, one of the best-fielding first basemen of his era.

Why I consider him a scoundrel: Because, by all accounts, Hal Chase never met a game he wouldn’t throw.

It’s not that there’s hard and fast proof that he bet on games, or threw them; it’s that he was so often noticed not giving his best effort, and there were so many rumors that he could be reached, that it’s difficult to imagine there being no truth to any of it–especially as, in later years, he expressed regret for having bet on baseball.

Why one might demur: What percentage of the greatest athletes of the time were implicated or fell under reasonable suspicion, at one time or another, in gambling or game-fixing scandals? The list is longer than you might think, and it includes…

Cobb, Ty: player 1905-1928, cf-rf, all-time highest lifetime batting average of .366; one of the all-time greats.

Why I consider him a scoundrel: Overall unpleasantness. One can tell this by the fact that when the lifetime MLB batting champ died, wealthy, paranoid, and cranky, only three of the ~150 in attendance were from MLB.

Let’s see. Prone to sudden violence, even against teammates and fans. Irascible at the best of times. Game based partly on intimidation (one can’t take anything away from the performance itself). Enough reports of virulent racist behavior that there is a whole movement to argue against that image. And yeah, late in his career, at least strongly suspected of the occasional thrown game; enough that he got more or less dumped by his team late in his career. If Kenesaw Landis, a far greater scoundrel in my opinion, had not wanted to keep his own image as savior intact–if he’d handled Cobb and Tris Speaker the way he’d handled the Black Sox–seems to me quite probable Cobb would have been banned.

Why one might demur: While it’s pretty hard to hose off all the incidents that testify to his racism, there’s also evidence that he didn’t shy away from helping black people over the course of his lifetime. It’s also true that he came up during the nadir of American post-Civil War race relations, in which the second KKK rose and black Americans were often targets for persecution, gratuitous violence, and were in the process of being driven out of many places in the North and West; it was a time where racism was the norm and the first big movie blockbuster celebrated bigotry. He said supportive things about civil rights later in life. As for gambling and throwing big league baseball games, there was a great deal of that in the first thirty years of the 20th century. It’s fair to say that Cobb was so unpopular and vindictive that it was easier to believe accusations against him than it might have against a well-liked player.

After doing some more reading about Cobb, I have a sense that his racism was not the virulent “enslave ’em all” kind, but the paternalistic “as long as they keep their place” sort. He was known to be kind to some black people, but to go into psychotic rage if anyone suggested he might be part black, or if a black person stood up to him. When one challenged his fundamental sense of entitlement, he is known to have lost his control multiple times. It’s certainly racist, but it’s a different kind than that of a Bobby Shelton. I leave it to the reader to decide which sort–if either–is worse.

Comiskey, Charles “Commy”: player 1882-1894, 1b (competent but unremarkable); manager over same span; owner 1901-31 (Chicago White Sox).

Why I consider him a scoundrel: To my mind, the true villain of the Black Sox Scandal.

There’s abundant evidence (thanks to meeting notes found in old files) that Commy knew the 1919 Series was dirty and kept it quiet–most likely due to a desire to keep the big gate receipts going even if his team was losing (and partly in the tank). A notorious cheapskate, he created the conditions by which a bunch of undereducated ballplayers might feel so unrewarded that some might listen to a teammate’s pitch to throw a Series. And when the heat came down, he took complete advantage of the bumptious naïveté of players over whose careers he had feudal authority given the reserve clause–he offered them “legal representation” in the form of Alfred Austrian, his own lawyer, who would above all guard Comiskey’s interests above that of the players.

Comiskey was a perfect example of the rich major offender exonerated while the commoners are railroaded into draconian punishment. To my mind, having him in the HOF is a disgrace, and he was everything that was and is wrong with a corporatist system that cares nothing for people except the profit that might be wrung from them.

