The Baseball Writers' Association of America on Tuesday voted to elect Carlos Beltrán, infamous for the 2017 Houston Astros' sign-stealing scandal, into the Hall of Fame. Long at the gates, the barbarians have now breached the walls of Cooperstown, and it is the baseball writers who have let them in.
Baseball still holds a unique place in our collective spiritual self-conception. As the "national pastime," it is a byword for a link to our shared past and cultural memory, sometimes tangibly real -- fathers and sons having a catch -- and sometimes invented and invoked as metaphor.
Baseball inculcates certain virtues in ways no other sport does. Humility isn't an aspiration; it's a requirement for a ballplayer. Playing the right way matters more than in any other game. Cheaters at baseball live in infamy in the national psyche. "Shoeless" Joe Jackson and the Black Sox scandal symbolize corruption, to which all professional games are prey, as well as spiritual betrayal of something meant to be innocent and pure -- say it ain't so, Joe.
The exclusion from baseball Valhalla of those who played the game the wrong way, regardless of their other achievements, has been a bulwark against the game's ultimate corruption by those for whom winning and only winning matters. Pete Rose may forever be the "Hit King," but he also flouted the rules and disdained the game by betting on his own contests. Barry Bonds may hold the home run record, but his steroid-scarred image will never hang next to the icons of Babe Ruth or Hank Aaron.
For fans, this moral justice is the ultimate distinction between the merely statistically superior and the genuinely worthy. It's something to cling to in times of scandal. No more.
Mr. Beltrán conspired with his managers and teammates to use hidden cameras to steal signs from opposing pitchers and catchers, transmitting them to batters at the plate by -- among other alleged means -- banging on trash cans. A league investigation deemed Mr. Beltrán to have been a participant and a likely ringleader. He was the only 2017 Astros player to named in the commissioner's report.
As cheating goes, it was a special kind of crime. Unlike the steroid-era sluggers, who juiced to increase their own performance, Mr. Beltrán and his ilk conspired through elaborate means to sabotage opposing teams. It was a violation of rules and regulations, and also trust, community and fraternity. Mr. Beltrán padded his own stats and paychecks at the expense of other players' performances.
Mr. Beltrán's rewards were as clear as his actions were unforgivable and as nonexistent as his contrition: millions of dollars, a World Series ring. But who is worse: the criminal, or the ones who applaud him and ultimately vindicate his crimes? Surely the latter, the 84.2% of the Baseball Writers' Association of America who have now erased whatever claim they had to guardianship of the game's soul.
Those who voted to canonize Mr. Beltrán and his heresies against the game should hang their heads in shame. They likely won't, but what they should never be allowed to do again is lecture fans on the beauty, timelessness and special significance of baseball. They have betrayed the game as surely and finally as Mr. Beltrán did. The day he walks into Cooperstown, what remains of baseball's soul will depart, walking off the field.
Mr. Condon is editor of the Pillar.