In this long national moment of plummeting societal trust, institutional collapse, and life-and-death political acrimony, can something so gloriously frivolous as baseball teach us a thing or two about the lost art of forgiveness? That's an intriguing subplot to this weekend's annual Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Cooperstown, New York.
Two of the most controversial and polarizing players of their generation, Dick Allen and Dave Parker, will be enshrined there Sunday (both posthumously, alas), just 10 weeks after Major League Baseball (MLB) removed from its "permanently ineligible list" the two most famous players on the outside of the Hall looking in: Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson.
The cases of Rose and Jackson—both banned for life after violating the MLB's ultimate taboo against gambling on baseball—are well-known even to nonfans at this point, having been subject to numerous books, documentaries, and feature films. The lesser-known cases of Allen and Parker suggest a different moral calculation: How do we treat and assess players who sabotaged their own massive talent, sowing division within their clubhouses and wreckage among their teammates?
