The BASEBALL RELIQUARY Inc.
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KEYNOTE ADDRESS
FOR SHRINE OF THE ETERNALS
Let me begin with
a question for you to ponder awhile as I
talk—one that I’ll answer a bit later. That
question is: how many hitters in baseball
history have hit 100 or more home runs over the
span of two consecutive seasons? Think that
over, and we’ll get back to it.
I’d like to thank
the Baseball Reliquary’s brain trust, Terry
Cannon and Albert Kilchesty, for yet another
example of their supreme fearlessness in
permitting yours truly, Don Malcolm, to deliver
the keynote address for the eleventh annual
Shrine of the Eternals Induction Ceremony.
It is clearly an
act of incredible bravery to do so, for my
reputation has been in or near the gutter for
almost as long as I have had a reputation. The
most immediately accessible example of my
infamy, the seven editions of The Big Bad
Baseball Annual, was received with
increasing apprehension as the series evolved.
As a matter of fact, one particularly eloquent
reviewer suggested that the 2000 edition of
The Big Bad Baseball Annual was a literary
and cultural Rubicon of cataclysmic proportions.
“Mr. Malcolm,”
the reviewer suggested, “in creating a dense,
daunting thicket of briny ‘Baseball Babylon,’
has done something that, for anyone else, would
have seemed utterly impossible—he has managed to
turn the word ‘bad’ into a four-letter word.”
And that was the
most POSITIVE review.
So you can
understand my incredulity and—frankly—my concern
when Terry and Buddy indicated that they wanted
me to deliver this address. Don’t get me wrong:
I’m flattered and honored; all that being said,
it still somehow seemed to signify the presence
of a highly developed death wish.
But then I
thought back to the many Baseball Reliquary
induction ceremonies that I’ve attended over the
years, and I realized that such seemingly
offbeat, reckless, and downright imponderable
decisions are part of the overriding fabric of
this unique organization and the very singular
individuals who helm it. To make the type of
analogy that caused many readers of The Big
Bad Baseball Annual to hurl the book across
the room in frustration:
—If Branch
Rickey’s precept “luck is the residue of design”
allowed the Mahatma to conquer the baseball
mountain, then the Reliquary’s concept that
“extreme risk is the hallmark of dangerous
delight” is precisely what has permitted them to
operate like a high-wire act without a net for
the past eleven years—and not only live to tell
about it, but to thrive while doing so.
This has been the
Reliquary way since its inception, and by doing
so I’d argue—and anyone who knows me knows how
much I like to argue—that such an approach has
produced a more authentic framework for
examining and celebrating baseball and its place
in American culture.
The Reliquary,
with its Shrine of the Eternals, is the Hall of
Fame for the rest of us—those who have long
since pushed past vanilla in the frozen dairy
case. The organization’s pursuit of baseball’s
cultural diversity and its often
stranger-than-fiction traditions manages to
retain a child-like sense of wonder even as it
exposes myths and explores dimensions of the
game often omitted in its “official” history.
And, as most of
you know already, the Reliquary does not engage
in ordinary hero-worship. When today’s ceremony
is concluded, there will be thirty-three
inductees in its Shrine of the Eternals; as a
group they represent extraordinary individuals
who are not lit with the bright lamp of myth,
but those who have all known some mark of the
shadow as part of their life experience.
First and
foremost, they are honored here for their very
real connection to the rest of us. These are not
“baseball Gods” but men and women connected to
our more mundane struggles. Their extreme
circumstances, their singular personalities, and
their battles against adversity make them worthy
of special recognition.
This is how it
has been for the Baseball Reliquary and its
voting membership over the past eleven years.
During that time, they’ve proven to have an
uncanny, almost mystical skill in selecting a
yearly slate of inductees who complement each
other thematically. And this might be the most
amazing aspect of the organization and the
unspoken faith it embodies. Every year, in a
random election process that produces three
inductees, we find that the results
produce—against all odds—a blending of qualities
and themes that unite the process into a
seamless celebration of what I would
characterize as “baseball otherness.”
All of the
inductees in the Shrine of the Eternals possess
this singular quality. Today’s inductees are no
exception. Their stories are in no way
sugar-coated. Each has his warts, and those
warts remain visible to us.
Steve Dalkowski
is a reminder that sometimes a talent can be too
extreme to be sustained. He is quite possibly
the greatest of the great outliers, a legend
literally larger than life, and the burden of
his unfulfilled promise is both heavy and
poignant. By honoring him today we recognize
this elemental aspect of baseball as it connects
to life itself—the “what if?” scenario in all
its conundrums and contradictions.
Jim Eisenreich is
the embodiment of those who face down
imponderable and unexpected impediments. It
appeared that his career would end just as it
was beginning, derailed by the onset of a
baffling condition that threatened to bar him
permanently from the playing field. We honor him
today for finding the courage and resolve to
beat those odds.
Roger Maris is
the poster boy for baseball’s often myopic view
of its own history. And he is related to the
question I posed at the start of these remarks.
How many of you have the answer to the question?
How many players have hit 100 or more home runs
over the course of two consecutive seasons?
That’s right, the
answer is: twelve. You’ll find the complete list
in the handouts being circulated. When Maris hit
his 61st round-tripper on October 1, 1961, it
meant he’d hit exactly 100 homers in 1960 and
1961—and at that time it made him only the
fourth player to have done so. Despite the
recent flurry of new additions to this long-ball
fraternity, it remains a very exclusive club.
As we all know,
Maris’ feat was not greeted with universal
acclaim. There’s been a lingering tendency to
view it as a kind of fluke. Maris’ career was
shortened almost as much by the negative
reaction to his astonishing peak performance as
it was to injury.
I want to call
your attention to the diagram on the reverse
side of the list that was just passed out—it
presents a timeline for this 100+ homer feat.
When you examine it, you’ll see that the gap
between Maris in 1961 and the beginning of the
“juice era” is more than thirty-five years.
That means that
for the first 120 years of baseball history, and
the first 75 years of what we call the “live
ball era,” only four hitters had managed this
feat.
There is nothing
“cheap” about Maris’s achievement, and it’s to
the credit of the Reliquary voters that they’ve
sensed how significant the feat really was.
Adversity,
extremity, otherness: these are the qualities
that predominate in the Shrine of the Eternals.
The Reliquary voters have seized on a precept
greater than mere excellence in those they wish
to honor, and while that quality can bend in
several directions, the voting results over the
past eleven years have proven that it will not
break.
This is why Terry
and Buddy can throw caution to the winds, and
design a ceremony that brazenly flirts with
anarchy. To do otherwise would clearly go
against the spirit of their enterprise. They’ve
given themselves over to this mysterious,
unfathomable process, which is akin to two
mischievous young boys deciding to
simultaneously let go of their balloons with the
crazed certainty that those capricious,
lighter-than-air will-o’-the-wisps will manage
to return to their grasp as if foreordained.
Clearly, it is
the airiest of all possible architectures.
Such is the house
of baseball cards that they’ve created on the
seashore of our imaginations.
They have built
it—and we have come.
Feel free to let
go of your balloons. Thank you very much.
HITTERS WITH 100+
HOME RUNS OVER
1. Babe Ruth (4
times)
2. Jimmie Foxx
3. Ralph Kiner
4. Roger Maris
5. Mark McGwire
(3 times)
6. Ken Griffey
Jr. (3 times)
7. Sammy Sosa (5
times)
8. Barry Bonds (2
times)
9. Alex Rodriguez
(2 times)
10. Jim Thome
11. David Ortiz
12. Ryan Howard
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