THE UNFORGIVABLE SIN

Commissioner Manfred did not deliver Pete Rose the holiday gift he had hoped for. Rose is still officially banned from having any role in major league baseball, other than appearing at certain events. Although Manfred made clear there was a distinction between Major League Baseball and the Hall of Fame, for all intents and purposes Rose's continued banishment from the game means he will continue to be banished from consideration of being honored with a plaque in Cooperstown. Notwithstanding his great career, the sin of having bet on games—including betting on his team when he was manager—is too great to overcome. It is worth being reminded of why.

The Unforgivable Sin

Baseball, then indisputably America's national pastime, was dealt a devastating body blow in the closing days of the 1920 pennant races when the news broke that Chicago White Sox players had conspired with high-stakes professional gamblers to fix games in the 1919 World Series. They included three of Chicago's four starting infielders, two of the three starting outfielders—including the great Shoeless Joe Jackson—two  of the team's top three starting pitchers (and the third, Red Faber, was ailing and so unable to pitch in the Series), and a marginal bench player who, having heard about it, wanted in on the action.

Gambling, including wagering on the outcome of any kind of contest, was also an American pastime—one that was longstanding, although of course no one would say such a thing since gambling was decidedly less wholesome than baseball. Baseball as an institution was not at the time blind to at least the potential of players conspiring with gamblers to fix games, and probably should not be accused of having turned a blind eye to the problem. But baseball as an institution did not effectively grapple with players’ willful association with gamblers and allegations, often by teammates, of players being involved in not always playing “honest ball.”

The most notorious of the "dishonest" players—indeed, the player who defined corruption in the game—was Hal Chase, said to be a superb defensive first baseman and a charmer when it came to dealing with people, although one would have been advised to check one's wallet and count one's fingers after being in his presence. When he starred for the Highlanders (before they adopted "Yankees" as a nickname) from 1905 to 1912, Chase was said to "lay down" on his teammates and tried to entice a few to play along. Nothing could be proven, however, and American League President Ban Johnson took no action against him. 

When he played for the Cincinnati Reds—with whom he won a batting title in 1916—allegations of his playing to lose some games caused his manager, the esteemed paragon of morality Christy Mathewson, to suspend him in 1918 and National League President John Heydler to convene a hearing. With Matty off to serve his country in World War I and so unable to present his case, there was only hearsay testimony about his corruption, a few glowing testimonials on what a great fellow he was, and Chase got off scot free. But not for long. Heydler banned Chase from ever again playing in the National League in 1919 based on evidence he was able to obtain of Prince Hal's perfidy from a Boston gambler.

The Black Sox scandal forced major league baseball to do something about the betrayal of the public's trust in the national pastime. Fans trust that the games are not fixed. Betting on baseball by its participants—whether players or managers—compromises the integrity of the game precisely because they can effect the outcome of games. 

Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who was named Commissioner in the midst of the scandal playing out in a court of law and who demanded absolute authority in overseeing the integrity of the game, made it his mission to restore the public's trust in professional baseball; as a federal judge, he had once called the game a "national institution." He acted quickly and decisively in permanently banning the eight Chicago players for their role in conspiring to throw World Series games on behalf of big-time gambling interests. It did not matter to him that all eight were acquitted at their trial:

• Even if the trial jury chose to ignore or dismiss the grand jury confessions of Shoeless Joe and pitching aces Eddie Cicotte and Lefty Williams and the evidence against the others—which was particularly weak in the case of third baseman Buck Weaver, who like Jackson played well in the Series—the new Commissioner did not.
• It mattered little to Landis whether or not they really played to lose, which they all denied doing. In fact, that issue was irrelevant as far as the former federal judge was concerned. 
• The grand jury confessions and evidence spoke to their agreeing to conspire with high-rolling gamblers to lose World Series games, or knowing about the plot, and that was all that mattered to Landis.
• Even had they not affected the outcome of any game by their play on the field, their agreement to compromise the integrity of games for a payout, whether or not they received any money, was to defraud major league baseball's interests—and fan expectations—that games are played honestly and championships honestly earned. And that was unacceptable.

"Just keep in mind," concluded the Commissioner in his statement announcing his decision, "regardless of the verdict of juries, baseball is entirely competent to protect itself against crooks, both inside and outside the game."

