TheAgitator.com
Let Pete and Joe Play Ball.
Friday, December 13th, 2002I’m all for reinstating Pete Rose. Shoeless Joe too.
But there certainly needs to be some way of letting the two into Cooperstown without giving the appearance that baseball’s given them a pass.
My idea? Induct them into the Hall of Fame together, in the same year, by themselves. Hold a separate ceremony if other players happen to get elected that year.
Both will then be enshrined, but will be forever the same class and company as the other. The message I think would be clear: two great ball players. Two maybe-not-so-great men. Baseball recognizes their acheivement. But baseball stays moot on their honor.
I think there’s a typo in there Radster; you wrote “induct” instead of “indict”
No, he had it right the first time… Last time I checked, there were no laws on the books for conspiring to throw the World Series or betting on baseball. There are, however, laws against assault, battery, murder, rape, arson, burglary, drug use, driving while impaired, etc., all of which are represented by members of the esteemed Baseball Hall of Fame. Pete has served his time and paid the penalties for tax evasion, which had nothing to do with baseball; Shoeless Joe is dead, which by definition should end his ‘lifetime’ ban from pro baseball. MLB needs to get rid of these divisive distractions and focus on putting the game back on track. Otherwise, fans are going to get even more frustrated, and attendance figures for the National Pastime are going to start looking worse than the professional lacrosse league…
I’m all for Pete getting in, but if it comes from Bud Selig, especially this off season, it won’t really feel genuine to me.
Selig has all these problems (the All-Star Game, the strike-that-almost-was, the contraction-that-almost-was, the questions about steroids and the ridiculous testing proposals, not allowing a former teammate of Darryl Kile to put “DK” on his hat as he sat on the bench during the World Series because of uniform rules, etc.), and he has taken criticism after criticism about how he runs the league. So to make himself look better, and to deflect some attention from all the stuff that’s wrong, he’s suddenly relenting from the position that Bart Giamatti, Fay Vincent, and he have held so strongly.
90-something percent of fans want Pete in, and I am with them. And I guess it’s better that he gets in this way than not getting in at all. But it just feels a little slimy.
Like Pete says, baseball only calls on him when they need him.
I’m pretty sure there *are* laws against throwing the World Series.
There are also laws against gambling on sports (though I don’t approve of them) and against gambling on sports by sports participants (I’m not crazy about them, but I can live with them).
Pete Rose, according to all I’ve read, is accussed of betting on his own team.
Shoeless Joe, again according to all I’ve read, was accused of (essentially) betting against his team.
Rose belongs in the Hall of Fame. Shoeless Joe — if guilty as charged — does not.
Shoeless Joe did not *bet* against his own team. He took money from those trying to throw the World Series. They were successful, but there is no evidence that Joe helped them throw it. He had an outstanding series, and I have read various places that he tried to give the money back (the ones throwing the Series would not let him, however, out of fear that he might turn them in unless they had something to hold over him).
Was it still wrong? yes. Does he deserve to be in the Hall? I think so.
Selig is an ass.
Rose is a moron.
The HOF is filled with men of less than desirable behavior, what’s one more? The HOF recognizes ON-field accomplishments, if 4000+ hits doesn’t deserve to be in the Hall, then what does?
This is only tangentially related, but we had a buddy in college that was from near Cincinnatti and was a huge Pete Rose and Reds fan.
Without exception, when Pete Rose would appear on TV or would come up in converstaion, each of us would say “Pete Rose doesn’t belong in the Hall of Fame. He’s a gambler, and there’s no place for gamblers in the Hall. Think of the children. People bring their children to the Hall of Fame. Would you want them to look up to someone who has gambled?”
