King Solomon...Call Your Office
A while back I wrote a piece about Pete Rose and whether or not it was time to put him in the Baseball Hall of Fame. The feedback from readers wasn't that much different than the population-at-large. It was pretty much a tie. That said, many of you wrote eloquent and nuanced reasons for your "Yes" or "No" answers. Some of you said that enough time had passed and that the greatest hitter in the history of the game deserved to be inducted; "time passed" being the operative phrase. Others felt that if the players who had taken steroids could not get in, well, neither should Rose. Finally, there were those that kept it nice and simple; "YOU'RE AN IDIOT HALL! NO EFFING WAY!" Yes, these are my readers. In defense of those people, there is a rule that basically says, "DO NOT BET ON BASEBALL!" A sign with that sentiment is posted on the wall outside every baseball teams' locker room. You can't miss it, nor can you miss the meaning. It is emphatic. Think of it as Major League Baseball's version of Dante's sign (from his great work The Divine Comedy), posted upon entering the gates of Hell, "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here." A morals clause, if you will. Oh, and by the way, this baseball morals clause (which includes more than gambling) follows you into your retirement. Keep that in mind, dear reader, as we progress.
It's a great topic of discussion, and I understand all the answers. The big thing for a lot of people in this debate is, again, the simple fact that baseball has that Dantesque rule. No betting on baseball. You gamble at your own peril. If you get caught...you're gone. After that, intelligent people can discuss and/or differ on whether or not that rule should be adhered to, or even expunged.
Which brings me, and us, if you're still reading, to the National Football League. [Full disclosure: All of the following quotes are from a piece written by Mark Fainaru-Wada for ESPN.com.] It's Super Bowl week, and one of the teams playing are MY HOMETOWN, BORN AND BRED Kansas City Chiefs! You are the worst sports fan in the history of sports! What happened to your Patriots, or your Tampa Bay Bucs...idiot! Please, my feline Detroit Lions fan. My devoted reader, Mr. Thomas Brady, retired, and then his wife dumped him for the cabana boy, like he was a sack of...oh, I don't know...Jets fans! Anyway...
The team of my youth, these Chiefs, or Chefs as I like to call them, had a player back in the 60's and early 70's by the name of Jim Tyrer. He was a massive bear of a man tipping the scales at about 6'6" and 300+ pounds. He was an offensive lineman who protected his Hall of Fame quarterback, Len Dawson, for years. Tyrer was so big they had to make a special helmet for him. He would have been right at home in today's NFL with his size and speed.
When he retired, not long after helping my Chefs win Super Bowl IV, [for the love of Hank Stram you were 8-years-old], his name was immediately put up for the Hall-of-Fame. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that he would be voted in on the first ballot. He was that good. No brainer...No muss...No fuss. It was just a matter of time.
Well, as it often does, time took a swerve. In the early morning of September 15, 1980, while their four children were fast asleep, Tyrer took a .38-caliber pistol and shot his wife to death, and then turned the gun on himself...fatally. It not only orphaned four children, but it shook and devastated the Kansas City community as well as the rest of the NFL. Tyrer's name immediately disappeared from the Hall of Fame election committee listings. Gone. No announcement...no nothing. Kind of like how the Soviets used to airbrush former leaders' names from their history books. No explanation...no nothing. As if he never existed.
Well, until now.
On January 14 of this year, Tyrer's name was put back on the ballot by the senior committee. Gary Meyers, a long time New York City sports columnist, has been pushing for him to get back on the ballot for years. And with a lot of hard work and politicking, Meyers and a few others were able to get Tyrer back on the ballot, and he is now a finalist. The vote took place last month. Everyone will find out on February 4th if they were successful in their attempts.
Meyers said, "I just felt this was an issue that the entire committee should have a chance to discuss." It's clear that for Meyers, and others, Tyrer's candidacy, after almost 50 years, underscores the heightened awareness and ongoing discomfort over what football can do to the brain. The bottom line is, Tyrer might have suffered from football-related brain trauma long before the idea was introduced.
To be honest, Tyrer's getting elected into the Hall, is going to be a long-shot. There are many journalists who have no desire to open up this can of worms. First of all, there is no evidence that Tyrer suffered from CTE. And that's huge. But to a dope like me who's medical knowledge begins and ends with essays from various scientific and medical journals/websites, the circumstantial evidence, overwhelmingly, is that Tyrer was an exemplary family man for decades, with no inkling of what was to transpire that fateful morning. Also, Tyrer's symptoms, according to his wife and doctor at that time, coincide with many descriptions of more recent and current football players.
Longtime Hall-of-fame voter, Jason Cole, told ESPN he has "incredible compassion for the family" but said that he won't vote for Tyrer. "It's morally abhorrent and unacceptable to put a murderer in the Hall of Fame if you have the power to do otherwise. It's opening up a giant can of worms if you start to consider that CTE is an excuse because, (A) we don't know if he actually had CTE; it's a guess, probably a fair guess, but we will never know. And (B) CTE does not allow you to get away with heinous crimes and then be celebrated separately."