Why one might demur: Well, let’s think about this. I suppose he was a builder of the game, at least of sorts. His example is said to have changed the way people played first base. Maybe playing/managing for Chris von der Ahe screwed up his mind. And the usual “everyone was doing it” argument does hold some water here, since most owners of his day were pretty cheap and took full advantage of the reserve clause; the counterpoint, of course, is the same as with Cobb’s vicious play and racism, namely that if it was typical of the times, what level of awful does it mean to stand out for bad behaviors? The natural assumption is that there was garden-variety bad, and especially awful.

Durocher, Leo “the Lip”: player 1925-45, ss (great field minimal hit), coach or manager 1939-73 off and on), four-time World Series champion.

Why I consider him a scoundrel: Not sure anyone did not.

Let’s see. Endless riding of opponents. Credibly suspected of petty theft in clubhouse. Credibly suspected of various hustles related to cards and pool. Lived way beyond his means, owing often and owing big. So consistently abusive toward umpires that he was ejected as manager an even one hundred times (and surely more as a player). Rarely knew when to keep his mouth shut. Four wives, and his advice on how to get laid sounded almost Trumpish in its disrespect for women.

Why one might demur: I know of no case where Durocher ever tried to pretend much nobility. He cared mainly about winning and money, understood well that they went together, and played/managed the scrappiest possible game he could. He was a smart ballplayer and manager, one who could get the best out of most people until the generations passed him by.

Since he was suspended for Jackie Robinson’s first season, it is sometimes forgotten that he faced down the white Dodger players who threatened to demand to be traded rather than play with a black teammate. Inexact quote: ‘I don’t care if he’s black or white, or has stripes like a fuckin’ zebra. I’m the manager of this team, and I say he plays.’ While no one who knows anything about Durocher imagines him a Great Racial Advocate, his own lust for victory did lead him to do the right thing.

Finley, Charles: owner 1960-80; three consecutive World Series victories.

Why I consider him a scoundrel: Because he treated his players like property.

It’s not like I lack company. Finley might be considered one of the most buttinsky owners in the history of a game full of teams run by egomaniacs. He had no baseball background (and zero respect for its traditions), and seemed to feel that owning a team should be no different in principle than the insurance company he’d built. His autocratic meddling came up with ideas like pressuring his players to change their first names for promotional purposes, trying to fire a second baseman for making errors, a designated pinch runner with no other baseball abilities, a mule as a mascot (encouraged to drop deuces in front of the other team’s dugout), orange baseballs, and so on.

Players and managers alike hated him. In fact, the only person I’ve ever read about who liked him was one of his daughters, who wrote a biography about him. (He cheated on his wife and was alienated from most of his kids.) Foreshadowing Phil Knight, he had the team wearing loud green and gold uniforms in many combinations that made lots of people hate even looking at them. I think it was pitcher Steve McCatty who commented on Finley’s open-heart surgery that it took eight hours, seven just to find the heart.

Why one might demur: Finley brought aboard plentiful talent on a team that had heretofore been in essence the Yankees’ farm team. I’m not sure how he accomplished that, but the facts speak for themselves, and this at least demands some respect for his understanding of a sport I’m not sure he ever played. He tried things, like Bill Veeck; he rejected the stuffy old-boy owners’ network (also like Veeck); what he lacked was Veeck’s instinct for what was entertaining, as well as Veeck’s ability to care about the people who worked for him.

Freedman, Andrew: owner 1895-1902; no noteworthy positive achievements

Note: this entry refers only to the executive born in 1860 and deceased 1915. No association with any other person by that name is intended, implied, or even contemplated.

Why I consider him a scoundrel: Obvious corruption.

Probably the deed that cemented him here is buying and then looting the old Baltimore Orioles–he released their best players so that NL teams could sign them. Especially the New York Giants, which Freedman also owned. I can think of some current politicians in my country who would shrug: “So you still haven’t told me what the problem is.” If people can’t see that, then let them see his arrogance, cantankerity, Tammany hackness, avarice, and mistreatment of players.

Why one might demur: At least he got out of baseball before he could screw it up even worse.

Frick, Ford*: NL president 1934-1951, MLB commissioner 1951-1965.

Why I consider him a scoundrel: Pick between the asterisk or his defense of racial exclusion.

