Don't mess with me...
Forecasting Led Zeppelin, Pete Rose...what's next?
Don’t mess with me.
You’re right, Martha. It’d have to be a pretty big dadgum deal to get me to stop writing about a not-very-good Neil Percival Young record on a Tuesday afternoon and hop on a breaking story for my record-breaking THIRD Substack of the day.
But I know my readers. And they know, having read this Substack for a while now that when I predict something, well, just go ahead and believe it.
When I heard the news about Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred lifting the name of Peter Edward Rose from the Baseball Hall of Fame’s Lifetime Ineligible List today, well, I couldn’t sit back and wait to write this tomorrow. Not when I essentially predicted as much in the “Pete Rose vs. The Truth” chapter of my recent book “Diamond Duels.” (available locally, if you’re interested.)
And it wasn’t just Pete. When, after a year or so writing a just-about-daily Substack, I decide to write a Substack about the 50th anniversary of “Physical Graffiti,” and a day or two later, THE BAND ANNOUNCES THAT THEY ARE GOING TO GO BACK ON TOUR AND WILL HAVE A NEW ALBUM OUT BEFORE THE END OF 2025.
You’re welcome, America. There are few other things I’m working on — read a few recent Substacks and you’ll see. (Wink)
ON PETE ROSE
Though I actually wrote “Diamond Duels” last summer and intended mostly to focus on the historic pitcher-hitter matchups in baseball history, there were some other topics that were just too good to ignore.
One was Christy Mathewson writing one thing in the New York Times about the fixed 1919 World Series and doing another (hiding apparently his own gambling addiction.) The other was Pete Rose, whom I had the chance to interview twice, it took a while to stop laughing after each one and whom, as I wrote in “Pete Rose and The Truth” it was time to forgive the guy.
He was alive when I wrote it, not when the book came out in March, unfortunately. But evidently, Commissioner Manfred had been thinking about it and he was nudged by President Trump (finally, something I agree on with the guy) and I don’t want to overestimate the power of my words but the book came out March 4, here we are a couple months later…
Here’s an excerpt of what I wrote in “Diamond Duels”:
“WE CAN’T TURN OUR HEAD
Let’s be honest, it’s more than a little crazy to have a Baseball Hall of Fame exhibition hall and not include some of the game’s most significant players – far more people know about Shoeless Joe Jackson than Freddie Lindstrom – you can’t deny history. Why not acknowledge it?
Couldn’t there be a way, wouldn’t it make more sense to acknowledge what these miscreants did on the field and at the same time, point out their serious mistakes off-the-field for future generations. Yes, these guys were great players but some of their decisions away from the diamond were awful, examples of what not to do. They were some of the greatest players we’ve seen, no question. But there is a right and a wrong way to play the game, to live your life. Wouldn’t that be an important and effective message to share?
It’s silly to walk into Cooperstown’s wonderful Hall of Fame and pretend we never heard of Pete Rose and Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds and the rest, like they didn’t matter one bit to the game’s history. We can’t say that.
These players mattered a lot, in some ways, they altered the game’s history. Why not just lay out what they did, after all this time and all this publicity, get it out there. We can handle it. So can they.
You can understand why those who are already in the Hall say that letting Rose in would cheapen the honor. They didn’t do the stupid things he did. Why lower the Hall’s standards? It’s a valid point. One that all the Commissioners and many of the Hall of Famers stand by to this day.
But could they say Pete Rose didn’t earn it, didn’t meet those standards by what he did on the field? Bonds, Clemens, Sosa, McGwire and probably others demonstrably benefitted by the use of performance-enhancing drugs, it helped separate them from their peers, it was an undeniable advantage.
What Pete Rose did was selfish, illicit, shameful, crooked. But it cost him way more than whatever he lost at the betting window. That too, is undeniable. Maybe it should have.
Since then, the sport itself has changed its approach to gambling, embracing Draft Kings, promoting gambling on the game, even on individual at bats. Honestly, it’s hard to play the integrity of the game card now. There are players who abused steroids, served their penalty and are now back in the game. An entire team may have gotten to and won a World Series by cheating. There are so many moments we know about where the game’s “integrity” was compromised. And what don’t we know about? What will come out in a few years?…
So far, no baseball players have wandered down that path. Pete Rose’s ban seems to have served as a deterrent. Players known for sometimes scurrilous behavior were scared off by that lifetime ban.
“Even Lenny Dykstra told me, ‘Boy, I’m glad you got Rose. That stopped me cold,” baseball’s lead prosecutor John Dowd said.
But there is also a lot to be said for forgiveness. People make mistakes, sometimes grave mistakes. Certainly at 82, Pete has made more than his share. Baseball fans across America are likely still divided on this guy. But if the response of the crowd in Atlanta at that World Series game with the All-Century team is representative of how the mass of people feel about Pete Rose –- and it may not be –- they sounded more than ready to forgive him.
Are you?
ON LED ZEPPELIN
For some reason, I just hadn’t gotten around to writing about Led Zeppelin, even though I writing about sorts of stuff, just about daily. How did I miss them? I don’t know. But when I spotted an Uncut Magazine with “Physical Graffiti” and its 50th anniversary on the cover (My God, am I that old?) I thought I should sit down and write about them at last and my readers loved it (795 views!)
And apparently, either Jimmy Page or Robert Plant or John Paul Jones saw it and acted upon it, decided to record again and tour. So you might think this humble little Substack with 620 or so readers has no pull, well, let me tell you otherwise, sistah!
It may be that I stumbled into something cool here.
The terrific folks at Books A Million had a big stack of my baseball books on a table in the front of the store. After my book signing, they filled the same table with books on Pope Francis. Then today, they had Ron Chernow’s new biography of Mark Twain stacked up there. That’s pretty fast company, don’t you think?
So, like I said, Don’t Mess With Me. (hahahaha)
P.S.: They won’t be voting on Pete until 2027, unless things change.
What a good sense of humor you have in your writing. You write like a person might talk, telling a story. It's an easy read and something is learned or remembered along the way. Thanks, John, for sharing. You are my 206th bedtime story.