I agree. I just wish they’d be a little more consistent. Corking a bat is clearly against the rules and threatens the integrity of the game. But those guys got a slap on the wrist. And you can’t blame “addiction” either. Just a calculated effort to cheat. (don’t get me started on the Astros).
Corking bats and stealing signs are plagues and deserve punishments. I think gambling on the game is orders of magnitude worse an deserves lifetime bans.
Maybe this is a tangent, but corking bats requires more deliberate intention to violate the rules than almost anything else. You don’t do it because you’re weak or angry, or addicted. You do it with malice aforethought. Everyone who did it would get a permanent ban if I were in charge.
Stealing signs is, IMO, more of a grey area, as you can do it legally if you’re just standing on second and recognize the pitch sign the catcher is throwing down. Where MLB draws the line is a little obscure.
All of this is irrelevant when it comes to getting in the Hall. Arguably the rules are too lenient for corking but those are the rules. He broke the other rule, many times, and he well knew the consequences.
Tom Verducci article (actually two, link to a road trip he took with Rose) on the Sports Illustrated site:
By the way, there is strong evidence that Rose used corked bats too. Still think he should be in the HoF? Of course he denied it.
Fun fact: when Ohio legalized sports gambling a few years ago, Pete placed the ceremonial first bet. And yes, he bet on baseball: he bet the Reds to win the series.
I think this says a lot about the sincerity of his contrition, though I can also understand why he had just given up by that point.
The Reds play ball to this day on Pete Rose Way, so I think his legacy is secure.
Kinda funny you should mention that:
Well, that makes it easy. Thanks!
Sometime back in the early 80s National Lampoon had a cover with the caption “Pete Rose hustles after Ty Cobb’s record” with a cartoon of Rose heading down the first base line to beat the throw, using a walker. To this day I cannot hear the name “Pete Rose” without that memory popping up.
In case y’all forgot, Pete Rose was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2004.
In fact it very much is.
When Rose was banned in 1989, there was no rule saying you couldn’t elect someone to the Hall of Fame who was on the permanent ineligibility list. They could absolutely have elected him.
They passed a rule in 1991 prohibiting that - specifically to avoid the embarrassment of inducting Pete Rose.
And then explained repeatedly what Rose would need to do to make amends and re-qualify, which he continued to refuse to do. Still see this as entirely on him.
I saw Rose in person back in 2019 or so. It was at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, and he was hawking merchandise. Yes, it would have been fun to get a signed baseball, but he wanted $100 for that. Oh, you want it inscribed, as in, “To Spoons, Best Wishes, Pete Rose”? That’ll be $250 then. Not that he’s any judge of what his memorabilia would be worth on the open market, but hang onto that card.
I will note that he looked old. I did not expect him to look like he did in his playing days, and he was certainly animated as he showed off his wares, but let’s just say that that famous head of hair wasn’t there, and there were a lot more wrinkles in his face.
The sense I have is that autograph sessions and personal appearances had been his primary source of income ever since he’d been banned from baseball, which was 35 years ago. There’s got to be a metric crap-ton of Rose autographs out there, and collectibility/value probably aren’t great, as you suspect.
Plenty of stuff sold in the high hundreds and thousands, and that was before he died. I don’t know if this is the kind of stuff he would have signed at a convention, though.
From what I understand, he’d sign anything, and add any message you wanted as long as you paid the premium. He’d sign “I bet on baseball” before he wrote the book if you paid him.
It’s probably already been said here, but the way he became the all-time hits leader - as player-manager, putting himself into the lineup when he didn’t belong there anymore, to push his numbers past Ty Cobb - should preclude him from being in the HoF.
And put a big fucking asterisk next to his 4256 hits in the record book.
I addressed this point earlier. He played in about 2/3 of the games in which he managed.
IMO, he should have retired after the 1985 season, after he broke the record. YMMV.
The difference between corked bats/steroids/sign stealing and betting on baseball is that players using corked bats etc. are still trying to win. Betting on baseball could mean you aren’t. That’s what’s meant by threatening the integrity of the game.
So? He was still writing himself into the lineup when he didn’t belong. Player managers should not be allowed for the same reason betting on baseball isn’t. Rose wasn’t managing to win. He was managing to get a record for himself. That seems damaging tp the integrity of the game.