The new Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred is revisiting Pete Rose’s lifetime ban from baseball. Clearly one of the greatest players in the game, with more base hits than anyone, Rose was banished from the sport by the late Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti for wagering on baseball.
But as the Wall Street Journal noted: “The rules were put in place to prevent cheating, not betting. And cheating is something that no thinking person, then or now, has suggested Pete Rose would do.”
While he’s at it, I’d like the commissioner to reexamine the story of Shoeless Joe Jackson (pictured), who batted .375 with perfect fielding in the 1919 Chicago White Sox in World Series, yet was caught up in the “Black Sox” scandal.
“In 1921, a Chicago jury acquitted Jackson of helping to fix the Series, but Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the first Commissioner of Baseball, went against the ruling and banned all eight players including Joe Jackson from baseball for life.” I have never been convinced of his guilt. In other words, I say it AIN’T so, Joe.
If either one of those happens, I would suggest that the Steroid Era players, prior to 2004, when the baseball policy was quite unclear, ought to get due consideration for the Baseball Hall of Fame: Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, and the others.
“Where do we strike the balance between personal freedom and national security — and how do we even get people to care?” Watch John Oliver Meets Edward Snowden. The folks at Politifact fact-checked what Snowden said and they gave it a rating of Mostly True. And speaking of whom, NYC officials removed a Snowden statue secretly installed in Brooklyn park, but it was replaced by a Snowden hologram.
Stan Freberg was a comedy legend, a skilled voice actor, a genius of American advertising, and more. Just go to Mark Evanier’s site, and search for Freberg; you’ll find several articles, plus links to even more. Also, listen to Wun’erful, Wun’erful. Stan Freberg died on April 7.
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Geoffrey Lewis was the classic character actor. If you look at the massive list of his TV and movie appearances, you might say, “Oh, he’s THAT guy.” This is telling: he played two DIFFERENT characters on the series Mannix, Mission: Impossible, Cannon, Police Woman, Lou Grant, Little House on the Prairie, and The A-Team; three on Alias Smith and Jones, and Barnaby Jones; and FOUR separate characters on Murder, She Wrote.
The only show I ever watched where he was a regular was Flo, a spinoff of Alice, and that was 35 years ago. Jaquandor linked to a spoken word performance. Father of 10 children, including actress Juliette Lewis, Geoffrey Lewis also died on April 7.
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Richard Dysart was a star of the TV show L.A. Law, which I watched religiously. But he had a string of other notable performances on stage and in the movies, as well as TV. He died on April 5.