Living with Rejection...by the Baseball Hall of Fame
Posted: Wednesday, September 06, 2006
by Mike Fak
http://mikefak.com
My son has told me that although I am a real old timer, I am on occasion fairly interesting. I agree with Tim. Unfortunately sometimes the interesting things that I do or have happen to me aren't exactly beneficial.
The past weekend of the Lincoln Art and Balloon Fest shows that to be the case…in spades. The day before my first foray into being a flea marketer and purveyor of my written word, which I will get to shortly, I found out I had been rejected for induction by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Now a person might ask how it came to be that Cooperstown ever heard of Mike Fak let alone correctly and succinctly reject me for admittance.
I worded a nice little tidbit in the front of the book about employees getting a yuk out of the story about my throwing away Ernie Banks' uniform as a youngster as well as my destruction of a shoebox full of tobacco trading cards worth a fortune now but of no interest to me back then.
I pictured the book being in the employee lounge or perhaps receiving the highest honor an author can receive by having my book placed at a point of necessity in one of their office restrooms. I thought people who spend their days saving and restoring memorabilia and collectibles would get a good laugh out of a screwball who threw away such stuff not realizing its future value. To be honest, I also hoped a few of them might enjoy the book enough to buy one or spread the word on the East Coast about my writing.
When Linda came back from her vacation she told me she had given the book to an employee making it very clear it was for the staff as a gift and nothing more than that was expected from anyone at Cooperstown. I put the event behind me thinking I might someday receive an E-mail from someone at the Hall saying they thought I was an idiot or something to that effect.
Well, the other day I got the book back in the mail along with an official communication stating with regrets that my work was not deemed relevant enough to be enshrined in the archives of the museum's library. Somehow, the book made it to the desk of the Library's Accessions Committee and they found it lacking enough baseball nostalgia to be placed next to Lou Gehrig's autobiography or the family albums of Tinker or Evers or Chance.
The letter, signed by Anne L. McFarland, Director of Archives and Special Collections in very kind words asked me what the hell I was thinking wanting my book, dealing with baseball on only a few pages, enshrined next to the words and pictures of the likes of Wee Willie Keeler and Mordecai "Three Fingers" Brown.
Without even knowing I was up for enshrinement I was notified that I had been rejected. I thought about sending back a letter asking if they were aware I had a 750 batting average on the eighth grade Saint Bartholomew baseball team. I decided not to be a sore loser about the snub although I wish I knew I was being looked at. I could have had some of my major league friends send letters of support for my inclusion. I wonder where Dick Drott and Mo Drabowski and Moose Moran are right now. Maybe those old Cubs wouldn't have helped me since they didn't make it into the Hall either. I did boo them from time to time, but surely they wouldn't have held grudges after so many years.
Anyway, I decided to just accept my rejection with grace and aplomb, resigning myself to the fact my book, having little to do with baseball, will not be under glass in the front atrium of the Baseball Hall of Fame Library.
The flea market of course was tough on all of us trying to sell or promote something. The rains let up often enough to get balloons up, but kept down the hoped for crowds at Scully Park. Saturday actually wasn't too bad a day for me but Sunday was a total wash, pun intended.
To make matters worse, all the free time fed my new found paranoia. Standing about my booth looking for that rare combination of reader and buyer, I studied the few people who did brave the elements stumbling about in the rain. From time to time I saw one of them point me out to a friend of theirs and say something. Until the day before, I would have assumed they were saying something about: ‘There's the guy who writes that stuff in the paper". After the day before, I now pictured them saying: "That's the guy who got shot down by the Hall of Fame."
Taking time to ponder if God is trying to tell me something about my wanting to be a writer who actually sells his stuff, I am reflecting on one positive note. I currently have a copy of a book I wrote that was in the Library at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Albeit, only for a moment.
Anyone know how E-Bay works?
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)I think this is good, except for the rerefence to the Chicago Cubs in the summer. I thought they ony played that football game in the really cold weather. JimI believe you have the Cubs confused with the Chicago Bears Jim. Anyway thanks for reading. Mike
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