Tale of Two Joes: Shoeless and Paterno

Long-time fans of Bill James will remember his sometimes tasteless but scathingly funny comments about baseball players. Many of them were collected in the book This Time Let's Not Eat the Bones, the point of which was to feature James' writing without the statistics. The most memorably tasteless comment was, "Rick Cerone is to catching what Thurman Munson was to aviation."

But Bill James could be scathingly eloquent too when he made serious arguments, and he did not hesitate to take a stand on strong moral grounds. The one I remember best was his article about whether Shoeless Joe Jackson belonged in the Hall of Fame. It was a brilliantly written and argued piece. He began by granting that sure, Shoeless Joe deserved a place in the Hall for his baseball greatness, despite the fact that he helped throw the 1919 World Series. But, James continued, before we put Jackson in the Hall, we should first admit all the great baseball players who didn't throw games. As James developed his argument further, he made the case that every major league baseball player ever who didn't throw games should be admitted to the Hall of Fame before Shoeless Joe. And every manager, coach and umpire. And every Negro League player, manager, coach and umpire. And everyone in minor league baseball. And everyone in college baseball...and high school baseball...and Little League...and sandlot and stickball. And then, James concluded, when every person who has ever played the game of baseball honestly is in the Hall of Fame, then, maybe then, we can find a place in the Hall of Fame for Shoeless Joe Jackson.

It's incomprehensible to me that the same person who could make such a powerful argument on the immorality of throwing games, is now incapable of taking a strong public stand against the immorality of Joe Paterno covering up and aiding and abetting Jerry Sandusky's child molestation. It's hard to believe it's the same Bill James whose comment on the Freeh Report is that it exonerates Paterno.

I will not mince words: Bill James has become an apologist for the aiding and abetting of child molestation. If Joe Posnanski, who is inextricably associated with Paterno now, remains silent in the wake of the Freeh Report, that makes him an apologist for the aiding and abetting of child molestation too. And all the commenters on Posnanski's blog and elsewhere who have argued that Posnanski does not owe anyone any comment on the Freeh Report, they are apologists for the apologists for the aiding and abetting of child molestation. I do not know what the legal culpability is for such things. But I do know that there is a great moral culpability for it.