None of us really thought that, and of course it is ridiculous, but it drove our friend crazy and he’d get all worked up. I suspect if Pete’s ban is lifted, each of us will call him and lament. “Think of the children,” we’ll say.
pete rose does NOT belong in the HOF. unlike spouse batterers, drunks and druggies, gambling on baseball as a baseball manager or player affects the integrity of the game.
so what if he only bet on his team. did he have the same incentive to win on the nights he didn’t bet ? would he save a reliever until the next night when he thought he had a better chance to win and could place a bet ?
pete rose should be forgiven for his sins. part of forgiveness includes asking for it, and contrition. for the past 13 years, rose has been intolerably arrogant and denied all charges. after reading the dowd report, does ANYONE doubt that rose bet on baseball ??? i didn’t think so.
sorry pete, sell autographed balls, appear outside of ballparks, and portray yourself as a victim. don’t expect to get in the hall. you don’t deserve it.
The only reason you would not let these guys into the hall of fame is to hold them back from being bad role models. Like Joe said, there is plenty of other bad role models to look up to nowadays. Kids don’t even know who Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe is. Let them in, they’ve served their time.
My seven year old daughter saw a picture of Michael Jackson in the hard rock cafe and said “he used to be black”? Do you really think that her generation knows who Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe is and what they did?
The rules for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame are clear. Pete Rose knew them and violated them.
To the guy who said “drunks and druggies” are better for the integrity of the game, you must not have watched Dennis Eckersley try pitching for the Cubs when he was bombed. Or tried to imagine how much better Mickey Mantle would have been if he wasn’t so damned hung over so often. Or imagined the careers Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry would have had.
That said, Jon Dowd now says Pete might have bet against the Reds. That would be unforgivable if true. But I don’t know if I trust Dowd. It seems to me he has an ax to grind. And he didn’t say he had evidence of that, just that he would have had evidence if he had more time to find out.
Dowd then said that if Rose bet on the Reds on some days and didn’t on other days, it sent a message to gamblers — in essence Dowd believes Rose might have been getting a little bit by tipping some guys off that certain games didn’t look good for Cincy. But Dowd added that Rose would never bet on days Mario Soto pitched. Still, we have no evidence.
At any rate, I hope they let him into the Hall of Fame. But he shouldn’t work in baseball. He’s a lousy manager, too.
Could he have been a lousy manager because he was betting on Reds games? Kind of proves Sean’s point. Even if he was betting on the Reds, if he did not place a bet that day, might he have held some players back in games that the Reds might have otherwise won? If so, no matter what other kind of people are in the Hall, Rose should not be there.
Unfortunately, we don’t know for sure, because baseball cut a deal with Rose and did not hold a full trial. Now they can say he did, he can say he didn’t and the public does not know who to believe. They should settle the thing once and for all and close up this loophole of no one knowing for sure whether or not he did it.
The NY Post (a fine newspaper, with a 200 year old tradition of stirring up s***) says that if Rose gets reinstated, not only would he get a chance to be inducted, but he might also be eligible for a management position in MLB. I like Rose, and I think that he should be in the Hall of Fame, but even at that I doubt it would be a good idea PR-wise for an owner to hand the reigns of their team over to him, what with his past gambling problem. HOWEVER, I think that if MLB truly wants to get rid of the Expo’s, (judging by the way they’ve treated the Expo’s since MLB took over ownership from that carpetbagger owner who moved to Florida), why not give Pete THAT job until MLB finally succeeds in dismantling the team? Then at least they can say that they stood up to their side of the supposed deal…
I know nothing about baseball, but ive been reading the comments and many seem to think gambling is a bad thing. Now, what is so bad about it? Two people want to risk their own money on a bet, and whoever loses it is screwed because he made a stupid mistake and goes on with his life, why should there a be a law against this? I think two adults can make their own dicision on what they do with their money, even if that is to blow it.
And what is all this about “think of the children”? Who cares if the children see that someone has been gambling, its not like if they see it they are gonna go right out and blow their lunch money. Thats just like saying that we arent allowed to do something because someone elses children might get the wrong idea, that rediculous. Kids are smarter than many give them credit for. Just like that grown adults are arrested for drug use because “they are a bad influence on children”. I agree that children dont need to be doing drugs, but that should keep grown adults from doing it?
People that say not to do something “because of the children” make me sick.
