Hall of Fame is the Name of the Game

It is possible that television viewers watching Jim Palmer’s induction into baseball’s Hall of Fame Sunday won’t recognize him with his pants on.

Jim did well in pants, but better when he removed them, appearing in ads and commercials for years in his undergarment.

“It’s a crazy world,” he confided. “I won 20 games eight times (for Baltimore). I won the Cy Young Award three times. And there was more written and said over my being seen in my Jockeys.”

Logic would dictate he appear in that attire at Cooperstown where, with his colleague, Joe Morgan, the two will be decorated in a sort of all-ESPN show.

By that is meant Palmer and Morgan work as baseball analysts for ESPN, which will air the Hall of Fame telecast at 2:30 p.m.

Of Morgan’s 22 years in the majors, eight were spent in Cincinnati where he served from 1972 to 1978 as teammate of Pete Rose, for whom he fosters a soft spot today.

“Making the Hall of Fame is the high point of my baseball life,” Morgan says. “I am proud. I am ecstatic. I am also touched with guilt that I should get into the Hall so easily (on the first vote) while Pete is buried under so much trouble and must battle to get into the Hall at all.”

Rose isn’t yet eligible for admittance, but when he is some argue that baseball shouldn’t recognize a son who has bet on games. He also failed to pay income tax, an oversight that got him five months in prison.

“Pete and I ‘lockered’ together for eight years,” says Morgan. I don’t think anyone in baseball knows him better than I do. I studied him on the field every day. He was the most dedicated player I’ve seen. I felt I was dedicated. But there were times I let up, as most players do.

“But Pete? Never. He played every game as if it were the seventh game of the World Series. His lifetime ambition, his dream, his obsession, was to get into the Hall of Fame. Now it’s anyone’s guess.”

“If you voted,” Morgan is asked, “what would be your verdict?”

“You can’t overlook his sins” he responds. “Tax fraud is serious business. And betting is against the rules. But I feel that what he did on the field, and what he did off the field, can be separated. There is also room for forgiveness. He never bet against his own team. He never threw a game. And tax problems needn’t be related to baseball.”

“Then you would be more lenient than some of the voters indicate they will be?”

“The same guys finger-wagging at Pete Rose will forgive drug-users, alcoholics, wife-beaters, cop-fighters and deadbeats. I hope they are equally charitable when Pete comes up for the Hall of Fame vote.”

Morgan confides he saw Palmer as an automatic selection for the Hall of Fame on the first ballot, but suffered serious misgivings about himself.

“A pitcher is more visible than an infielder,” says Morgan. “What an infielder does to win games for his team isn’t always as obvious. My lifetime batting average ran only .271. And I got fewer than 3,000 hits.”

“Then what was your secret?” he is asked.

“My secret,” he answers, “is that I did the right thing at the right time. It took a knowledgeable voter to realize this. And I am gratified that enough knowledgeable voters participated.”

Engaged in baseball on television since 1985, Morgan is new to ESPN, having previously served NBC, ABC and the Cincinnati Reds and San Francisco Giants networks.

Also a first-year man on ESPN, Palmer tilled an oar previously at ABC.

If Morgan’s glove is solicited for the Hall of Fame Museum, you have to assume a request will be made for Palmer’s shorts.

At department stores, Jim used to autograph them for women shoppers, who weren’t especially in the market for a pair of shorts--but hoped that Palmer went with them.