Pete Rose on Trial: The American people are Fucking Idiots

The BBQ Pit
41

This is exactly right. MLB – along with all professional sports – thrives only because the audience accepts that every player on every team is trying every minute to win as many games as possible, for the sake of winning. The second people stop believing that, MLB becomes professional wrestling. It becomes bullshit.

That is why any outside influence on a game’s outcome, or anything that even lends the appearance of an outside influence, or anything that makes such an outside influence more likely – such as gambling – is absolutely forbidden.

I can forgive Pete Rose as a person (even if he hasn’t apologized) – hell, it’s not even that big of a deal. As a baseball player, he committed the equivalent of murder.

And he’s not even fucking sorry.
Maureen (and other Rose supporters): This is the crux of the issue; do you still not see the point?

42

All I will say about Rose:

He should be banned for life from ever participating in professional baseball. The rule is an important one, and their should be consequenses.

But he should be in the HoF for his achievements on the field. Hell, put a black mark next to his name, or a plaque describing the controvery and his shame. But his face should be there.

43

As RickJay covered your points about his earning a place in the Hall, I’ll keep my response to this:

I was born in 1981. That I love baseball with a passion doesn’t mean I don’t think it lacks integrity it used to have. I wish I were able to love it blindly. Quite frankly, even to a zealous fan like me the '94 strike and the recent averted strike were hard to take. But I do think that there are substantial chinks in baseball’s armor from things such as the 1919 scandal and Rose, and it detracts from my love of the game that there was a strike in '94 and that one was narrowly avoided a year or two ago.

He didn’t destroy my belief in the integrity of the game, but he did cause it to lessen. Same with Sosa. Same with any and every player who breaks the rules. That they feel the need to cheat (or that it seems plain to me that they lied when caught) at a game when they’re in no danger of losing their place in it is just inexcusable. And even if they are in danger of going by the wayside they ought to have the personal integrity not to cheat.

Bullshit. They know they will be held to that standard. They aren’t required to play (they sign contracts because they want to play baseball, unless you can cite someone playing because he was forced). They CHOOSE to play, and they know the rules. I am sure as shit not able to be held to the standard MLBers are, and there’s no reason. I am not financially associated with them.

Is there something you do not comprehend about his ineligibility due to gambling on baseball? The voters for the HoF aren’t crazed and vapid fundamental Rose Haters. Rose is ineligible.

44

What VarlosZ said.

I love the game of baseball. Love it. I think it’s very close to the perfect game. The ideal blend of athleticism and intellectualism. Physical execution married to painstaking analysis. Chess in cleats. Whatever you want to call it. The point is, while I’m loyal to my hometown club, I can watch any baseball game between any two teams at any level and become engrossed.

That said, I’m slowly becoming disillusioned with the particular people playing and managing the game at the major league level at the moment. Selig’s an ass. The owners, emboldened with a commissioner who works for them rather than the game, have become increasingly confrontational. The players union, recognizing this, has chosen to react confrontationally in turn, further entrenching everyone’s positions. And everything spirals out of control, leading to overpriced stadiums, overpriced tickets, and growing fan malaise.

And now we have the Rose controversy. C’mon, Rose knew he was breaking The Rule. Not just a rule, but The Rule. He did it anyway, because he’s a putz with an addiction. Yes, his accomplishments on the field are stellar. But baseball does not dishonor these accomplishments by refusing to cancel his lifetime ban. Rose himself dishonored his accomplishments by gambling on the game. He collected his accumulated honors in a bucket, stood over it, unzipped his fly, whipped out his dick, and pissed all over his career. He did it.

The fact that the commissioner’s office has been playing coy with the issue for the last few years, giving off a vague will-we-or-won’t-we vibe, is just infuriating. It fuels the debate and polarizes the fans over what should be a non-starter. If we had a true independent commissioner in place, like Ueberroth was apparently trying to be (until he was forced out prematurely), somebody who could stand up to both sides and represent the best interests of the game, this wouldn’t even be a discussion. Any time somebody sent up that trial balloon, the commissioner could pop it: “No way, no how, don’t waste your breath.”

I will be sorely disappointed if Selig and his minions reverse the lifetime ban on game participation. I’m somewhat resigned to his eventual inclusion in the HOF, though; I can see giving him a small plaque, as astorian suggests, but no more. Even that will be galling, but I think it’s inevitable. I recognize I’m in the minority here, but in my mind it’s simply non-negotiable.

45

“They sign contracts because they want to play baseball.”
Yes, dear. I’m sure it’s that and only that which puts those sigs on the dotted line. Purely the love of the game. Money means nothing, I’m sure.

And speaking of money: What does monetary compensation have to do with a code of moral conduct? I get 9 mil, and people watch me play A GAME, so I have to be a saint? Fuck that.

And I didn’t say they were crazed Rose Haters. I said people were basing their decision on emotion and opinion. They are.

46

Anecdotal support for this, in case it needed so much as one whit: Randy Moss took considerable shit from NFL fans (and probably players as well) for saying he didn’t try more than 40% on most plays. I don’t remember the exact quote, but it shouldn’t have been coming from someone making the metric tonne of cash he earns for running around in spandex pants and cleats and catching a ball shaped like an oval squeezed closer at both ends.

Fucking shameful.

IIRC, this was one reason given for why umpires aren’t, or at least shouldn’t be, allowed to bet on any sport. Their losses might lead to them compromising games IE “I’ll call the game in the giants’ favor and you bet on the giants to win and we’ll call it even.”

