Is it time for MLB to end the Pete Rose exile?

[Algernon Moncrieff]

ESPN: Pete Rose: 25 Years in Exile

PETE ROSE LIVES PRECISELY 1.2 miles from the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, so it takes him just six minutes to drive to his de facto office in a mall music store attached to the hotel. The gap between his glorious past and his ignominious present is more challenging to navigate. Five decades ago, he built a reputation as a hardscrabble Cincinnati kid who would walk through hell in a gasoline suit to play ball. Now he's a 73-year-old baseball persona non grata who dresses in designer sweats and spends his days signing, smiling and schmoozing to make a living.

The items are pricey at "The Art of Music!" store where Rose wields a smile and a pen, but folks get an added-value dose of banter with their $399 signed jerseys and $199 bats. And if they're lucky and on the lookout here in Vegas, fans can interact with Pete at the breakfast table as well as the signing table. One morning during spring training, as Rose is immersed in a plate of egg whites, tomatoes and crispy bacon at a hotel restaurant, a waitress passes him a note from another diner. The hash brown grease on the paper doesn't obscure the sentiment:

Pete,

We're Cincy west-siders and we hope some day soon MLB wakes up [and] realizes how much you're needed in the sport! We appreciate all you've done.

Thanks!

2 Reds Fans

That's a common sentiment expressed by heartland folks who consider Rose a baseball hero and think he has done the requisite penance for his mistakes to warrant a second chance. Other observers are more conflicted and discern shades of black or very dark gray in his portrayal, along with shortcomings that can't be dismissed with yet another mea culpa. In January, former commissioner Fay Vincent opined in a Treasure Coast Newspapers editorial that Rose should be forever excluded from Cooperstown because he committed the "one capital crime" that is "well absorbed into the baseball DNA."

19 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Time expired
	No!
	7 (37%)
	Yes!
	12 (63%)
	I'm sorry - remind me again, who is Pete Rose?
	0 (0%)
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[hrmjustin]

1. Yeah I feel it is time to forgive.

[Tobin S.]

2. Worse people are in the Hall of Fame.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

6. I think that sometimes gets lost in this discussion

People talk about Rose...and gambling...and the Black Sox...and Shoeless Joe. Ty Cobb is in the HoF. Ty Cobb was a vile excuse for a human being by every account I've ever seen.

[CBGLuthier]

13. The very first inductee, Ty Cobb was one of the most horrible human beings who ever lived

let along played the game. He once beat the hell out of an armless black man. No, I did not leave the H off. ARMLESS as in a man with no fucking arms.

[JVS]

18. Your story is inaccurate. Both in terms of the ethnicity of the heckler and his not having arms.

As you can read below he had arms, but not many fingers.

http://boatagainstthecurrent.blogspot.com/2012/05/this-day-in-baseball-history-cobb.html

The headline in this post, as is common in such things, loses in nuance what it gains in concision. How would you have reacted if I had written instead, “Cobb Attacks Disabled Racist Fan”? Or, better yet: “Cobb Attacks Disabled, Racist Tammany Hack”?

Heckler Claude Lucker (also spelled Lueker or Leuker, depending on the paper) worked as a page in the office of “Big Tom” Foley, the saloon keeper and Tammany Hall boss for whom New York courthouse Foley Square is named. From the start of the game at Hilltop Park, home of the Highlanders, he had been taunting Cobb something royal. The Tigers star had repeatedly warned Lucker (with whom he had exchanged insults at prior games) to stop, to no avail.

In the fourth inning, Cobb struck back with an insult of his own. At this point, Lucker came up with what the outfielder must have felt to be a verbal spitball: the epithet “half-n***** <censored for DU by JVS>.”

Cobb’s subsequent over-the-top reaction derived from the equivalent of a perfect storm: frustration over the 10-13 record his team brought to the stadium; his previous run-ins with Lucker; distaste for any association whatsoever with African-Americans, and even assaults on three different ones; an unstable temperament to begin with (no doubt worsened by shame over his father’s shooting by his wife’s lover); and, to top it all, teammate Sam Crawford’s question about what he would do about Lucker’s latest remark.

Cobb’s response was to scale the left-field fence, kick his tormenter till he fell down, then punch him mercilessly. None of the accounts I have read are clear about whether the star knew beforehand about Lucker’s significant handicaps (loss of one hand through a printing-press accident, as well as a couple of fingers on the other), but he certainly was aware by the time he was done flailing at him. An additional cry from a shocked onlooker (“that man has no hands!”) only seemed to heighten Cobb’s anger: “I don’t care if he has no feet!” he shot back.

And while Cobb was a despicable human being, he didn't threaten the integrity of the game by cheating.

He may have killed someone though. http://www.foxsports.com/detroit/story/a-century-later-did-ty-cobb-kill-a-man-081312

[Algernon Moncrieff]

27. Think about the Ron Artest dustup

Now imagine an MLB star goes into the stands and beats Hell out of an onlooker. Would that result in a fine and a long suspension? No doubt. Would some sportswriters take the position that that was a permanent HoF disqualifier? I think that today, many would.

In any event, it's a great story and I appreciate you sharing it.

[JVS]

28. He was suspended for a while but the suspension placed on him was considered so odious...

that the players of the Detroit Tigers engaged in the first baseball strike ever

[rurallib]

3. To not have the all-time hits leader not in the hall of fame is just ludicrous

I always thought it was for what was done on the field not off.
Plus Rose was during and just after his playing career one of the best ambassadors the game ever had.

