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© Copyright 2001, Jim Loy
Many years ago, I saw a baseball player hit a mile-high (I exaggerate) pop fly to the second baseman with no one on base. The batter trotted down to first, and then trotted into the dugout when the catch was made. I would have raced to first, and if there was any hope of getting to second, I would have raced to second. If he drops the fly, it will probably be a tough play at second. And the pop fly may be tougher if he hears my foot steps and some crowd noise. OK, he drops the ball and throws it away at second, and I make it to third, two errors. And most ball players would feel lucky to be at first on one error. Often, hustle works better than skill.
I guess that is why I "hated" Roger Maris, in the old days. I've mellowed out since then. I saw him hit a routine grounder to the shortstop, and he just trotted into the dugout, directly from the batter's box. You don't do that. Some day, they're going to drop the ball.
Pete Rose (Charlie Hustle, who always hustled) is not in the Baseball Hall of Fame. And I think that is a joke. He was better than most of the players already in the Hall of Fame. But he bet on baseball (not against his own team). Hey, none of our "heroes" and role models was perfect. We need to reassess what a hero is. I recommend being like Rose or Ruth or Mantle on the field; who cares what they were like off the field. Keeping Rose (and Shoeless Joe Jackson) out of the Hall of Fame means that we are all pretending that our sports heroes were all perfect cartoon human beings. Some of them probably were that perfect. Most of them were not.