Cap Anson played primarily for the team that would go on to become the Chicago Cubs in the late 19th century. He was one of the premier players of his era. To modern era eyes his most notable on field accomplishments are his 3,435 hits, his 2,075 RBI and his .334/.394/.447 slash line. Those are Hall of Fame numbers in any era.
What doesn’t get mentioned as much about Mr. Anson is that he was a vocal racist. His bigotry and popularity were so famous during his time that some baseball historians feel that Anson played a critical role in segregating the professional game in the late 19th century. When professional baseball was first established it was an integrated affair. That didn’t last, and there are those who believe that the influence of players led by Cap played a critical role in establishing the game’s greatest shame.
Of course this dude is in the Hall of the Fame. Does his Hall of Fame plaque mention anything about what a monster he was? Nope. It reads, “Greatest Hitter and Greatest National League Player-Manager of 19th century. Started with Chicago in National League’s first year 1876. Chicago manager from 1879 to 1897, winning 5 pennants. Was .300 class hitter 20 years, batting champion 4 times.” It doesn’t say anywhere on the plaque the irreversible damage he helped inflict upon the game and the country.
Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens were not elected to the Hall of Fame this year, for reasons I won’t revisit here. That’s a shame, because baseball’s Hall of Fame is painting itself into a tighter and tighter corner as some of the game’s greatest players are being denied enshrinement. When Pete Rose was the only famous aberration, a player with a Hall of Fame resume but not a plaque, the situation was tenable. But over time, as an entire generation of great players who have made their marks on the record books begin piling up outside Cooperstown without getting a ticket in, a severe imbalance is going to emerge in the game’s history. The Hall of Fame will cease to be a useful arbiter to determine who the all time greats are because many obvious all time greats won’t be there, the Home Run King among them.
And there won’t be a well reasoned argument for this. A little bit of research will reveal that there are plenty of cheaters in the Hall, just not steroid cheaters. More critically, a little bit more research will reveal that there are truly loathsome individuals in the Hall, people far worse than Barry Bonds.
That’s the problem with what is taking place right now. The baseball writers are being hypocritical, denying players they can remember an opportunity to be in Cooperstown without assessing who is already in there. As a result, baseball is missing an opportunity to examine its recent past constructively while still acknowledging what has happened recently on the field. Until baseball figures out how it wants to celebrate Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens without also celebrating their steroid use the Hall of Fame will have established a strange set of rules: steroids are poison, but racism and other crimes are passable.
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16 Responses to Cap Anson is in the Hall of Fame
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TIQ IQ
Wasn’t Bonds a fairly vocal racist himself?
Bonds was not a vocal racist (if your question was rhetorical or not.)
He was, however, a three-time NLMVP through 1993 thus a Hall Of Famer on that alone as EVERYONE with three or more MVP awards is in the Hall Of Fame.
The writers who didn’t vote him in for the HOF this year are more or less the same people who voted him NLMVP SEVEN TIMES including THREE TIMES IN FOUR YEARS and FOUR YEARS IN A ROW, so they have ZERO credibility.
I don’t remember Bonds ever saying he hated white people. Do you have a specific source or example regarding when he allegedly said anything like this?
Interesting article. I agree 100% that Anson was a scumbag, racist, as were many along the road to Jackie Robinson.
Pete Rose deserves to be in the HOF. Gambling is legal in 48 states. Gambling is part of our culture. When Pete was 1st busted my first, and only question was, DID HE BET AGAINST HIS OWN TEAM? And when I found out that he did not, I wondered what the big deal was. Shows you how different perceptions can be. So he bet on baseball. Why the hate? Why the deep red faced, veins bulging in the neck, takes 3 guys to hold me back or I’d rip your throat out, you god damned son a bitch? Why the mob w pitchforks for something we all do? The mentality of the baseball higher ups seems to be like Frank Costanza wanting to kill Kramer cause he “stopped short”.
But now you are equating PED use with being politically incorrect,and saying there is no well reasoned argument against it. Dude, I don’t know how to tell you, but you are not the one we voted for to be the keeper of reason and logic.
If you watch football, an announcer explained last week that penalties are established for the express purpose of preventing players or teams from having an unfair advantage on any particular play or game. It’s as simple as that. Anson being an asshole did not make him a better hitter nor did it give him an unfair advantage over any other player.
That is the gripe against the drug users. That they had an unfair advantage and the ref threw the flag. In 1968 the mound was 6 or 8 inches higher and pitchers had and unfair advantage…so they adjusted it.
