Pete Rose & MLB

["Roger"]

Just out of curiousity, should steroid users also immediately become eligible? That seems in line with the thought expressed in this thread.

Should players now be allowed to bet? It appears that this does not make them ineligible for awards?

 

[jp10558]

Yet, with all that, college sports continue to rise in popularity, and despite the fear a few rich schools will soon rule all of sports, the facts are, more schools than ever are becoming competitive. In football alone over the last few years, perennial doormats, Washington, TCU, Indiana, Baylor, SMU, Cincinnati and Arizona State have risen to make the playoff field. Yes, Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, LSU, Michigan and a few others are still there, too. But, they are having a much harder time staying ahead of the pack because really good players are no longer content to ride the bench for 1, 2, or 3 years waiting for a chance to play if they can go somewhere and play immediately, AND, get paid to do so! It’s free market competition and it has worked in the private sector for almost 250 years now. Why on earth does anyone think it won’t work in college sports? I mean other than the coaches crying and whining about having to pay the players a few thousand dollars while they make millions to tens of millions. I love Nick Saban as a football coach, but he is beginning to disgust me as a human being.

So I'm not a sportsball person, so take that into account - I don't care a whit about college sports or any sports. I care about academics and people offered the ability to get an education. I don't understand why NCAA is even a thing. Why not just split sports off from college entirely (as college is about education) and have a junior pro league if for some reason the pros can't draft people at 18... Similarly, it seems crazy to bounce around schools every year or more for job reasons from an educational perspective - which is supposed to the be the point of college.

It seems like so much controversy goes away if we treated college sports like we treat other college clubs - a la something some people do for fun and exercise. Treat it like the Anime club etc. And if you're serious about sports you go do the 18-22 year old league or just go right for pro leagues. No worries about course load, it's completely divorced (as it should be IMHO) from making money playing sports. No more "rocks for jocks" joke classes and no more "so and so needs an A or can't do the "big money" sports. Tying this stuff together continues to lead to IMHO completely unnecessary controversy...

 

[dioxide45]

Just out of curiousity, should steroid users also immediately become eligible? That seems in line with the thought expressed in this thread.

Should players now be allowed to bet? It appears that this does not make them ineligible for awards?

Technically, the likes of McGwire and Bonds are eligible for the hall. It's just that the writers that made so much money off writing about them during the steroid era don't want to vote for them to be inducted.

 

[Rolltydr]

So I'm not a sportsball person, so take that into account - I don't care a whit about college sports or any sports. I care about academics and people offered the ability to get an education. I don't understand why NCAA is even a thing. Why not just split sports off from college entirely (as college is about education) and have a junior pro league if for some reason the pros can't draft people at 18... Similarly, it seems crazy to bounce around schools every year or more for job reasons from an educational perspective - which is supposed to the be the point of college.

It seems like so much controversy goes away if we treated college sports like we treat other college clubs - a la something some people do for fun and exercise. Treat it like the Anime club etc. And if you're serious about sports you go do the 18-22 year old league or just go right for pro leagues. No worries about course load, it's completely divorced (as it should be IMHO) from making money playing sports. No more "rocks for jocks" joke classes and no more "so and so needs an A or can't do the "big money" sports. Tying this stuff together continues to lead to IMHO completely unnecessary controversy...

Personally, I have no problem with that model, but we’re in the minority on that. As for college athletes being allowed to change schools, that’s a right every other student has, so why should athletes be different? They are looking for the school that gives them the best opportunity to succeed now and also prepare them for the future.

As for divorcing the NCAA from universities , and all that goes with it, that goes against every argument the NCAA has made over the years in a fruitless attempt to have all control over the athletes and the money. It is what has allowed them to treat adult U.S. citizens who can vote and serve in our armed forces, as children who aren’t capable of making any other decisions. Courts are gradually forcing the colleges and universities to loosen their grip on athletes and recognize they have human rights under our laws and free enterprise system.

