This is the point that people can never seem to grok. The HoF is a commercial endeavor, at the end of the day it’s a marketing gimmick. The rules for who gets enshrined are entirely arbitrary. It doesn’t do the HoF any good to have distasteful assholes and perceived cheaters adorning the walls and coloring the conversation.
I know people like to pretend the HoF is some museum with academic bona fides, but it’s not. A Holocaust Museum has an important job to do to educate people on the bad parts of humanity. I don’t think the HoF has the same duty as it applies to telling the cautionary tales about cheaters and gamblers, it’s a celebration of a game, let’s not oversell it.
Well, whomever wrote this is wrong.
I don’t even like sports gambling, but there is no hypocrisy in saying people who actually play, manage and ump the game can’t bet on them, but that other people can. Lots and lots of professions have rules that the people doing the profession must abide by but that aren’t relevant to anyone else.
Baseball CANNOT allow players, coaches and umps, or various other people inside MLB, to gamble on the games. It must be absolutely verboten. But if Cletus the fan wants to bet on it, that’s Cletus’s business.
I have other, different concerns with sports betting.
In fairness, it actually is. The Hall of Fame is, legally and organizationally, a museum, and it does serve as a center for research. It may be a trivial subject to have a museum about, but a museum it is.
In what way? Are you in the conspiracy theory camp that games and outcomes are scripted?
Those are good reasons. I thought my extra-rest and constant double-switches damn the bullpen were a good start yet you made the case clear.
I don’t know about Shoeless Joe. Sure they were way underpaid. What do you do if your team gets in with the mob for a big payday? “I’m gonna tell on youz all”. He’s be “Shoeless Ratso” Also I do not believe he accepted any money, had only one play that he kinda lobbed the ball back into 2nd where he could have nailed the guy.
How many knew about the spitball? Lots. Wasn’t it even grandfathered out?
How many knew about Amphetamines. Every fucking body.
How many knew about Steroids? Slightly less than every fucking body yet Barry Bonds head went from like size 6 to size 8+? Mark McGuire was a good hitter then a monstrously long hitter.
All the cocaine on the 1986 Mets (I do not reckon it a performance enhancing drug but if I’m up to bat, a line won’t hurt).
And even in professional cycling, there is a (much more than) cottage industry in steroid or things like that that assist you a bit in climbing mountains (that cannot be detected).
I believed Lance Armstrong, even after he beat Marco Pantalli up Ventoux. Both were filled with steroids and their blood was slightly less viscous than jelly.
There’s no stopping it because there will always be money in cheating.
Yeah, “grandfathered”
In Major League Baseball (MLB), the spitball was banned in two stages. In the winter of 1919–1920, managers voted to partially ban the spitball. Each team was allowed to designate up to two pitchers who would be permitted to throw spitballs. After the 1920 season, the use of the spitball was banned with the exception of a group of 17 existing spitballers, who became legacy spitballers who were allowed to throw the pitch legally until they retired.
I mean, they were allowed to use substances (spit really not being the best) to “doctor” (where’d that phrase come from?) the ball and I would assume this would be done (or not done) without the hitter knowing what kind of pitch was coming, though I imagine some vaseline would make any pitch interesting.
Also while I can edit, sandpaper, vaseline (or other slippery substances) right under the cap or nails between the gloves and others have been used. Heck, I remember “Mike Scuff” on the Astros dominating the 1986 Mets.
Hah! I hadn’t connected your username and avatar before. Clever.
I’m sorry, but that sounds really strange. That’s like my boss telling me, “Good news, Jasmine, you will be eligible for a 20% raise AFTER you leave the district!” 
I get it, though. This allows them to enshrine him in the Hall of Fame.
nevermind. Smoke Camel for True Taste.
Yup, and really, it’s the only reason for that change.
In addition it generates a lot of discussion and publicity and attention.
Let’s start with how many chances Steve Howe got. And Ferguson Jenkins. Both “banned” for life but let back in.
Those were very different situations. Jenkins was given a permanent suspension once, for one incident, when drugs were found in his luggage while he went through customs (and was reinstated two weeks later). (Edit: and, frankly, a lifetime ban for that single incident was a massive overreaction by Bowie Kuhn; but, then again, Kuhn was a reactionary asshole, and a terrible commissioner.)
Howe was indeed the one who got chance after chance after chance: he was suspended seven different times, including a lifetime ban (which also was overturned by an arbitrator).
And one issue with Rose admitting he gambled on baseball. He was promised by Fay Vincent that if he admitted it, he could appeal in a year. What Rose found out later was he could appeal, but MLB certainly did not have to grant the appeal. It’s an exercise for the reader as to whether or not that really is an extenuating circumstance.
True, but gambling on baseball and betting on games played by your own team is as bad as it gets. Since the wholesale legalization of sports betting was instituted, we developed a whole class of addicted gamblers that literally destroy themselves and their relationships because they can’t stop. Do you really think a player, who has gambled his way into dire financial circumstances, wouldn’t take that last step and throw a game for a huge payoff that would solve all his problems? I wouldn’t believe that for a second.
Totally agree but I brought it up to show a permanent ban for drugs ain’t so permanent. But I’d be willing to throw out Jenkins as an example and just stick with Howe as how MLB will condone illegal drugs. And that would bring up the steroids that for the longest time wasn’t cheating.
But bet on your team to win? Or not report that the game is fixed (even though you didn’t throw it yourself), you’re done. Forever! No forgiveness ever. Yeah I get it, integrity of the game and all but the idea it’s a double-standard itches at the back of my brain.
Howe hurt himself, Rose hurt the sport. Anyway, this decision has nothing to with the integrity of the game. It’s political pandering and nothing else.
Yep. @dalej42 got it with the second post of the thread. Everything since then has been just exposition.
Donald Trump likes Pete Rose, and doing something for him keeps Manfred out of the crosshairs. That’s the only “principle” involved.
Shoeless Joe Jackson himself said, under oath, that he accepted money.
Like, guys, can we get clear on the absolute facts here? He accepted money. He said as much. His wife was there and saw it.
I don’t understand how either of those situations is equivalent to Rose or Jackson. Especially Jenkins, whose “lifetime suspension” was a complete joke and was reversed when someone with an IQ above that of a potato had something to do with it.
Perhaps he knows something about him. He certainly likes interfering with sports and has the credentials to do so with his failed USFL venture.
When I heard about “pardons” or whatever, I did not mean “If you were good and there are outlying indiscretions - you are banned until you die”
I liked Pete Rose because he was great at baseball. If his was approaching a base, the throw better be clean to tag him - and even if it was not - he’d slide as wide as the beloved Ty Cobb.
Got a lot of base hits.
Player-manager: He’s gotta be the last.
Shoeless Joe I covered. I just don’t know how to deal with your teammates saying the mob will make a big pay day and, whether or not he took a dollar, could he have ratted on his teammates?
Yet it’s weak-sauce to say “Now that he’s dead…”