What about crapping in a sandbox?
David C.- Your argument is rediculous. No one is saying that gambling is good or bad, but the MLB. We’re not saying, “no one gamble, we think it’s immoral”. But it’s a rule and against the law. He broke the rule, the law.
The question from there, after all this time, is “should he be still paying the consequences”? Not did he do wrong? It’s already established. The MLB said he did.
Secondly, adding to the whole subject. Kids aren’t stupid, but they are impressionable. If they see a role model do something, they will do it too. It’s not that the kids are gonna go out and “blow their lunch money” if they see Pete Rose do it. But, if you make it seem okay to break rules and still get rewarded for it, eventually, kids will pick up on it.
Your argument makes me sick.
Dave C- Bill beat me to it, but just like he said, if I go to Las Vegas, I’m not gonna leave my daughter in the room so she can’t see all the horrible gambling going on. I don’t think gambling is wrong.
But if I tell her not to smoke pot, I don’t want her to see people who are. Even if she makes the decision not to, I don’t want her to have to deal with the impressions that people who smoke pot give out(showing that it’s okay).
She’s not stupid, but if someone she looked up to was doing something she thought before was wrong, she’d either think less of that person or that that thing was more okay than it was before. And I would hope not the latter.
Uh, Travis…what the hell are you talking about?
As best I can figure its that you don’t want people to stop you from gambling just because some prudes think it is moral wrong.
But you don’t want other people to smoke pot because you are a prude who thinks it is morally wrong.
How about this, since neither is hurting anyone else, both the gambler and the pot smoker be allowed to do their business in public and if you don’t think it is a good idea, you present a strong enough argument to your daughter that she doesn’t do what it is that you think she should not do.
Oh yeah, and before you brand me a pot-smoking hippie, I’ve never smoked in my life. I just love freedom…and baseball.
David C (and R.B. earlier in the discussion) tips his hand by assuming that rules and laws are interchangable entities. I respectfully disagree.
Laws (at least in this country) are passed by elected officials, supposedly for the good of the people who elected them to represent their voices in a democratic republic. In order to change a law, one must show the flaw in the original intent and convince enough elected officials to agree with you.
On the other hand, rules are a collection of regulations made up by individuals or private parties to emphasise the sort of standards they deem acceptable behavior, and to punish behavior that is deemed unacceptable. Rules can be as random and arbitrary as you want them to be, because there is usually no higher power to judge the validity of any particular set of rules. Due to the arbitrariness, one would think it would be a cinch to change a rule, but they’re usually enforced by some pig-headed proto-fascist who insists on the status quo, like your cousin who insists that you can’t use IOU’s for rent in Monopoly.
What does this have to do with Pete Rose and Joe Jackson? Plenty. Because they broke MLB’s Rule 21, MLB decides to punish them, as is their right as an organization that has a self-governing method to determine the scope and severity of such infractions. But I maintain that the act of betting on baseball, while a violation of MLB’s Rule 21, is NOT against the law; otherwise, millions of people would be clogging up the court systems across the country. (Keeping an illegal sports book might be illegal in most jurisdictions, but that’s another distinction that has no relevance here; Rose is a gambler, not a bookie.) The only violation of law that Rose has been convicted of is tax evasion, which baseball doesn’t even care about, just like they don’t care about the drug abuse, assaults, murders and other real laws that have been broken by HoF members. If betting on baseball is the worst thing that a pro ball player can do, then it’s understandable why nobody watches the game anymore. It shows an incredible amount of hypocrisy when would-be felons are allowed to play, just so long as they stay away from the legal sports books.
But hey, as Dennis Miller used to say, It’s just my opinion, I could be wrong…
Apologies to David C… I meant Bill Do in my last post.
Is it not so nice that Rose himself pretty much ended this debate by making an ass out of himself?
I knew, as everyone did, he gambled, but I always maintaned that as long as he keeps his mouth shut, and keeps on denying it, he will get in, and America would not care.
He obviously missed my advice :)
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