On the other hand, Vahe Gregorian, a veteran journalist who has had a vote for more than a few years, said that after speaking with Tyrer's family, and a doctor who treated the player, he can accept the CTE argument. "I think when you see that this is a man, who had for decades lived a life that was admired by many, that this change in him was caused by [CTE]," Gregorian said, "... I think to me, it says this was because of severe brain damage, not being of a willful act by this person. I don't know, that makes me look at it differently." Dear reader, that may be the most honest quote you will ever hear from a sportswriter.
When Gregorian talks about Tyrer's family...which resonates with me even though I don't have children; we find that his kids and even his in-laws forgave him immediately. They knew in their hearts that this wasn't the man who had been their father and their son-in-law. His quarterback, Len Dawson, was quoted as saying, "He was always such a strong, stable, guy. Something had to snap. He was a great family man. Doing something like this is completely contrary to his character."
At the time of the shooting, Tyrer had been referred to a psychiatrist by his family physician, Dr. Douglas Paone. "As we were walking out [of that referral meeting], his wife grabbed me by the arm and said, "Something is wrong with him, he's not himself,'" Paone said. "I looked at her -- I know exactly where I was standing when it happened, you know, like you kind of remember where you were when Kennedy was shot? She looked up at my eyes and said, 'There's something wrong with him, he's not the same.'" Two days later, before dawn on Monday morning, Tyrer shot Martha to death and then turned the gun on himself.
"When the early 2000s came around, they started talking about CTE, and, in retrospect, [Tyrer] fit that to a T," Paone said. "... My gosh, this is a guy who gave his whole life to football and ended it because of football. It's an American tragedy is what it is." And therein, according to family and sportswriters, lies the case for Tyrer's renewed Hall of Fame candidacy: If you believe that football played a part in him shooting his wife and then committing suicide, if you believe he was no longer himself when he shot that gun, if you believe enough time has passed, then voting for a man who murdered his wife takes on a different context.
But here's the elephant in the room, as it were. The football Hall of Fame DOES NOT have a "morals clause" like the baseball Hall of Fame. The football Hall of Fame explicitly says that the only criteria for a football player is what was done ON THE FIELD. That's it. How good were you when you played. I mean, a piece of shit human being like Lawrence Taylor is in the Hall of Fame. Taylor was/is the greatest defensive player EVER! And it's not even a conversation. But since his playing days, he has been accused of numerous things, including, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, statutory rape involving a 16-year-old, serious drug use, multiple domestic violence charges, and patronizing more than one prostitute. So, there's that.
Look, I understand about not opening the can of worms by blaming CTE. I have always been reluctant to blame some neurological, physiological, or psychological disorder for an individual's lack of civility, etc. I also understand how some voters, as well as people I've talked to about this, think murder, and child abandonment, is a bridge too far with regard to voting somebody like Tyrer into the Hall of Fame.
Again, I went out on a limb recently and took a lot of crap for changing my mind about Pete Rose. Because the more I read about addiction, whether it be alcohol or gambling, or whatever, I decided that the greatest hitter the game of baseball has ever known should be in the Hall of Fame. I also wrote that his plaque should read something like, "Pete Rose. Greatest Hitter Ever. Degenerate Gambler and Piece of Shit Human Being." But as Matt Maiocco, a reporter with NBC Sports Bay Area who has covered the 49ers for 30 seasons and is in his eighth year as a Hall voter, "If his [Tyrer's] play on the field made him worthy of being in the Hall of Fame, then theoretically there's nothing a person can do off the field that can take away from that."
But, and there's always a "But." Maiocco also says, "I think the Hall should revisit that proviso, because part of the description of being a Hall of Famer is the term 'heroes of the game.' To me, a hero is someone who does a lot more than just plays a mean game of football. A hero is somebody who lives life to a certain standard off the field as well."
And this is where King Solomon needs to call his office and offer his wisdom. I'm not sure I agree with Maiocco on that last quote when he talks about "heroes of the game" and, "a certain life off the field..." But who am I? I have talked to people who just see the word "murder" and immediately turn into banal prosecutors not unlike those monsters of the Spanish Inquisition. There is no thinking with these people; and there is no nuance. They are the degenerates of the "holier than thou". I'd like to see Tyrer in the Hall of Fame. And not because I'm a "Show Me State" native, as it were, but because I've read numerous interviews from various combatants who say Tyrer was the toughest guy they ever faced. That means something. Not only because I'm a greatness guy, but because I am also very sympathetic to the CTE argument. On the other hand, he shot and killed is wife, and then fatally shot himself, leaving 4 children orphaned, who by the way, have forgiven him. All of that, I think, means something, as well.
Please...talk amongst yourselves.
Write to Peter: magtour@icloud.com
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