Ever since, organized baseball's edict against betting on baseball has been fiercely uncompromising. It has to be, because the integrity of the game depends on it. The sin of betting on baseball is irredeemable for anyone involved in baseball. 

That said, baseball is a game that honors its past. The sinner may be forever banished from further participation in the great game of baseball, but his name is not erased from the record books, nor his achievements airbrushed out of the game's history. 

Pete Rose, with his record ten 200-hit seasons and record 4,256 hits, and Shoeless Joe Jackson, with his .356 lifetime average (third highest in history), are indisputably two of the greatest players to take the field and will always be remembered as such despite their fall from grace. And while neither is likely to ever be enshrined in the Hall of Fame, in that great museum in Cooperstown, NY, can nonetheless be learned what they did on the diamond when they were among the best of their time.

Reprise: Derek Jeter in Shortstop Perspective

The 2014 All-Star Game was a great tribute to Derek Jeter, who went 2-for-2 in what might be his last at bats on a national stage (depending on whether the Yankees can make it to the post-season). When he retires at the end of this season, Derek Jeter will do so as the most respected player in the last twenty years, not to mention the model of baseball professionalism and a proven winner. Pending the Yankees' outcome in 2014, Jeter has played in the post-season every year of his major league career but two.  Perhaps more to the point, few doubt that his legacy is as the indispensable Yankee (with due respect to Mariano Rivera) who "led" his team into the post-season year after year through commitment without excuses, an unrivaled work ethic, and unflagging consistency.  He is what Joe DiMaggio was to the Yankees from 1936 to 1951, and like DiMaggio is retiring on his terms--before the inevitable decline of age overshadows the grace and athleticism and all-around excellence on the diamond that defined the entirety of his career. This article, with minor revisions, was first posted on Baseball Historical Insight on February 17.

Derek Jeter in Shortstop Perspective

A first-ballot Hall of Famer for sure, Derek Jeter will go down in history as one of baseball's greatest players. Ironically, greatness is an attribute not necessarily dependent on also being one of the very best players in terms of measurable on-the-field performance alone. Derek Jeter was not that, even dismissing as irrelevant the fact that he never won an MVP award. In seventeen full seasons with the Yankees, not including 1995, when he appeared in 15 games as a replacement shortstop during his final year of full-time minor league preparation, last season when persistent injuries kept him sidelined for all but 17 games and this year (which is still being played out), Jeter's player value based on the WAR metric exceeded the 5 wins above replacement that denotes an All-Star level quality of performance only five times in his career, three of them in his first six seasons.

Jeter's best consecutive years were in fact from 1997 to 2001 when he was 23 to 27 years old. His 7.5 WAR in 1998 and 8.0 WAR the year after were the highest player values of his career. It was during those five years that Jeter made his reputation as a team leader, a clutch player, and a winning player by being at the center of the action as the Yankees went to four straight World Series (1998 to 2001), winning three. But Jeter was not even one of baseball's two best shortstops in terms of player value alone based on WAR during those years, because he was a direct contemporary of both Seattle's Alex Rodriguez and Boston's Nomar Garciaparra.

By the year 2000, even though he had been a full-time regular for only as long as Jeter (since 1996), there were already advocates for A-Rod staking a claim to being perhaps the best player ever once the final chapter of his career was written. Little did anyone know then that so many chapters in A-Rod's epic saga would be sordid and career-diminishing. And Nomar was the model of consistency at better than an All-Star level of performance from 1997 to 2003, averaging between 6.1 and 7.4 wins above replacement every year, not including an injury-ravaged 2001 season that limited him to 21 games. Thereafter, of course, Garciaparra's Hall of Fame trajectory nose-dived with injury after injury, making him a virtually forgotten afterthought in the once-vivid debate over who was the best shortstop in the game--A-Rod, Nomar or Derek? Both Rodriguez and Garciaparra were not only better all-around shortstops based on performance, but their presence on an otherwise average major league team for an entire season would have made more difference to that team's winning percentage than Jeter (see the 162W/L% column under "Player Value" on their player pages in Baseball-reference.com). Maybe so, but Jeter is the one with all the championship rings . . . five of them.  A-Rod has one (which he earned with Derek as a teammate).  Nomar has none.