As for eliminating controversy? I don’t think anyone wants controversy eliminated. That’s what keeps us interested and talking about it 24/7!

 

[joestein]

Just out of curiousity, should steroid users also immediately become eligible? That seems in line with the thought expressed in this thread.

Should players now be allowed to bet? It appears that this does not make them ineligible for awards?

To me, Steroid using players were cheating in way that affected performance. Gambling had no effect on performance.

I would be in favor of a section in the HOF dedicated to the Steroid Era - and those great players who are tarnished by Steroid can be enshrined there. They can talk about the effect of steroid and then use the enshrined players as examples. Certainly, Steroids alone did not make a HOF career.

 

[Superchief]

Gambling is an addiction, similar to alcoholism. There are several alcoholics and wife abusers in the HOF. There are also past popes who were very bad human beings and murderers.
Pete was the greatest hitter of all time and was a poster child of how baseball should be played. I wish the current Reds would use him as an example. He belongs because of what he did on the field and how he helped young ballplayers.

 

[Superchief]

Here is a great article by Doc Daugherty from his substack 'The Morning Line". He is one of my favorite sportswriters and does a good job of describing this situation and Baseball's inconsistencies.

"

For our next collection of fairy tales, please turn to the works of Hans Christian Anderson, as read by the Wizard of Oz.​

“The basic principle that the game is built on (is) fair play, and that integrity is going to be compromised. And the fans are losers. I don’t know how a fan could go and watch a game knowing that what they’re seeing may not be real and fair anymore. That’s a really scary thought."

In October 2023, the Associated Press wrote this:

Major League Baseball attendance topped 70 million for the first time in six years. Total attendance of 70.75 million was up 9.6% from last year’s 64.56 million. (It was) the highest since MLB drew 72.67 million in 2017. Eight teams topped 3 million for the first time since 2013 and 17 drew 2.5 million, matching MLB’s high. Twenty-six teams had increases.

Marcus Giamatti: It’s going to be an ugly time for the game, with everything that my father fought to uphold in peril."

Yes, the Huns are scaling the transoms of all that once was good. The barbarians are at the gates. Get out while you still can. Don’t forget to bet at a ballpark kiosk on your way out.
Apologies for leading with this topic again. I’m sick of it, too, but I’m not sick of writing about it, if that makes sense. The passion on the subject remains hot around here. We are its epicenter.

And it’s not just a Pete Thing. It’s a debate on existential issues of fairness, justice and mercy. Rose did 34 years for betting on a game. He had to die to be freed. Is that fairness? Is it real justice, or just a fairy tale? A little boy’s fairy tale, suitable for a little boy’s game.

I enjoy throwing darts at the hypocrisy bubble whenever and wherever I find it. Baseball-v-Pete is an endless target. So here goes, (at least) once more, with feeling:

Baseball should keep baseball out of the Baseball Hall of Fame, for its rampant sins of self-righteous hypocrisy.

The only way their anti-Pete pleadings carry weight is if those same folks acknowledge the obvious: That the Pastime was never the perfect little fairy tale of pre-destined goodness the purists and Pollyannas suggested it to be.

I love the game enough to see its faults. I’m not familiar with the game Marcus Giamatti described Wednesday, in USA Today.

This is the same game that kept Jackie Robinson outside its friendly confines, then made his life uncomfortable at best when it finally admitted him and other great Black ballplayers to the club.

The sport that defined manliness as the philandering Mickey Mantle? Yes.

Spikes up, Ty Cobb.

There’s a spot for Gaylord Perry in the HOF. He gunked up baseballs at will. Perry wasn’t a cheater, though, not in this fairy tale. He was just a good ol’ boy, and a sly one at that.

Who was that guy at the Polo Grounds in 1951, stealing signs while sitting in the NY Giants home clubhouse, which was located in centerfield in those days? Why, it was Giants coach Herman Franks. He tipped the pitch that Bobby Thomson hit for the homer that won the pennant, the so-called Shot Heard ‘Round The World.

