Edward Stack, president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, who devised eligibility rules that would continue to prevent the election of prolific hitter Pete Rose, who was banned from the major leagues for gambling, died Sunday in Port Washington, N.Y. , located on Long Island. he was 88 years old.
Daughter Amy Stack said the death at the nursing home was due to complications from an injury that led to the amputation of her left leg in January.
In 1991, Mr. Stack, who held various positions at the Hall from 1961 to 2000 and presided over the annual inauguration ceremony in Cooperstown, New York, faced a challenge. That was what to do with Rose, a star player for 30 years and a career of 4,256 years.He’s clearly the most hits in baseball history worthy of worship.
Two years ago, Baseball Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti banned Rose from playing the Cincinnati Reds after an investigation found he was betting on baseball games, including those of his own team, as player-manager. He was permanently banned from the sport. 1980s.
Despite the ban, Rose would have been Hall’s first nominee in the Baseball Writers Association of America ballot announced in early 1992.
Earlier that year, Mr. Stack said: Faye VincentGiamatti, who stood in for Giamatti after his death in 1989 before becoming commissioner, said the hall’s board decided to remove anyone on baseball’s permanent disqualified list from the hall’s nominees. argued that it should be removed.
“Stuck said, ‘There has to be a moral dimension to being elected Hall, so we should change the rules,'” Vincent said by phone. “Stuck was right and I didn’t need to encourage him.”
The rule change was unanimously approved by Hall’s Board of Directors. The newspaper did not specifically name Rose or Shoeless Joe Jackson, the most prominent player on the ineligible list. Jackson was suspended for life along with seven other members for the 1919 Chicago White Sox match-fixing conspiracy. world series of the year.
“We’re sorting out the rules of the election,” Stack said at a press conference after the vote. “This probably should have been done years ago. This is how it should be.”
In 2022, Stack reiterated his opposition to Rose’s entry into the hall.
“Never,” he told Newsday. “He broke the rules of baseball.”
Edward William Stack was born on February 1, 1935 in Rockville Center, New York and was raised in nearby Sea Cliffs. His father, named Edward, was a carpenter and homebuilder, and his mother, Helen (Leitner) Stack, was a homemaker.
As we know, Ed contracted polio at the age of 14. He spent a year recuperating in a children’s hospital and spent the rest of his life walking on emaciated legs.
After graduating from Pace University (now Pace University) with a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1956, majoring in accounting, he founded Clark Estate, the company responsible for the financial management of the influential Clark affiliates. started working as an accountant in Manhattan. The Cooperstown family, including the Baseball Hall of Fame.
“I graduated on Friday night.” he told Pace publications.“And I went to work on Monday morning.”
While working part-time with a full-time office in Manhattan, Mr. Stack never stopped working for the Clark family’s interests in Cooperstown.
He was inducted as secretary to the Hall of Fame in 1961, president in 1977, and chairman in 1979.
He also served on several other boards, including the board of the Fenimore Art Gallery, which is housed in a mansion donated by the Clark family. He oversaw the renovation of the site and the Bassett Health Care Network (funded by the Clark family at its inception) and the construction of the Clark Sports Center, a fitness and recreational facility where Hall’s inauguration will take place. .
“I can honestly say that Ed deeply understood my family’s vision for Cooperstown and Clark-related organizations,” says Stuck, who became Hall’s chairman after he stepped down in 2000 and then chairman of the Clark Foundation. Principal Jane Forbes-Clark said: said in an interview. “Ed honored that vision and instinctively knew how to move it forward.”
Stack also oversaw the construction of the Hall, which included the addition of a three-story west wing in 1980, with a basement to accommodate new exhibition spaces and a vast collection of artifacts, and a major renovation in 1989. In addition, the expansion work was carried out at a cost of $7.5 million. To mark the hall’s 50th anniversary, he replaced the former gymnasium with office space, space for exhibitions, and a theater.
Besides his daughter Amy, Stack is survived by his wife, Christina (Hunt) Stack, whom he met while a summer waitress at the Clark family-owned Ottesaga Resort Hotel in Cooperstown. She has two other daughters, Suzanne and Kimberly Ann Stack. three grandchildren. and her sister Barbara Arsheim.
In a dream Mr. Stack thought Leon Day, On the day he was inducted into the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Affairs Commission in 1995, the black National League pitcher called his wife Geraldine from the Baltimore hospital room where he was being treated for heart disease.
“I had a dream that Ed Stack came to my hospital room with this box and told me to open it,” she said, referring to Ed Stack’s Hall of Fame speech a few months later. I remembered. “And when I did, baby, inside was the most beautiful ring I’ve ever seen.” — symbolizing his election — “And I got out of here, went up in the Hall of Fame and got the ring. must be obtained.”
He died six days later. He never got his ring.