Going back to more recent Hall of Fame shortstops, the Brewers' Robin Yount (from 1980-84), the Cardinals' Ozzie Smith (1985-89), the Orioles' Cal Ripken, Jr., and the Reds' Barry Larkin (both from 1988-92) all had better five-best consecutive years than Jeter based on the WAR metric for player value. All four also had more seasons in their career than Jeter where their player value exceeded an All-Star level of performance on the field--Smith 10 times, including eight times in nine years between 1984 and 1992; Ripken eight times in nine years between 1983 and 1991, with MVP awards at both bookends; Larkin eight times; and Yount seven times, although two of his were after he switched to the outfield. All four were much better defensive shortstops than Jeter. And three of the four were elected into the Hall of Fame their first time on the ballot; Larkin had to wait until his third year of eligibility to break the 75 % vote barrier.

None of the four, however, has more than one World Series ring, and only the Wizard Oz (with three appearances) played in more than one World Series. Jeter, meanwhile, has five World Series rings in seven trips to the Fall Classic--and is working towards six in eight in this, his final season--and the "Captain" hit .353 or better in four of those five Yankee triumphs. His batting average in 38 World Series games is .323, brought that low only because of the .148 he hit in the 2001 Series, which the Yankees lost on a pop fly single just beyond Jeter's reach over a drawn-in infield.

While it's hard to go against Honus Wagner as the greatest shortstop of all time, there will be significant temptation to proclaim Derek Jeter as the best shortstop in American League history. Putting aside what to make of A-Rod's self-sabotaged career--including his admitting in 2009 to using steroids back when he played shortstop for the Texas Rangers, not to mention his current year-long suspension for the assist he was given by Biogenesis--Cal Ripken, Jr., at least based on player performance, is the best-ever to play the position in the American League. Ripken was sent to Cooperstown with 98.5 % of the vote in his first year of eligibility in 2007.  None of the players elected by the Baseball Writers Association of America since then have matched that total, including not Greg Maddux this year. Like Ripken--an ambassador for the game, universally liked even by those who hate his team (of whom there are legions when it comes to the Yankees)--Derek Jeter stands an excellent chance of not only reaching but surpassing the Ripken plateau in percentage of votes.

The final two players I would like to bring into this discussion are Pete Rose and Craig Biggio. Derek Jeter for me is today's Pete Rose, who I idolized when I first became baseball-conscious because, while he was not the best player in the game, he played with abandon, he never short-changed effort, he probably played above his ability and he was a leader, a winner--playing in six World Series--and a role model for the love of the game. Love or hate the Big Red Machine, you had to admire and respect Pete Rose. If not for his gambling addiction finding its way into his baseball profession, Rose would have been a certain first-ballot Hall of Famer. Even had Jeter not busted his ankle, it would have been a long shot for him to break Rose's all-time hit record, but it's worth noting that over the course of his career, Jeter has averaged 206 hits per 162 games compared to 194 for Rose, which helps explain Jeter's .311 lifetime average (as of the All-Star break) to Rose's .303. Even acknowledging that Rose played in a tougher era for offense, this difference is not nothing.

Craig Biggio, with 3,060 hits to call his own, was a Jeter-type player who did not make the Hall of Fame in either of his first two years of eligibility, perhaps because he happened to play in Houston and played in only one World Series where his team was unceremoniously swept. Had Jeter been Jeter with his now-3,408 hits (and counting) but played for anyone else but the Yankees, he certainly would wind up in the Hall of Fame--but like Biggio, he might be having to wait a year, two or three to get in.

There will be no waiting for Derek Jeter . . . because he was the indisputable leader of a team that made it to the post-season in all but one season he was their shortstop (not counting 2013, when he missed virtually the entire year--and, who knows, the Yankees might have made it then had he been healthy) . . . and because of those five rings he was so instrumental in winning not just for himself, and not just for his teammates, but for the New York Yankees.

Derek Jeter in Shortstop Perspective

When Derek Jeter retires at the end of the 2014 season, he will do so as the most respected player in the last twenty years, not to mention the model of baseball professionalism and a proven winner. Pending the Yankees' outcome in 2014, Jeter has played in the post-season every year of his major league career but two.  Perhaps more to the point, few doubt that his legacy is as the indispensable Yankee (with due respect to Mariano Rivera) who "led" his team into the post-season year after year through commitment without excuses, an unrivaled work ethic, and unflagging consistency.  He is what Joe DiMaggio was to the Yankees from 1936 to 1951, and like DiMaggio is retiring on his terms--before the inevitable decline of age overshadows the grace and athleticism and all-around excellence on the diamond that defined the entirety of his career.