High on the list is his special favoritism for Babe Ruth by the infamous asterisk ruling regarding the breaking of the Ruthian single-season home run record set in a 154-game season. As just about everyone with the slightest interest in history knows, Frick insisted that if the record took more than 154 games to beat, the entry in the record books would require an asterisk. The reason this is scoundrelly is that nothing of the kind was contemplated for any other record but Ruth’s, and that was because Frick had been Ruth’s fanboy as a reporter. Baseball seasons had often varied in length for whatever reasons (usually games that could not be made up, or playoff games to decide pennants); none of that had ever brought on an asterisk. Real fairness would be hard, so it wasn’t attempted.

Another reason is that he maintained the fiction that there was nothing preventing MLB teams from signing black players and was not aware of a situation where race had ever been a factor. In the first place, he either had never read about Cap Anson, or he was telling a near-Comiskical lie. In the second, given the success of Negro Leaguers against MLB teams in exhibition games, to pretend that Josh Gibson and Cool Papa Bell had simply not been good enough to help MLB teams was trans-Comiskical.

Why one might demur: Fair’s fair; when Jackie Robinson joined the NL’s Dodgers in 1947, not only did Frick not exercise his office’s power to prevent the signing, he replied to players’ threats of protests with the specter of suspension. Frick also played a key role in establishing the Baseball Hall of Fame, which I still want to visit, so maybe that’s a little personal.

Gandil, Charles “Chick”: player 1910-1919; 1b, .992 lifetime fielding average. (Also lifetime ban from organized baseball.)

Why I consider him a scoundrel: Ringleader of the Black Sox scandal.

Chick Gandil’s play would not have gotten him into the Hall, but it would have assured him a roster slot on any team wanting the game’s best fielding first baseman. A tough, rangy ballplayer who hit well enough and locked down first base, Gandil was a hard worker with a mean streak. He is infamous, and was banned from baseball, for his role as  a ringleader of the Black Sox scandal. While one understands the White Sox players feeling financially unappreciated by owner Comiskey, plotting to throw the Series was not the appropriate way to protest.

The Cincinnati Reds’ winners’ shares were $5207.07 each, so the starting calculus would be why the eight White Sox players involved would not simply play their guts out for that enormous sum rather than risking it all for more by dealing with crooks. Supposedly, the total on offer was $100K to be divided among the conspirators; if divided evenly, that’d only be about $12K each. Double the eventual winner’s share? Yeah, but what if they got caught? They did–and I would argue that giving Kenesaw Mountain Landis a pulpit from which to present hypocrisy is almost as bad as trying to fix a Series.

Anyway, Gandil didn’t play in organized baseball (a term I learned really means ‘baseball as approved by the U.S. game’s moguls’) after 1919. He died in 1970, somewhat repentant but never entirely credible in that sentiment. I doubt he would have regretted a bit had he collected $12K and never been found out. It looks to me like he actually promised the players shares of $80K, which implies that he meant to keep the rest for himself.

Why one might demur: One might begin by pointing out that most of the Black Sox were pretty bumptious, rather out of their league dealing with city-slicker crooks. That doesn’t make them saints, but it does mean they were vulnerable. One might continue by belaboring the obvious, which is that they worked for a first-class cheapskate and had no alternative employment options in their chosen profession thanks to the reserve clause. I suppose one might add that the Black Sox were acquitted in court–not that court verdicts or legal principles still mattered to ex-Judge Landis, armed with a mandate to make sure the public was lulled into a belief in the game’s ethical hygiene.

Grimes, Burleigh “Ol’ Stubblebeard”: player 1916-1934. p; p, 270 wins vs. 212 losses.

Why I consider him a scoundrel: A mean bastard.

The last legal spitballer (one of those grandfathered in when doctoring the ball was made illegal), Grimes was a fierce competitor who glared at every batter and declined to shave before pitching starts. He had a significant mean streak and was one of the great intimidators of his era. It’s not so much any one thing as his whole vibe of a nasty demeanor and willingness to throw at people. A good control pitcher, he only plunked 101 batters in a long career.

