Murray Chass on Baseball: NO TO MINNIE AND ROGER

Talk last week about the Houston Astros’ idea of bringing Roger Clemens back to pitch for them this season prompted recollection of the Chicago White Sox attempt to bring back Orestes (Minnie) Minoso, the outstanding Cuban outfielder, to play in the final week of the 1990 season so he could become the first major leaguer to play in six different decades.

...Turning to the Clemens issue, Vincent said, “I think the tragedy here is Clemens’ lack of mental health. It reminds me that these guys, whatever their financial circumstances, they miss being center stage, going behind the curtain and not having a life. It’s a substantial problem.”

Which ties in nicely with Fay Vincent’s recent “Getting old, you have ‘no agenda and are not trying to impress anyone;’ trying to crush dissent proves a folly”. (WARNING: Metamusillyness abounds!)

In my case, the great men of my youth, the sports and literary and music and political giants, are all gone. So I cling to the joy of listening to tapes of Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra and Benny Goodman while maintaining to all who will listen that Jim Brown was the greatest football player I ever saw — and by a large margin.

We are, of course, resisting the young who are so ignorant of history. I confront many who seem to believe baseball was invented in about 1970. One prominent writer claimed Jeff Kent was the greatest right handed hitting second baseman in baseball history. The greatest record in baseball history is not the 56-game hitting streak of the luminous Joe DiMaggio but rather the incredible record set by Rogers Hornsby — a second baseman — when he hit for an average of over .400 in five years from 1921 to 1925. Imagine hitting .397, .401, .384, .424, and .403. That record will never be broken. How can anyone ignore Hornsby and his .358 lifetime batting average?