Derek Jeter in Shortstop Perspective

A first-ballot Hall of Famer for sure, Derek Jeter will go down in history as one of baseball's greatest players.  Ironically, greatness is an attribute not necessarily dependent on also being one of the very best players in terms of measurable on-the-field performance alone.  Derek Jeter was not that, even dismissing as irrelevant the fact that he never won an MVP award.  In seventeen full seasons with the Yankees, not including 1995, when he appeared in 15 games as a replacement shortstop during his final year of full-time minor league preparation, and last season when persistent injuries kept him sidelined for all but 17 games, Jeter's player value based on the WAR metric exceeded the 5 wins above replacement that denotes an All-Star level quality of performance only five times in his career, three of them in his first six seasons.

Jeter's best consecutive years were in fact from 1997 to 2001 when he was 23 to 27 years old.  His 7.5 WAR in 1998 and 8.0 WAR the year after were the highest player values of his career.  It was during those five years that Jeter made his reputation as a team leader, a clutch player, and a winning player by being at the center of the action as the Yankees went to four straight World Series (1998 to 2001), winning three. But Jeter was not even one of baseball's two best shortstops in terms of player value based on WAR during those years, because he was a direct contemporary of both Seattle's Alex Rodriguez and Boston's Nomar Garciaparra.

By the year 2000, even though he had been a full-time regular for only as long as Jeter (since 1996), there were already advocates for A-Rod staking a claim to being perhaps the best player ever once the final chapter of his career was written.  Little did anyone know then that so many chapters in A-Rod's epic saga would be sordid and career-diminishing.  And Nomar was the model of consistency at better than an All-Star level of performance from 1997 to 2003, averaging between 6.1 and 7.4 wins above replacement every year, not including an injury-ravaged 2001 season that limited him to 21 games.  Thereafter, of course, Garciaparra's Hall of Fame trajectory nose-dived with injury after injury, making him a virtually forgotten afterthought in the once-vivid debate over who was the best shortstop in the game--A-Rod, Nomar, or Derek?  Both Rodriguez and Garciaparra were not only better all-around shortstops based on performance, but their presence on an otherwise average major league team for an entire season would have made more difference to that team's winning percentage than Jeter (see the 162W/L% column under "Player Value" on their player pages in Baseball-reference.com).  Maybe so, but Jeter is the one with all the championship rings . . . five of them.  A-Rod has one.  Nomar has none.

Going back to more recent Hall of Fame shortstops, the Brewers' Robin Yount (from 1980-84), the Cardinals' Ozzie Smith (1985-89), the Orioles' Cal Ripken, Jr., and the Reds' Barry Larkin (both from 1988-92) all had better five-best consecutive years than Jeter based on the WAR metric for player value. All four also had more seasons in their career than Jeter where their player value exceeded an All-Star level of performance on the field--Smith 10 times, including eight times in nine years between 1984 and 1992; Ripken eight times in nine years between 1983 and 1991, with MVP awards at both bookends; Larkin eight times; and Yount seven times, although two of his were after he switched to the outfield.  All four were much better defensive shortstops than Jeter.  And three of the four were elected into the Hall of Fame their first time on the ballot; Larkin had to wait until his third year of eligibility to break the 75 % vote barrier.

None of the four, however, has more than one World Series ring, and only Ozzie (with three appearances) played in more than one World Series.  Jeter, meanwhile, has five World Series rings in seven trips to the Fall Classic--and is working towards six in eight in this, his final season--and the "Captain" hit .353 or better in four of those five Yankee triumphs.  His batting average in 38 World Series games is .323, brought that low only because of the .148 he hit in the 2001 Series, which the Yankees lost on a pop fly single just beyond Jeter's reach over a drawn-in infield.