Why one might demur: If they’re your guys, they’re dirty headhunters. If they’re mine, they’re just fierce and unrelenting competitors who want to win and will defend their teammates. Obviously I go back and forth here, but when I imagine him stalking out to the mound after putting a new bit of slippery elm into his cheek before playing some chin music, I’m leaning toward scoundrel.

Johnson, Arnold: owner 1954-1960.

Why I consider him a scoundrel: Disloyalty to his own team in favor of a competing team.

Because, while there is no documentary proof of which I’m aware, the circumstantial evidence is that he bought a distressed team with heavy Yankees support and rewarded them by acting, infamously, as an unofficial farm club for the league powerhouse. Good players were shopped to New York in return for cast-offs who kept the Kansas City Athletics mired in mediocrity. That would be collusion, tanking, and a betrayal of the principle that a team’s management should seek to advance the team’s fortunes.

Do that in wartime and we call it adhering to the enemy: treason.

Why one might demur: Well, as mentioned, I know of no proof. It could walk like a duck, quack like a duck, and swim like a duck–yet be a goose, at least in theory. Some might buy that theory, even if I don’t for a minute.

Landis, Kenesaw: commissioner 1920-1944

Why I consider him a scoundrel: Such a legal showman. Today he’d have a daytime court show like Judge Judy.

Let’s see. Let’s start with the fact that he was a judge, which to me starts out meaning something far less respectable than what most people believe. He brought in autocracy, and a mandate to make it look as if major league baseball was a clean game. In so doing, he banned for life eight players who were acquitted in a court of law (never mind that at least half of them had it coming). If that isn’t a fuck you to the legal system, I’m not sure what is. He bullied, pressured, and intimidated people (mostly uneducated, bumptious ballplayers who had no way to fight back), in my view all in an effort to burnish his own Andrew Jackson-like image (and he bore an astonishing resemblance to that other old bastard).

And yet, once he’d made his Great Big Statement by banning all the acquitted Black Sox, his handling went much easier. Ask the shades of Tris Speaker and Ty Cobb, who only avoided the same fate (banning with questionable justice) because the game was now supposed to be Officially Clean. If that weren’t enough, he did everything in his power to prevent integration and perpetuate the baloney about “there’s nothing stopping them.”

I hold his memory in limitless contempt.

Why one might demur: It is fair to say that the leadership of MLB had been pretty much Ban Johnson’s own bullying preserve for decades, and it’s not as if Landis was that much worse. It’s probably fair to indict almost every owner of the era of sleazebaggery. It is also true that something powerful needed to be done in order to rid the game of the gambling plague, and certainly without making some examples no one would either pay any attention nor believe that leadership was serious about lancing that economic boil. History has mostly recorded him as this stern but noble savior of the game, rather than the ruthless and self-aggrandizing bully I consider him to have been.

Martin, Billy: player 1950-1961 2b-ss; manager 1969-1988; five World Series rings including one as manager.

Why I consider him a scoundrel: A drunk prone to punching people.

A fierce and scrappy competitor, Martin played rough and fought both readily and well. Let’s see: He was clearly an alcoholic, abused umpires (tossed from 48 games as a manager), and might slug anyone, any time, for any minor offense. He flipped a bird in his 1972 Topps regular baseball card. (The in-action card, fittingly, shows him arguing with someone. As a child, I got that card in a wax pack but was too young and naive to look at the hand down his leg.) He was outspoken, often demeaning to his players, and was frequently fired.

Why one might demur: Some of his controversial public statements were true. Even if he took his competitive nature more than a little too far, he was a sharp baseball player and strategist who craved victories. And as a player, he took modest talent and turned it into a career that included an All-Star selection through sheer hustle, will, and guts. People might call him an SOB, but not even his greatest detractors could say he ever failed to give his best efforts.

And anyone who fought constantly with fellow scoundrel George Steinbrenner had at least one redeeming characteristic.

McGraw, John “Little Napoleon”: 1891-1907, 3b-2b; manager 1899-1932; .334 lifetime, .586 winning % as manager with ten pennants and three World Series titles.

