I’m pretty sure Ty Cobb fails on these 3 items.
If Mr. Racist Jerk Ty Cobb is in, Rose should be in. Is being a racist not as bad as gambling? If it’s worse than gambling, then toss Cobb out of the Hall and tell Rose no way.
Marine, you seem like a pretty smart guy, but on this issue you are just totally missing the point. Let me try to explain.
In general you are absolutely correct that being a racist ass is worse than gambling. Actually, I don’t think there’s anything intrinsically wrong with gambling at all. I enjoy gambling - I like blackjack and roulette and I go to Woodbine and bet on the ponies. I have lottery tix in my wallet right now. And Ty Cobb was a son of a bitch. Nobody doubts that.
You have to understand that baseball did not ban Pete Rose because he was bad. They did not ban him because gambling is bad. I’ll repeat that, as it bears repeating; this has NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING BEING BAD OR MORALLY WRONG. Nothing, nothing, nothing. It is totally, utterly beside the point.
Baseball banned Pete Rose because gambling is a fundamental conflict of interest. A conflict of interest will get you fired from ANY real job. A vice president in my company awarded a small contract to a firm owned by his son. He was immediately fired without warning or appeal. It’s not that awarding a contract is somehow morally wrong - obviously, it is not wrong to pay somebody money for a service. He was fired because he deliberately committed an act that put him in a conflict of interest.
Pete Rose placed himself in a conflict of interest. He did something that violates a primary ethical (NOT moral - there’s a difference) point; he placed significant personal financial interest in opposition to his employer.
Baseball must ban such people because they must protect themselves from the influence of gambling. I don’t know how much you know about the history of baseball, but from the 1860s to 1920, professional baseball was racked with gambling controversies and it was hurting the sport. The legitimacy of the game was in question. Many players other than the Black Sox were thrown from the game for gambling, and yet the 1919 World Series was fixed. Public confidence in major league baseball was badly shaken, and remember that this was a time when the average team only drew six or seven thousand fans a game to start with and got no broadcasting revenue. The decision of baseball, then, was to adopt a clear rule, Rule 21, that gambling on a game you are involved in means you’re out of the game forever.
If Pete Rose was a racist, that’s a bad thing and it could reflect poorly on baseball’s public image, but it doesn’t suggest the game itself is corrupt. Lots of players have had problems with alcohol and nose candy, but that doesn’t suggest they aren’t trying to win - I don’t think anyone ever questioned whether Keith Hernandez or Paul Molitor were giving it 100%. Some players have just been asses, like Rogers Horsnby or Albert Belle, but nobody doubted the on-field results were legitimate. But gambling calls into question whether it’s really a sport, or whether it could become pro wrestling. Albert Belle, Keith Hernandez, Mickey Mantle et al. all had personal problems, but when you saw them play you knew the result was honest.
The great, great majority of people don’t really care all that much what the players do in their off time. I personally could not care less if Tim Raines snorted a little coke or if Barry Bonds is a surly jerk. You will see sportswriters blather about how this stuff hurts the game, but it really doesn’t - there’s virtually no evidence that the personal travails of ballplayers affects interest in the sport. People derive pleasure from watching competitive baseball at its highest level; Joe Slugger’s personality doesn’t much enter into that. But if Joe Slugger is throwing a game, that DOES ruin the experience, because you’re no longer getting that basic product, a high level competitive sport. You’re getting scripted junk. For that reason, baseball had to adopt Rule 21 to prevent the central product - competitive, high level baseball - from being destroyed by gamblers.
A lot of professions have rules like that. For instance, do you think gossiping about people is a terrible crime? Of course not, right? But a psychiatrist who gossips about his patients will lose his license.
Do you enjoy talking about your day at work to your spouse? Well, who doesn’t? But if you work for the CIA and talk to your wife about the classified stuff you read that day they’ll fire your ass so fast you won’t have time to say “Top Secret.” And you’d probably be blacklisted for any government job.
Or look at my job. Until I recently got promoted I was a fulltime ISO 9000 auditor, and I still do a few audits for key clients. If I were to do some consulting work on the side for an auditing client, they would fire me. Not only would they fire me, but the certification board would take away my auditor’s certification. There’s nothing morally wrong with doing a little consulting work - but in my job it’s instant professional execution. It HAS to be, or else my integrity as an auditor is questionable, because o the conflict of interest. It wouldn’t be anything personal. They would not come to be and say “Rick, you are a bad, bad man. You are even more evil than racists.” They’d say “Sorry, but you’ve violated a conflict of interest rule. You’re out. Nothing personal, but it’s an issue of integrity.”
I think racism is evil too, and I despise racists, but the simple truth is that racism does not threaten the integrity of baseball, and so there isn’t a lifetime ban for it.
Great post RickJay.
BTW let me know when your funeral is going down, I don’t want to miss it you crazy bastard.