In 2002, the New York Post wrote, “Since the story (of the cheating) broke, denials and evasiveness from the 1951 Giants have been replaced by cheerful pride.’’

Oh, the sadness. The tragedy. The game is ruined.
MLB wantonly twisted its principles in the name of popularity and profit. Thank you, Mac and Sammy, for saving the game pharmaceutically as the game’s Powers looked away.

You can’t go self-righteous on Rose without also owning up to those facts. Ask MLB, which in 1999 shamelessly trotted out the banned Hit King as part of a promotion called the MasterCard All Century Team.

To Marcus Giamatti’s case, USA Today added an anonymous quote from “a former All-Star outfielder’’ who allowed as how Rose “ruined the integrity of the game off the field."

He did? Was that before or after the Astros were banging those trashcan lids on their way to winning the 2017 Series?

I’m happy for Pete today, I’m glad his family got to witness his Night last evening at GABP. It pleases me that Manfred did the right thing, even if he did it while holding his nose.

I wish Baseball would come clean about itself. I hope it doesn’t take 34 more years to do it. Start by putting Rose in the Hall.

It’s a Hall of Fame. Not a Hall of Popes.

 

[Rolltydr]

To me, Steroid using players were cheating in way that affected performance. Gambling had no effect on performance.

I would be in favor of a section in the HOF dedicated to the Steroid Era - and those great players who are tarnished by Steroid can be enshrined there. They can talk about the effect of steroid and then use the enshrined players as examples. Certainly, Steroids alone did not make a HOF career.

I was thinking of something along these lines, also. I agree their steroid use directly impacted their performance and their ability to recover from injury quicker than their non-steroid taking teammates and opponents. They gained a competitive advantage from their steroid use. Rose, and others' gambling, produced no competitive advantage for anyone.

 

[slip]

I understand and respect your opinion, @slip . But, Cooperstown isn’t simply a memorial to great players who were also good human beings. As I stated in a post above, there are a lot of jerks enshrined there, too. Guys you wouldn’t have wanted your daughter to marry. However, Cooperstown is more than that. This is an excerpt of an article Dan Wetzel posted on the ESPN website:

“The only remaining purpose of the ban was to keep them from the immortality of being inducted into Cooperstown, which bills itself officially as the "National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum."

The last word is the most important.

Museums exist to tell about history, and history is always messy -- including in sports. They shouldn't be solely designed for the sanitized, establishment-approved version of events, or allow outside considerations to overshadow actual accomplishments. They certainly shouldn't serve as part of some carrot-and-stick approach to desired behavior.”

I’ve been to many museums over the years that I did not enjoy. They made me very uncomfortable. Oklahoma City Federal Building, The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Holocaust Memorial, even President Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage. Terrible things happened at all those places but it is necessary that we remember them. That doesn’t mean we celebrate them. We use them to teach and to learn.

Gambling, at least to some extent, is legal now in almost every state, and is a business partner of Major League Baseball. So, what lesson is being taught from excluding the all time hits leader from Cooperstown? That gambling is wrong? Or, that MLB is the height of hypocrisy?

I guess my point was the issue started when they let the others in to. Cooperstown has a Morality Clause. They may as well just remove that. I don't agree with justifying bad behavior by pointing at other bad behavior.

 

["Roger"]

Gambling had no effect on performance.

I don't believe for a second that when Pete Rose bet on his own team that it did not affect how he managed the game. Neither did Major League baseball when they found out that he had gambled on his own team. So your argument is with them not just me.

 

[ScoopKona]

i don't believe for a second that when Pete Rose bet on his own team that it did not affect how he managed the game.

Working pitchers longer than he should or too often because he needs that W.


Bart Giamatti was right. As for Rose, betting on baseball isn't at the top of the things he did. I think it's likely that Jackson was bullied into the scandal. "The rest of the team is doing this. Either you take the money, or lose anyway and no money."

Sure, he should have blown the whistle.

I don't think either of them belongs in the Hall of Fame -- just like I don't think Michael Jackson should be in the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame.