Why I consider him a scoundrel: Because McGraw was obnoxious, belligerent, and an unrepentant umpire abuser.

That might be why he was chased 121 times over a long career (though only rarely after 1916). Players had very mixed reactions to McGraw; some thought he was the best guy they could ever play for, and others wanted to go somewhere else.

Why one might demur: For one thing, McGraw at least showed open and public respect for the great black players he saw. I do not think any of those were still active as players soon enough to see the white major leagues welcome their talents (Paige, perhaps), but over the course of thirty years McGraw frequently contradicted the “if we could find a good Negro player, there’s no prohibition against him playing” hypocrisy by saying often: “I’d sign him in a minute if he was white.”  I don’t think that was without influence, McGraw being as noteworthy a judge of baseball talent as any of the greats. Another point of demurral would be his reaction to the Merkle affair. In 1908, Merkle hit a walk-off to drive in the winning run, the fans stormed the field, and Merkle did not take time to touch second base before heading for clubhouse safety; a ball, which might have been the actual ball in play, was relayed to second and Merkle was called out on appeal with the run not counting. The game was ultimately the margin of standing that enabled the Cubs to qualify for a playoff against McGraw’s Giants; the Cubs won.

While the media crucified him in the purple prose of the day–“Owing to the inexcusable stupidity of Merkle, a substitute…”, McGraw not only defended his player but gave him a raise. A capable athlete who had a long and successful career overshadowed by one moment in which he was called out doing a thing hundreds had done before and gotten away with it, Merkle took the stigma to his grave. Perhaps the greatest consolation he might have had was McGraw’s support.

O’Malley, Walter: 1950-1979, owner; four World Series titles

Why I consider him a scoundrel: Hey, everyone in Brooklyn does. I get their pernt.

Because, while baseball had always been a business on some level and owners had almost always been parsimonious scoundrels doing their all to make maximum money while generally undercompensating oft-bumptious country boys using the reserve clause as the weapon, O’Malley took it to a different level. The Brooklyn Dodgers and Ebbets Field were one of baseball’s sacred grounds, and he defiled both in search of more money. Had he sold the Dodgers, taken the money to California, and started an expansion team, that I would respect. I’ve never even been to NYC (except for a plane change at one of their airports), much less Brooklyn, but I feel for them.

Why one might demur: For all the customary capitalist reasons. His team and his right to do as he wanted; Western expansion was an idea whose time had come; at least the Mets soon came along to give New Yorkers non-Yankees to root for; greed is wonderful and beautiful and more greed is better; someone else would surely have beaten him to the opportunity; rah rah money money money. If you feel those things, yeah, you might well demur. I prefer to question the sacred principle of untrammeled greed, and I don’t think anything about this whole blog post leaves anyone doubting that.

Ruth, George “Babe”: 1914-1935, p-of; 714 career HRs, .342 lifetime BA

Why I consider him a scoundrel: What? In what universe are you permitted to blaspheme so profanely that you call The Bambino a scoundrel? Even his faintest damns are required to heap on mitigating praise!

As longtime readers of the site have determined, vulnerability to peer pressure is not one of my weaknesses. The fact is that Ruth was a bully, especially in his twenties and toward smaller players and managers, a quick-tempered and mostly ill-mannered lout.

Worse yet in my mind, he was congenitally unable to control his genital urges. I don’t blame him for getting laid, especially given that he was most often the hunted rather than the hunter; I blame him for cheating on his wife. “He was a pig, but he could hit” is true. It’s also true that when we marry, we make commitments. Our partners intend for us to take those commitments seriously, unless part of the commitment is that there isn’t a commitment. I think that’s rare. As with marital vows, Ruth made contrite promise after contrite promise post-naughtiness and dishonored nearly all of them. And the fact that he barely ever emotionally matured past mid-teen levels isn’t something I hold against him. Enthusiastic burping and farting, BO, and other social clodderies are unpleasant, but not the acts of a scoundrel. Same for being dumped in bad boys’ home at seven.