Professional baseball is like the Mitt Romney of sports, always pissing off its fans with how out of touch they are.
I used to be one of the biggest fans baseball ever had. Now I might watch a couple innings a year.

For instance - look what happened in Chicago the other day because of their cheap asshole owner. Did that affect the integrity of the game? Probably. Will baseball kick that arrogant asshole out?

BTW - they ought to move the hall of fame out of a town named after a guy who had nothing to do with baseball and into the home of the first professional team - Cincinnati.

I could go on.......

[Algernon Moncrieff]

7. At some point, there is going to be an "Asterisk Hall"

A portion of the HoF where players like Bonds, McGuire, and Clemens will be enshrined -- with caveats.

Perhaps we should save time, open that wing now, and make Pete the first member?

[BlueJazz]

4. I'm ignorant here so help me out. Didn't he get in hot water because he bet on his own team?

Somebody told me that and I said "Ah...yeah..and what else did he do?"
"He BET on his own team and it was against the rules" was the response.
I just said...ah OK.

IF that's what he did, then I don't get what all the punishment is about.

[DinahMoeHum]

5. More specifically, he bet on games while he was a baseball MANAGER.

If he did that shit while he was still just a player, he would have been in the HOF by now.
If he ended his baseball career as a player and nothing else, he would have been in the HOF by now.

When I was growing up, I read about 2 football players, Alex Karras and Paul Hornung, who had been suspended by the NFL for a year or so for betting on games. However, neither of them did it as a coach. Both ended up enshrined in Canton, OH.

What I'm trying to say is this: it is a completely different transgression to bet on games while being a coach or a manager, because in those capacities, one is in a bigger position to influence the outcome of a game, ie. telling a pitcher how to pitch, telling a batter when to swing the bat or not, telling a base runner when to run, substituting a key pinch hitter, etc. If such a coach or manager is gambling, he is poisoning the game because we the public don't know what's going on in his mind. For all we know, he has massive debts or he's being blackmailed; and those problems soon trickle down to involve innocent people, ie. the players.

You just can't have that shit in professional sports. This is why the various governing bodies for each sport drop the hammer BIG TIME on gambling when their players or coaches are involved.

By the way, the real reason the NFL came down hard on Michael Vick wasn't about the cruelty to animals. By breeding and training those dogs to fight to the death, he was essentially running a gambling operation. That's a big fat no-no for a pro player.

OK, end of rant.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

8. Very well stated

..and a very astute observation about Mike Vick, who - IMHO - underpaid for what he did to those animals.

[BlueJazz]

10. "one is in a bigger position to influence the outcome of a game"

Aww...Of course. I "get" it.
Thanks so much for the info.

[JVS]

19. +1

[mulsh]

9. Yes. He bet on his team to win. it's not like he was up in a luxury box knocking down Scotch

and betting against his own players. oh wait, that would be what the owners do. I've always felt this was a ridiculous action.

[The Second Stone]

23. I know an owner of a football team, they are not allowed to bet on anything at all

much less football and even much less their own teams.

[Chan790]

25. Yes, he bet on his own team...

and if he'd lost and doubled down on that bet for the next day and the next, he'd be in the hole a few thousand (or more!)...and if he didn't have it, well then..."Pete, it's real simple. Either we're going to kill you or you're going to throw a few games so we can make it back off other saps. Which way we going with this?"

The ban on gambling on baseball for players and managers is absolute for a reason.

[jmowreader]

11. Did they ever prove he bet on his team to lose? IIRC they did not

Wouldn't the fact that Rose was betting on his team to win provide powerful inducement for him to provide a better experience for Reds fans?

Seriously guys, if you're going to banish players from the Hall of Fame for off-field behavior the building will be half-empty, and the first statue that's going in the dumpster is one George Herman Ruth..."The Babe" may have been the greatest ever to play the game, but in his personal life he was a grade-A piece of shit.

[JVS]

20. Suppose you are a fan of the DU Senators and I'm the manager

The team has a three game series coming up against the Free Republic Morans. The winner of the three game series advances to the World Series of political message board baseball. Now suppose I bet heavily that our DU Senators will win the first game. To make a long story short, during the game it looks like we aren't going to win and since I'm afraid of losing my house I cycle through our top pitchers to finally win the game in the bottom of the 12th inning. So I get a windfall and you enjoy seeing the team win, but then games 2 and 3 are losses because I decided to burn through the best pitchers in order to win my bet.

My example is a big simplification, but it is applicable. When some games become extra important for the manager then other games can easily suffer. And that creates a conflict of interest.

[Frank Cannon]

22. Nicely explained.

I never saw it as a big deal, if he was only betting on his own team. But I see now that it can lead to other quandaries that could very well affect his performance as a manager.

[The Second Stone]

24. Good examples

and I bet (heh heh) that there are others.

[michreject]

12. yes nt

[KG]

14. hell to the yeahs

[JVS]

15. No. Fuck him.

[malthaussen]

16. Pretty much depends on how one feels about rules.

If you think the rule he broke justifies his being banned, then he gets no slack. If you think the rule is wrong, then nothing prevents his admission.

-- Mal

[Iggo]

17. Long past time.

Even though they'll only do it so that they can put the real cheaters in.

[SwankyXomb]

21. Baseball used to be incredibly strict about gambling

Bowie Kuhn threw Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle, both arguably among the game's all-time greats, out of baseball for taking jobs as casino greeters in the early 80s. This was before retired players could earn decent money on the autograph circuit, and they were promptly reinstated when Peter Ueberroth took over as commissioner.

[hifiguy]

26. Yep.

His titanic accomplishments on the field as a player belong in the HoF.