Character and—and in—Sports

I don’t often write about professional sports, but here goes.

Former Major League Baseball Commissioner .Fay Vincent has decried the role character plays in the selection of players to MLB’s Hall of Fame.

By trying to inject nobility into its election standards the Hall of Fame aimed to maintain the old-fashioned view that honors should accrue to the honorable.

Because honor is so 18th century. Never mind what Benjamin Franklin and John Adams thought was necessary to preserve our republic, then or now.

A letter writer in last Friday’s Letters section of The Wall Street Journal agrees with the commissioner.

I agree with Mr Vincent. Character should not be the overriding factor, which it recently seems to be. Voting should be based on merit.

Merit must also, and always, include character. If not, then why are the members of the Black Sox baseball team not in baseball’s Hall of Fame? After all, they had the skills and talent required for Hall of Fame membership; they had to be bought off in order for another team to win a World Series.

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