Why one might demur (rejecting “but he was the greatest ever” as a valid answer; I don’t care if he ascended directly to Heaven): While I am pretty sure that the Catholic friars at the bad boys’ school did their best to teach him some moral values, it’s true that he went from rags to literal riches as a young adult. He did not have the maturity to handle everything that happened once his talents became obvious. What he did have is a childhood of deprivation and abandonment. Go through that, then suddenly you’re getting all these nicknames, you can afford new cars every week if you want, life is an all-you-can-eat buffet, and feminine companionship won’t leave you alone. Doesn’t sound to me like a recipe for someone to act like a grown, intelligent adult male by 25. Or 30, though admittedly around that time he seems to have improved his behavior and started to act fairly adult.

Also in his favor is that he was a sucker for kids (and little people in at least one known instance), so at least he only picked on adults. You might say he was a scoundrel in whose shoes we never had/got to walk.

Schott, Marge: 1981-1999, owner; one World Series title

Why I consider her a scoundrel: Don’t know of anyone who doesn’t.

Marge Schott was reliably reported to be as bigoted as any executive of the pre-civil rights era (and some who came after). That was less the norm in the last two decades of the twentieth century, and her version of it was unbearable. She let her St. Bernards run free in the park, dropping frequent St. Bernard-sized deuces. She resented that the Series victory had come in too few games, cutting into her revenues. While I think that some of the loathing directed at her had to do with gender (as in, the men were expected to be this stupid, greedy, and bigoted, but a woman should not), it’s not like she failed to come by it honestly. She just proved that a woman could be as much of a jerk as any man. Hear her roar.

Why one might demur: She wasn’t all bad. She supported the local children’s hospital. She was certainly a pioneer for women in baseball, whatever we might think of the way she went about it. She cared about making the ballpark an attractive and somewhat affordable visit for families; enlightened self-interest perhaps, but still hardly anything but admirable.

Shires, Art “the Great”: 1928-1932, 1b; .291 lifetime, almost as many punches landed as base hits made.

Why I consider him a scoundrel: I just don’t like violent braggarts much. Call it a moral failing–at least, if you’re a fan of violent braggarts and think they’re the soul of Murrica.

Because he was a well-known braggart (for example, he gave himself the sobriquet “the Great), bully, and general loudmouth. He resorted very quickly to violence when aggravated in some way, which is as polite a way I can describe a man with a history of clocking anyone who looked at him sideways. He did some professional boxing, but found out that real boxers were a lot better fighters than reserve utility infielders or fortysomething managers. Later in life he beat a man to death with whom he’d been drinking, but got away with a $25 fine. I’m not sure if “Whataman,” one of Shires’ other nicknames, was given him by the media or himself. It says something that the answer isn’t obvious.

If that weren’t enough, he beat his wife. I grew up around that and swore lifetime and vocal opposition of domestic violence. My wife is a survivor. Choosing my words with some care, every time I read that a victim of DV has retaliated with success, I fail to experience sorrow.

Why one might demur: He wasn’t the only loudmouth of his time. Babe Ruth might have been the loudest loudmouth of his time (though Leo Durocher showed great promise in that area during the Shires period), a profane, fairly gross, and otherwise obnoxious man. Difference might be a) Ruth was by far the better player, and b) Ruth wasn’t the same type or magnitude of bully. If we could know the unknowable, we’d probably find that Shires was compensating for some deep anxiety. He certainly had problems with alcohol.

While I can’t be sure–until very modern times quite a few closeted gay men, which was most of them, married women and lived unhappily ever after with the women as victims of the pain of frustrated reality–I suspect a lot of overcompensation was in play. It’s not proven, but it would explain a lot especially given that Shires never remarried after his wife divorced his abusive ass for good. Evidently no women could be found who were stupid enough to do that, which makes me feel all right that my father-in-law grew up in Art’s home town.

Spalding, Al: player and sometime manager 1866-1878, p/of/if.; .313 lifetime; executive 1882-1892, marketer of sporting goods until his death in 1915.

Why I consider him a scoundrel: Because he promoted history he most likely knew to be bullshit. People who do that are moneylending in the temple and must be scourged forth.

