Yeah! And what is it with the FAA banning pilots from drinking alcohol 8 hours before a flight, when the passengers are allowed to drink on the plane? So unfair!
I said this in the other thread but I’m sorry, this makes no sense. None whatsoever.
MLB is absolutely fine saying players can’t gamble on MLB but that fans can. Fans don’t perform in the games. They have no conflict of interest. Players do.
I don’t think it was ethical for Rose to gamble on his own games, and presumably he knew the rules. But gambling causes real harms and has been embraced by pro sports too eagerly for my taste. I never suggested these were equivalent, but you could just as easily argue playing baseball well has little to do with addiction.
No “presumably” about it; for many decades, every MLB locker room has displayed a sign which details the rule; Rose saw such a sign every day of his career.
Being an old-school sports fan, the fact that the NFL, MLB, etc. have so rapidly embraced legal sports gambling just feels very unsettling to me.
Sports gambling is absolutely a dreadful plague. I detest it and will not participate in it. I think the harm it will do society is yet to reach its zenith. But there’s nothing unethical about me doing so if I choose.
I’m curious - can you elaborate a bit on this?
I believe this new form of easily accessed gambling will destroy hundreds of thousands of lives. It’s incredibly well targeted at men, especially young men.
I’m no psychiatrist, but from having been an enthusiastic poker player for some time, I’ve been around the gamblers. I’ve seen addiction. Even with the ones who have a problem with slot machines, blackjack, lotteries and the like, they do at SOME level know every bet has a negative expectation.
But sports gambling has convinced many, many men that they have positive expectations. It’s a vicious combination of an addictive behaviour and fandom. I have lost count of the number of guys I’ve met who will swear up and down they are beating the government bookies, and they took the bus to the casino. I’d guess Ontario alone ha 250,000 men who are convinced they are making money long term, and doesn’t even have FIFTY people who really do.
I remember hearing at some point, probably when Rose was first banned, that it was a “lifetime ban”. Taking that literally, I figured he’d be elligible for the Hall of Fame after he died.
It was probably poor reporting at the time; describing a permanent ban as “lifetime”. I did turn out to be correct, though.
At the time when he was originally “banned,” he absolutely was still eligible – even when he was alive – for the Hall of Fame. It wasn’t until a year or so later, when Rose was slated to appear on the HoF ballot for the first time, that the Hall changed their rules, and declared that anyone who was on the permanently ineligible list was ineligible for enshrinement.
It wasn’t just in the case of Rose; it seems to me like a lot of articles describe being placed on the permanently ineligible list as receiving a “lifetime ban;” as discussed in this and other threads, a number of players (as well as coaches, managers, and owners) have spent time on the permanently ineligible list, before being reinstated. I’d guess it’s because “lifetime ban” is easier to understand (if somewhat inaccurate) than “permanently ineligible list.”
Before the Hall of Fame changed its rules (as you described), a lifetime ban amounted to permanent inelligibility. So the reporting may have been a little imprecise, but the two terms would have been functionally equivalent. Other than the Hall of Fame, is there any part of professional baseball that a player can take part in after their death?