SOME SUNDAY FUNDAY FAUX FACTS; HALL OF FAME EVENTUALLY GETS IT

The baseball establishment personified by the Hall of Fame, for those who don’t know, is legendarily conservative. Some years back, pre-Faux, they wanted to honor the great baseball movie “Bull Durham”, but without inviting back Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon as they were deemed too left wing to grace the Cooperstown shrine. I previously wrote, in an Op-ed column forum, pointing out that all gains in baseball were made by turning left (on the base paths) and that the consensus greatest baseball player of all, Babe Ruth, hit and threw from the left side. I also noted that the greatest winning percentage by pitcher with 300 wins (Lefty Grove) and 200 wins or more (Whitey Ford) were by lefties, that Sandy Koufax’s biography was “Legacy of a Lefty”, and concluded by noting that the highest batting average in history (.367) was held by the left-handed batter Ty Cobb. For this attempt at erudition, I received several dis-like letters (or maybe they were hate ones) signed as always by those pillars of the American right, Anonymous. That family, by the way, has written me for years.
But this week, the Hall of Fame emulated our impression of conservatives and history, namely that they always get history but only after it’s become history. They did this on May 3rd when they honored Jackie Robinson by finally giving him a new plaque, recognizing that in 1947, that seems like awhile huh, he broke baseball’s color line. Way to finally get it Hall, but wasn’t such information available in 1962 when Jackie was first inducted into the Hall?