Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 14, 1994 TAG: 9404140104
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: PHILADELPHIA LENGTH: Medium
Baseball's Hall of Fame has a new headache - Steve Carlton, whose reported remarks on the "Elders of Zion" have angered Jewish groups who want the pitcher barred from the Hall.
Carlton, who didn't speak to the media for most of his major-league career, denies making the comments.
"We have a long way to go until induction, and hopefully he will apologize or clarify his remarks," said Ed Stack, the Hall of Fame's president. "He's elected, and he's going to be inducted.
"But we have a long way to go. What happens in the meantime could smooth the things."
The pitcher set off the controversy with an interview printed in Philadelphia Magazine in which writer Pat Jordan quotes him as saying the "Elders of Zion," 12 Jewish bankers in Switzerland, rule the world.
That led the American Jewish Congress in New York to ask that Carlton, elected to the Hall in January, be barred from induction until he apologizes. Carlton is scheduled to enter the shrine in Cooperstown, N.Y., on July 31.
Carlton released a one-page statement through his former team, the Philadelphia Phillies, and to reporters in his hometown of Durango, Colo.
"The article has almost no truth in it," Carlton said. "I reject it completely. It is wrong about my baseball career, my personal beliefs, my family life and my new hometown. I specifically deny saying anything that could be interpreted as offensive to Jewish people. I stand on my long record of treating all teammates and opponents with the same respect, be they Jewish, black or white."
Carlton said one of his role models was Sandy Koufax, a Jewish pitcher. He suggested that Jordan, while breathing the thin air in Durango, "became so disoriented that he lost his grasp on truth and decency."
Jordan, a free-lance writer and former contributor to Sports Illustrated, stood by his story.
"I went there and I wrote what he said, and I don't care what he says," Jordan said from his home in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. "I didn't invent this stuff."
"I don't think Steve is a racist or an anti-Semite or anything like that. I think he's read too many books," said Jordan, who didn't tape the interviews. "Steve is one of the most fearful human beings I've ever met."
Philadelphia Magazine editor Eliot Kaplan defended Jordan's story.
"I think Steve's best pitch was always a slider, but maybe screwball would've been more appropriate," he said.
The Hall of Fame bylaws bar inductees whose conduct is "not in the best interests of baseball," said Stack, who had not read the article. In Carlton's case, he said, "There's nothing . . . that could hold up the process of induction."
Carlton, who lives on a 400-acre ranch, has been given to controversial remarks in the past.
Wrote Jordan:
"One minute he'll say, `The Russian and U.S. governments fill the air with low-frequency sound waves that are meant to control us,' and the next he'll say, `The Elders of Zion rule the world,' and then, `The British MI-5 and MI-6 intelligence agencies have ruled the world since 1812 and 12 Jewish bankers meeting in Switzerland rule the world,' and the world is controlled by a committee of 300, which meets at a round table in Rome."
Carlton also told Jordan that President Clinton has a "black son" and the AIDS virus was created to "get rid of gays and blacks."
The AJC said it was concerned only with the section on the "12 Jewish bankers."
"It's a variant on a classic anti-Semitic reference to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which tells the story of a so-called group of Jews who control the banks, the government and the media."
by CNB