 

[Brett]

I guess my point was the issue started when they let the others in to. Cooperstown has a Morality Clause. They may as well just remove that. I don't agree with justifying bad behavior by pointing at other bad behavior.

yes, I don't know if other sports like professional football - NFL, golf - PGA, etc. have a "morality" clause to get into their "Hall of Fame"

I'm not a baseball fan but apparently sports writers didn't like Pete irrespective of his baseball talents

 

[pedro47]

yes, I don't know if other sports like professional football - NFL, golf - PGA, etc. have a "morality" clause to get into their "Hall of Fame"

I'm not a baseball fan but apparently sports writers didn't like Pete irrespective of his baseball talents



View attachment 110564

Those words above are heavy and could change the outcome of the Baseball Hall of Fame. IMHO

 

[Superchief]

yes, I don't know if other sports like professional football - NFL, golf - PGA, etc. have a "morality" clause to get into their "Hall of Fame"

I'm not a baseball fan but apparently sports writers didn't like Pete irrespective of his baseball talents



View attachment 110564

There were just as many sportswriters who respected his contributions to baseball and think he should be in the HOF as those like the one you quoted above. Most who didn't like him were writers for teams that Rose's teams beat. Quoting one writer doesn't prove anything and he was never convicted of anything regarding this 15 yr old girl. Even Ray Fosse himself doesn't blame Rose for running in to him to score the winning run in the All Star game because he was blocking the plate. That is how Pete played.

 

[joestein]

I don't believe for a second that when Pete Rose bet on his own team that it did not affect how he managed the game. Neither did Major League baseball when they found out that he had gambled on his own team. So your argument is with them not just me.

He is going in as a player, not a manager.

 

["Roger"]

To me, Steroid using players were cheating in way that affected performance. Gambling had no effect on performance.
....

Going back to your original claim.

Of course, gambling can have an effect on performance. Go back to the point shaving scandle in basketball in the late fourties and early fifties. Yes that was backetball, but players in baseball can do exactly the same thing affecting how they perform in a game depending on their bets (backed by gambling syndicates who would welcome recruiting players who are willing to bet on games that they play in.).

Perhaps, picking on a separate part of your quote which suggested a separate section in the HOF dedicated to the Steroid Era, there could be a special annex of the HOF labled the HOS (Hall of Shame). Gamblers and steroid users could be honored in that wing.

(Yes, I know that I am fighting a losing battle on this thread, but that doesn't mean I don't believe in what concerns me.)

 

[Patri]

I don't believe for a second that when Pete Rose bet on his own team that it did not affect how he managed the game. Neither did Major League baseball when they found out that he had gambled on his own team. So your argument is with them not just me.

How would it affect his managing?

 

[pedro47]

If Pete Rose is elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame their should a "*" beside his name. IMHO

 

[Rolltydr]

Of course, gambling can have an effect on performance.

The most important word in your quote is can. Gambling can affect ones’ performance. Just as, drinking can affect one’s performance. Things can happen, if the opportunity arises. Someone who drives a car can be involved in an accident. They must be proven to have been purposely, or negligently, responsible before being found guilty of causing harm. MLB, not to mention the NFL, NBA, WNBA etc., could be fixing every game played. Should we permanently ban all sports because the possibility exists that they can be fixed? That’s ludicrous! If MLB can play with, and make tens, or hundreds, of million of dollars from gambling interests, as long as there is no evidence of corruption, the players, including Rose, should be treated exactly the same.

Also, once again, it is the Hall of Fame and Museum! From The Oxford Dictionary:
Museum, noun, a building in which objects of historical, scientific, artistic, or cultural interest are stored and exhibited.

To not include Pete Rose, the man with more hits than anyone to ever play the game, in an MLB museum, is a complete fallacy and a whitewashing of the actual history of the game.

 

[ScoopKona]

is a complete fallacy and a whitewashing of the actual history of the game.