While it's hard to go against Honus Wagner as the greatest shortstop of all time, there will be significant temptation to proclaim Derek Jeter as the best shortstop in American League history.  Putting aside what to make of A-Rod's self-sabotaged career--including his admitting in 2009 to using steroids back when he played shortstop for the Texas Rangers--Cal Ripken, Jr., at least based on player performance, is the best-ever to play the position in the American League.  Ripken was sent to Cooperstown with 98.5 % of the vote in his first year of eligibility in 2007.  None of the players elected by the Baseball Writers Association of America since then have matched that total, including not Greg Maddux this year.  Like Ripken--an ambassador for the game, universally liked even by those who hate his team (of whom there are legions when it comes to the Yankees)--Derek Jeter stands an excellent chance of reaching the Ripken plateau in percentage of votes.

The final two players I would like to bring into this discussion are Pete Rose and Craig Biggio.  Derek Jeter for me is today's Pete Rose, who I idolized when I first became baseball-conscious because, while he was not the best player in the game, he played with abandon, he never short-changed effort, he probably played above his ability, and he was a leader, a winner--playing in six World Series--and a role model for the love of the game.  Love or hate the Big Red Machine, you had to admire and respect Pete Rose.  If not for his gambling addiction finding its way into his baseball profession, Rose would have been a certain first-ballot Hall of Famer.  Even had Jeter not busted his ankle, it would have been a long shot for him to break Rose's all-time hit record, but it's worth noting that over the course of his career, Jeter has averaged 206 hits per 162 games compared to 194 for Rose, which helps explain Jeter's .312 lifetime average to Rose's .303. Even acknowledging that Rose played in a tougher era for offense, this difference is not nothing.

Craig Biggio, with 3,060 hits to call his own, was a Jeter-type player who did not make the Hall of Fame in either of his first two years of eligibility, perhaps because he happened to play in Houston and played in only one World Series where his team was unceremoniously swept.  Had Jeter been Jeter with his 3,316 hits (and counting) but played for anyone else but the Yankees, he certainly would wind up in the Hall of Fame--but like Biggio, he might be having to wait a year, two, or three to get in.

There will be no waiting for Derek Jeter . . . because he was the indisputable leader of a team that made it to the post-season in all but one season he was their shortstop (not counting 2013, when he missed virtually the entire year--and, who knows, the Yankees might have made it had he been healthy) . . . and because of those five rings he was so instrumental in winning not just for himself, and not just for his teammates, but for the New York Yankees.

Distinction With a Difference in the Bonds, Clemens and Rose Hall of Fame Conundrum

With the Hall of Fame class of 2014 complete, their induction this summer will bring the number enshrined in Cooperstown to 306.  That number would be at least 310 had Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens not tarnished their great diamond accomplishments by their close association with steroids, and Pete Rose not violated the foremost Thou Shalt Not in major league baseball by betting on baseball games.  Rose alone among them, however, was barred from even being considered for Hall of Fame honors by Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) members eligible to cast ballots. This Insight suggests there is a meaningful distinction between the use of performance enhancing drugs--a betrayal of sportsmanship that undermines the integrity of both achievement and statistical records--and betting on baseball as Rose did (and as a manager, no less), which is a betrayal of our trust in the integrity of the game itself.

Distinction With a Difference in the Bonds, Clemens and Rose Hall of Fame Conundrum

Kostya Kennedy, whose book, Pete Rose: An American Dilemma, is due out in March, published an op ed article in the January 6 edition of The New York Times, "Give Rose a Shot at the Hall of Fame," http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/opinion/give-rose-a-shot-at-the-hall.html?ref=todayspaper, advocating that Rose "deserves his day of judgment" in BBWAA Hall of Fame voting.  Just as the balloting has concluded (so far, at least) that the performance enhancing drug (PED) allegations surrounding superstar players Clemens, Bonds and McGwire override their exceptional performances on the field of play, Kennedy argues it should be BBWAA electors--not major league baseball's permanently banished list--that determine whether Rose's betting on baseball games should preclude his residency in Cooperstown.  While sympathetic to this viewpoint, and even though Rose's prospects seem likely to be no greater than those who sold their soul to the PED devil for baseball immortality, I would argue there is a significant distinction that should not be lost between the sins of steroid users against the game and those of Pete Rose.