So where do you draw the line? What is acceptable and what is unacceptable? Maybe you draw the line at BB guns. Maybe if the 1st baseman shot the batter w a BB just as he started his swing, the ball would be un-hittable. Then the pitcher would throw 15-20 no hitters per season and after 15 years he would have 15 Cy Youngs and called the greatest pitcher of all time. But all the hitters and all the fans would be screaming that the only reason he was so good was because the 1st baseman was shooting the BBs. Then some sports writer would say….”well Cap Anson was a racist and Pete Rose gambled, and Bonds used drugs, so how can we ruin the HOF by preventing the greatest pitcher of all time from being a member.
And there is no reasonable argument against this.
Racism doesn’t improve your ability. Steroids do.
That’s why every player who’s ever taken steroids has gotten better, right?
I simply don’t agree with, nor really understand, the logic of this opinion. It basically says “look, this jerk is in the Hall, so we now need to let anyone in”. It is basically akin to arguing that once a mistake was made in the past, the precedent it set now need to be the new normal. Why?
I would prefer an honest presentation in the Hall. The display for Cap Anson should present the proper truth. If Bonds and Clemens will admit to their PED use and it can be mentioned in their Hall displays, then they can get it, but if they continue to lie, then I have no interest in seeing them in there.
It’s important to note that baseball’s segregation and racism absolutely did give players such as Anson an unfair advantage. Anson was an elite talent who could inflate his numbers because he often faced inferior competition. He made it so that he did not have to play against the best possible competition, and his numbers improved as a result of it.
Well-put: Anson successfully procured a racist rule to exclude a slew of talented competitors, which sure sounds like cheating to me.
Put differently: who got the BIGGER advantage against competitors:
(1) Bonds, by bulking up against competing stars he faced off against; or
(2) Anson, by EXCLUDING competing stars so he wouldn’t have to face them?
Baseball need not search for ways to celebrate Bonds and Clemens. They should be reviled for disrespecting the game, not revered. They prospered by leading the charge in the era that corrupted the stats and standards by which all others are judged. plus they were lordly about it. They did much more harm than good and they should have to be content with polishing their MVP and Cy Young awards. They are not worthy of any more honors.
What “harm” did they do O Keeper Of A Clean And Holy Hall Of Fame?
Name me ONE MLB player either or both of them was directly responsible for the ruin of.
I’m still waiting for the proof both took steroids as after all, innocent until proven guilty in a court of law not a kangaroo court of sports writers who I’d love to know the mistakes of so I could maybe find one to show why he isn’t fit to be a sports writer or someone to judge anyone.
Btw, you might want to Google images of these two in the early ’90s then explain how they won six major awards between them between 1986 and 1993 being built like that (and were robbed of two more as Clemens was robbed of the 1990 AL Cy Young Award and Bonds should’ve been the 1991 NLMVP.)
You might also want to check out Barry Bonds’s official site, BarryBonds.com and explain how he looks like a typical retired American professional athlete who still exercises daily. You can’t “shrink down” from steroids bro.
2013 Bonds looks fantastic and is living proof he didn’t take steroids, he just gained muscle mass for baseball then shed it when he retired.
They won those awards early in their careers because they were already Hall of Fame-caliber players. What they did later in their careers was improve on their already-immense talent, with the help of PEDs. Barry Bonds was better at 40 than he was at 30. Same with Roger Clemens. That’s not a coincidence.
BarryBonds.com
BarryBonds.com
BarryBonds.com
Tell me how the guy in the pictures looks like a steroids cheat.
His skin color is the same as it’s always been. He doesn’t have bulging, crazed-looking eyes or veins bursting out of his neck or arms. He doesn’t have Popeye arms or legs. His pecs are proportionate to his height. He bikes and I’m guessing runs for miles every day, hardly something one ravaged by steroids could do as you lose endurance from taking that shi t.
Any sports doctor will tell you he did not take steroids because if he did he would not be built like he is.
Deal with it.
BTW maybe Babe Ruth was a cheat. After all, the man – ONE MAN – hit more homerun than ENTIRE TEAMS at one point and had such a bad body John Goodman, King Of Hollywood Bad Bodies, played him in a movie. How’d Ruth do all he did with a body like that hmmmmm? Considering the carnival including sideshow ones were popular in his heyday, who’s to say the balls thrown to him weren’t lighter. Hey, the more homeruns he hits, the more people he draws to the sport and games, the more money he makes everyone, etc.
Please find me the “sports doctors” who’d make that assessment.
Umm, he DID take steroids. He admitted to taking the cream and the clear and whatever the hell else he got from BALCO. His argument isn’t whether or not he took steroids, he most definitely did, his argument is he never KNOWINGLY took steroids.
While the arguments for and against Bonds and Clemens will go on for years, I don’t see why the writers voted, in effect, to punish Mike Piazza, Jeff Bagwell, and Craig Biggio, to name just three of several deserving HOF-caliber players, for no better reason than because they simply played in the “wrong” era. No evidence exists at all that either Piazza or Bagwell used PED’s, and Biggio should have been an easy pick.