Whitewashing is when they wouldn't allow players from the Negro Leagues in the Hall of Fame. That ended in... checks notes... 1971.


Every professional baseball player knows what the league does to those caught gambling. Pete Rose FAFO'd. The lame excuse that he never bet against his team is just that, a lame excuse. I hope the steroids players are never inducted, either. Being inducted is an honor. One which these players don't deserve. What's next? Bill Cosby in the Comedy Hall of Fame?

 

[davidvel]

The most important word in your quote is can. Gambling can affect ones’ performance. Just as, drinking can affect one’s performance. Things can happen, if the opportunity arises. Someone who drives a car can be involved in an accident. They must be proven to have been purposely, or negligently, responsible before being found guilty of causing harm. MLB, not to mention the NFL, NBA, WNBA etc., could be fixing every game played. Should we permanently ban all sports because the possibility exists that they can be fixed? That’s ludicrous! If MLB can play with, and make tens, or hundreds, of million of dollars from gambling interests, as long as there is no evidence of corruption, the players, including Rose, should be treated exactly the same.

Also, once again, it is the Hall of Fame and Museum! From The Oxford Dictionary:
Museum, noun, a building in which objects of historical, scientific, artistic, or cultural interest are stored and exhibited.

To not include Pete Rose, the man with more hits than anyone to ever play the game, in an MLB museum, is a complete fallacy and a whitewashing of the actual history of the game.

The museum is not the Hall of Fame. "Hall of Fame and Museum." They are separate things. Players are not voted into "The Museum." They are voted into the Hall of Fame.

Betting on baseball was and remains a cardinal sin rule violation with the death penalty attached. We can argue all day about whether we think it should be, but that will not change that it is. Pete Rose denied betting on baseball for a long time, but now everyone accepts his word that he only bet for his team to win? A degenerate like him is now the good guy only betting on his team's success. Not buying it.

Even if he did, that doesn't change the negative effect of betting on his team. When he was betting on baseball there was no Fanduel and ESPN bet. It was a pretty shady game, mostly involving a strong criminal element. When you are involved with such people, lots of things can be involved beyond you just betting on your team to win. Maybe the days he didn't bet on his team to win, his bookies and others knew this. Maybe he bet on his team, but still "threw" the game to repay bookies for his losses.

 

[Rolltydr]

When you are involved with such people, lots of things can be involved beyond you just betting on your team to win. Maybe the days he didn't bet on his team to win, his bookies and others knew this. Maybe he bet on his team, but still "threw" the game to repay bookies for his losses.

Can, maybe, maybe, could’ve , should’ve, would’ve, might’ve. I hope you haven’t been on any juries where an actual innocent person was accused of a crime. It’s pretty clear an accusation is good enough for you. FRY HIM/HER! .

 

[Brett]

Whitewashing is when they wouldn't allow players from the Negro Leagues in the Hall of Fame. That ended in... checks notes... 1971.


Every professional baseball player knows what the league does to those caught gambling. Pete Rose FAFO'd. The lame excuse that he never bet against his team is just that, a lame excuse. I hope the steroids players are never inducted, either. Being inducted is an honor. One which these players don't deserve. What's next? Bill Cosby in the Comedy Hall of Fame?

Or Lance Armstrong in the cycling Hall of Fame - or O.J. Simpson in the NFL Hall of Fame ??
Sure, Bill Cosby was funny but does he deserve the comedy "Hall of Fame" ..

 

[ScoopKona]

Or Lance Armstrong in the cycling Hall of Fame - or O.J. Simpson in the NFL Hall of Fame ??
Sure, Bill Cosby was funny but does he deserve the comedy "Hall of Fame" ..

OJ was inducted before the murders.

 

[dioxide45]

Can, maybe, maybe, could’ve , should’ve, would’ve, might’ve. I hope you haven’t been on any juries where an actual innocent person was accused of a crime. It’s pretty clear an accusation is good enough for you. FRY HIM/HER! .

But he did admit to betting on baseball and made his bed when he, himself, accepted the lifetime ban.