Much has been said about how the integrity of the game has been compromised by performance enhancing drugs like steroids and human growth hormone, particularly the credibility of sanctified baseball records broken by players presumed to have used such drugs.  The wonderful thing about baseball history, however, is that for those who care about it (and there are legions of us), there is an understanding of context in time and place which precludes the need to expunge their accomplishments as if they never happened or even the need to attach asterisks (although I would not be averse to this option).  The 1990s and the first half-decade of the twenty-first century will forever be known as the “steroids era” in baseball history, and the outsized accomplishments of that era (included sustained great performances by players well past their primes) will be evaluated in that historical context.

Because we can never know definitively who was taking what when, there are undoubtedly some players on whom suspicion will undeservedly be cast.  But the suspicions cast on McGwire, Bonds, Clemens and Alex Rodriguez, for that matter, seem deserved.  Their feats after they allegedly began using PEDs are legitimately open to question, to the point where their reputations are in tatters. But the irony is that Bonds and Clemens did so in search of greater immortality than they had already legitimately earned, forgetting there is no such thing as "greater" immortality. Immortality is immortality, and they were both there--the Hall of Fame waiting for them at the end of their careers.  For McGwire (if his Juiced teammate Jose Canseco's account is to be believed) and A-Rod, on the other hand, their entire careers are under a cloud.

Unfortunately, in the intensely competitive world of professional sports (baseball certainly included), sportsmanship--loosely identified with the trite saying, "it doesn't matter whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game that counts"--is often cast aside by players, managers, and teams writ large seeking an edge, any advantage they can get away with. Whether we’re talking about tricks played by the 1890s Baltimore Orioles of John McGraw, Hughie Jennings, and Wilbert Robinson (like hiding baseballs in the outfield grass or holding up base runners by grabbing their belt buckles), scuffing baseballs and throwing illegal pitches, using corked bats, stealing another team’s signals (especially from outside the confines of the playing field), or any number of other nefarious schemes, the ethic of sportsmanship has always been compromised on the diamond.

Using steroids and taking human growth hormone (or whatever the next designed performance-enhancer will be) does indeed do more than those other things to undermine the credibility and integrity of accomplishments, but does not necessarily undermine the integrity of the game itself.  It is players seeking an unfair and illegal advantage, to be sure, but the games played on the field still unfold according to rules, the strategies employed, and players’ execution.  A betrayal of sportsmanship does not compromise the basic integrity of the games as played.

A betrayal of trust--which is what betting on baseball certainly is--on the other hand, does compromise the integrity of the game, because the manager or players involved can deliberately effect the outcome based on the decisions and actions they take or fail to make.  We trust that the games are not fixed.  That is why Pete Rose’s sin of betting on baseball is irredeemable and why his lifetime ban is absolutely correct, even though there is no reason to believe he ever bet on baseball during his indisputably Hall of Fame-caliber playing career.  It does not matter that he never bet against his own team.  The edict against betting on baseball has been fiercely uncompromising since the 1919 Black Sox scandal.  It has to be, because the integrity of the game depends on it.

While in no way intending to diminish the gravity of what they did, all of the others who were banished for life from organized baseball prior to Rose--including Shoeless Joe Jackson, who has had many advocate on his behalf for Hall of Fame consideration--were players who conspired to fix games on behalf of gamblers.  Not managers.  Pete Rose was the first manager to be banned.  Whether player or manager, the damage to the integrity of the game is irreparable—betting on baseball is a betrayal of our trust in the game—but what Rose did was particularly insidious precisely because he was the manager.

Players' performances certainly determine the outcome of games, but a manager controls the game.  He is the "decider," to borrow a phrase once used by an even more important decision-maker than a baseball manager. Every decision a manager makes, and there are countless decisions in every game, can affect the outcome.  Never mind that Rose said that he never bet against his own team, implicitly reassuring us that he was managing every game to win.  Why should we not believe him?  Rose was such a competitor that it is impossible to fathom that he would ever manage to lose.  But how could we ever be sure that his betting on baseball did not affect his judgment as a manager, once a man—and manager—to whom is entrusted the integrity of the game betrays that trust?  Obviously Rose’s gambling was an addiction (he bet on all sports), and obviously his gambling debts were a grave concern to him; he needed them to go away, to reconcile with his bookies.  That’s a lot at stake, and a lot to have on his mind.  Once Pete Rose decided to go down the path of betting on baseball, and especially betting on his own team, his integrity as a manager was hopelessly compromised and one can never be sure what impact that had on the games he managed.