Besides, Pete Rose could gamble all he wanted. Nobody was stopping him.
He could go to Vegas and hit the tables, blow thousands of bucks on lottery tickets, hit the track every weekend and enter the office NCAA pool, and nobody would say a word.
The only prohibition was against betting on baseball, and he broke that rule.
Part of me does want him in the Hall, because he was undeniably one of the best players ever. But again, it all comes down to this. Realistically, there’s one thing you can do to guarantee a ban from baseball, and he managed to do it. Lying about it and insulting his accusors is just icing on the dry, moldy cake.
I’d be disappointed if he never makes it to the Hall, but there’s no one to blame but himself, and I think I’d be be even more disappointed if he’s reinstated.
I pray that the ban sticks. That way perhaps people will learn that there are consequences for your actions.
What a nice lession, and a perfect one for a piece of shit like Rose.
For those who are saying that his playing career deserves to be in the Hall, it is. He is in the hall of records as the sport’s all time hit leader. His statistical achievements are highlighted in the Hall of Fame.
The question now is whether to induct Peter Edward Rose Senior into the Baseball Hall of Fame, and the answer is a resounding no. RickJay’s post above is the clearest explanation I’ve read as to why.
(aside) RickJay, I’m engaged in this same debate on another message board. Would you mind if I quoted you there - I’ll credit it in any way you’d like.
And a final semi-hijack: After 14 years of being branded a liar by Rose, would John Dowd have any legal recourse against him in light of this admission?
I think RickJay should take the words in his post and put them into a letter and mail it to Bud Selig.
Although a conflict-of-interest argument may be lost on an owner of a baseball team who also oversees the league … :rolleyes:
Ty Cobb amd Tris Speaker, both later HOFers, laid a bet to throw a baseball game. That was swept under the rug by Landis.
If we can actually consider the Brewers a team.
I second emailing that post to Selig.
Another way to look at it is: does baseball have rules that it respects? If they had an ironclad rule, posted in every clubhouse, specifically prohibiting players from wearing their underpants inside-out, and Rose flouted the rule repeatedly, MLB would either have to suspend him for life, or else admit that the rule was unjust and rescind it. There are plenty of good reasons for the non-gambling rule, but none of them matter. It was a rule, and Rose knew that a condition of his NOT being suspended for life was that he follow that rule, and he didn’t.
You— you asshole!
Seriously, great post. Rose needs to go the hell away. An honest and heartfelt apology might have counted for something, but he’s fucked it up too many times.
“No I didn’t! No I didn’t! No I didn’t! Yes okay I did but it wasn’t really that bad so everybody relax.”
His crust is flaky, and his fruit is bubbling over. He’s done.
I’d hardly call this “swept under the rug”. Looks to me like nothing was proved. From baseball library
I haven’t really been following the whole sorry thing, but my guess is that Rose’s reasoning went like this: well, lying about it for all these years didn’t get me in the HOF. Maybe admitting it but not fully will work instead.
“Plus, I’ll make a bunch of money off my book!”
No it’s not it’s the same thing, because as a manager you can attempt to influence the outcome of the game in any number of ways which are imcompatible with competitive sport.
I’m amazed that so many people don’t get this: Baseball is a real sport: it’s not professional wrestling. If fans start to believe the fix is in, then the game is dead, period.This is why there is a strict prohibition on gambling.
Yes, that is true. You can do it as a player as well.
I don’t think that Rose did this. I think he played to win because that’s all he knew. That’s what made him so much fun to watch.
But, sadly, that is irrelevant. The fact that a degenerate gambler (which Rose is) could influence a game as you said is more than reason enough to have the rule. And such a rule HAS to be absolute. It can NOT be judged on a case by case basis because then all appearence of objectivity gos out the window.
Rose knew the rule. The rule is valid. Rose has to watch from the sidelines.
There’s another thing to remember, as well.
The Hall of Fame in Cooperstown is in reality two connected institutions, The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
The Hall of Fame commemorates the Game’s greatest players, while the Museum commemorates the Game’s greatest moments, its history, and its statistics.
Pete Rose will always have a place of honor and respect, as a player, at the museum. I have seen it myself. This is right and fitting, and no ban can take it away.
Even casual fans remember his hitting record, and it is duly marked at the museum.
Here’s one thing that several people have seemed to miss:
Let Rose in, and he’s no longer in the headlines. He goes away. He becomes Susan Lucci after she finally won a Daytime Emmy.
I’ll concede that Rose fucked up royally. However, Cobb, irrespective of the wager with Tris Speaker (and irrespective of whether he actually killed someone; I’ve read accounts both ways), committed a felony by going into the stands and beating a fan who was heckling him.
Somehow, I’m a little more willing to forgive gambling.
And, by the way, I also think Shoeless Joe should be in.