The way that went down, to my understanding, is that Spalding cooked the books from the start. His committee invited letters only from origin testimonial sources who did not mention rounders or cricket, lest the public fully understand that the game originated from English sport. When someone blamed it on MG Abner Doubleday in the late 1830s, that sounded great: not just a Murrican, but a later Murrican Civil War ‘hero.’ (While hero might be pushing it a bit, especially as Doubleday is said to have endowed himself with the title, he was certainly a competent brigadier and divisional commander.)

And Spalding having obtained the baloney he was seeking, he ended the search. Baseball was and had always been the all-American game, solely invented here by Americans, end of discussion. Fucking liar.

Generations fell for it, though in time baseball historians destroyed the fiction. We might add to that all that he did to undermine the idea of a players’ union, helping thus to maintain the thralldom of players at low salaries so that rich owners could get richer.

Why one might demur: Spalding was certainly one of the game’s builders and pioneers. There were far worse people. If you don’t mind people promoting fictional tales as ‘history’ for purely nationalistic reasons, and you’re prone to whataboutism (‘so he was a jerk; what about many of his peers?’), no way would you have him on this list.

Steinbrenner, George: owner 1973-2008; seven World Series titles

Why I consider him a scoundrel:

Because his meddling in the Yankees was a sports story of the 1970s and 1980s exceeded only by Hank Aaron’s quest to hit 715 home runs.

Steinbrenner publicly and personally derided and ridiculed his players and managers, canning the latter with abandon. He used his great personal wealth to buy the best free-agent talent, which is not automatically the act of a scoundrel but certainly isn’t noble to any non-Randroid. He had unrealistic facial hair policies, made illegal campaign contributions to Nixon (whose misdeeds look almost quaint today), feuded with everyone, was twice suspended from baseball, and lied publicly (“I won’t be involved in the day-to-day operations of the club at all.”)

Why one might demur:

Don’t know how much one can really fault him for playing the then-new free-agent game for keeps; he did not make those rules. He certainly wanted to win, and as certainly did so. He supported numerous charitable causes, notably a foundation to help the children of police officers killed in the line of duty. As with most people, he wasn’t entirely evil, and he certainly thought of himself as one of the good guys. He just didn’t have a lot of concurrence in the public eye–and if he’d had a few less open and notorious feuds that sullied his image, might be more kindly remembered.

And let’s face it. Reggie Jackson really was a hot dog, if a highly intelligent and power-hitting hot dog. Billy Martin really was a fractious alcoholic, if a fractious alcoholic with a great baseball mind. Neither held back or ducked, and both had a few whaps coming–they were certainly dishing them out.

von der Ahe, Chris: owner 1882-1898; four league championships, entertainment pioneer

Why I consider him a scoundrel: Ignorant of baseball (as were most in his native Prussia), he made his players march like soldiers and tried to tell them how to play the game.

Chris von der Ahe was a character of the first water. With a heavy German accent, he bought the St. Louis Brown Stockings as a market for his beer. He was Bill Veeck before Veeck’s birth–but with less laughter. One could argue that he made the game somewhat ridiculous by bringing rides and racing to the ballpark; the latter got him in some hot water with the league due to gambling concerns (a good example of using a teaspoon to empty a swimming pool).

He was difficult to impossible to work or manage for. He insisted on doing some of his own managing and compiled a 3-14 record. Once, he threatened to hold back his players’ championship money. He was an alcoholic. He had a statue cast, set up in front of the ballpark–its subject, himself. (The statue was logically relocated to his grave after his death.) He was a living caricature.

Why one might demur: I’m a fan of von der Ahe. His team is still going over a century after his death–they evolved into the modern Cardinals. He thought the ballpark experience should be fun, as Veeck much later did using improved technologies. He had some winning teams. He was the kind of character that made one want to follow baseball and go to games. He lost his entire fortune and died in his early sixties as a simple bartender, so it’s not like he retired and wallowed in luxury for the rest of a long life.

*Ford, you asked for it.