47

Oh, I do miss having my post deliberately misrepresented. It’s been at least an hour or to. I do love it. If you’re going to quote PART of a sentence, by the way, could you possible not quote it in such a way that it doesn’t DIRECTLY imply that it was the complete sentence? Thanks ever so much. Here’s the rest for you, just in case it was too much to decipher: “…, unless you can cite someone playing because he was forced.)”

My point, to enlighten, was that nobody picks them up like slaves and forces them to play baseball and adhere to certain rules, when they’d rather be doing other things. They choose to play (regardless of how money-hungry they are), they abide by rules.

Rose didn’t.

Another one. You’re getting predictable. I did not say you had to be a saint. I said you would be held to certain standards others are not. I hope you and your nine million dollars will be able to deal with that grand travesty of humanity, dear.

Incorrect, once again (I think you have the trifecta twice now on this). They base their decision that he shouldn’t be in the Hall upon the fact that he is ineligible. People who succumb to emotion over fact tend to want Rose in. Matters none. He is ineligible.

48

iampunha:

I think you’re conflating two separate Randy Moss clusterfucks. One is his saying he didn’t try hard on most plays (which anyone who’d ever watched him “block” on running plays already knew). The other is the now infamous “Randy Ratio,” wherein Moss demanded (successfully) that at least 40% of all his team’s pass attemps be directed his way (with predictable results: the other receivers on the field didn’t even make good decoys, and the Vikings’ offense sputtered – when the Randy Ratio was abandoned, they did much better). Of course, your point still stands. Moss plays for his own benefit; his team comes second. It lessens the game.

49

Cheating.

If cheating destroys the integrity of the game, then the game NEVER had any integity. If we shunned all cheaters, we’d have to remove a lot of plaques from the Hall of Fame. Baseball is not, nor has it ever been, a gentleman’s game. It’s history is that of men who would do anything, anything to win.

50

Because the men weren’t charged with simply throwing the game. There’s no law against that. They were charged with throwing the game with the intent to defraud the publi. The judge instructed the jury that simply throwing the game wasn’t a crime, but that the prosecution had to prove the men were doing it beyond reasons to line their own pockets. For instance, if the players had been the gamblers that were planning on benefitting from the White Sox loss. The prosecution couldn’t prove that, so they were acquitted. And rightly so.

Jackson still threw the game, IMO.

51

Actually, I was. Now I’m up again.

OK, “dear one,” let me try and get this through your dense little head. Assaulting a fan in uniform does not call into question the legitimacy of the competition on the field. Hence, it does not harm the integrity of baseball. Gambling on the game DOES call into question the legitimacy of the competition on the field. Hence, it DOES harm the integrity of baseball. See how this isn’t a hard concept? I never squirmed away from it. I’m not squirming away from it now. I’m addressing it point blank. As I have done every time.

52

I just want to jump in with a quick comment that I appreciate the work and cites that Neurotik have been providing, especially about Shoeless Joe. I had brought into the whole Costner spin, and it’s about time I did a little research. I also want to say that you’ve been condescending and annoying this entire thread without providing an ounce to the discussion, Maureen. That, of course, is your perogative, this being the pit and all, but you may want to lay off the attempts at protraying Neuro and others as to daft to get your point. Pot, kettle and all.

53

Airman does make a good point about Shoeless Joe, though, Hamlet. It can’t be proven that he actually threw the game…it is entirely possible that he did try his best and he just happened to suck sometimes. It’s baseball and it happens. I do think that his suspicious variance in play when coupled with the fact that we know he took money and agreed to throw the game makes it at least likely that he sandbagged in the games the Sox lost.

YMMV.

54

I wanna know why the OP thinks ALL Americans are idiots just because a few people on a panel couldn’t pull their heads out of their asses? FTR Dumbfuck I’m an American and I DON’T think he should be in the HOF. Asshole.

55

Is the “some of those were basketball games” explanation anything other than an ad hoc hypothesis? I don’t know much about gambling but it seems odd that someone would simply list city names for a bookie and not even specify what sport he was betting on.

In any case, there’s another issue here: the Hall of Fame’s cowardly deference to the judgment of MLB in all cases, under a rule adopted AFTER the banning. If the Hall would list the “no player on baseball’s ineligible list shall be admitted” rule than they could apply their own judgment to what affected on-field performance and what didn’t, rather than forcing MLB to reinstate Rose, and allow for the possibility of him working in baseball again, in order to give him a spot in the HoF.

56

If the hall would LIFT…

57

Hamlet, I have a tendency to react to smug, self satisfied “I am right, you are not only wrong but stupid as well” posts as I would a comment from any elitist remark. As if it were coming from a six year old. I have no respect for anyone looking down their noses while stating that they refuse to look at an issue from any perspective but their own narrow little view.

I don’t think Neurotik too daft to get my point. I’m sure he did. I think he’s intentionally ignoring it.

58

Mark, I think a little context is in order.

The Hall’s decision to enshrine the rule isn’t based on a desire to force MLB to do anything. The rule is designed to keep Pete Rose out of the Hall of Fame. Prior to the banning the rule had never been necessary because, at least until relatively recently, nobody would EVER have voted Joe Jackson into the Hall (nobody else ever banned was good enough to be elected anyway.) There’s no “Deference” here. They don’t want banned players because they correctly believe enshrining banned players would make the Hall look bad.

The Rose Rule was adopted only because some writers started talking about electing Rose anyway. The ban on enshrinement makes perfect sense to me.

59

As a Cincinnatian, all I’ve got to say is this:

I DON’T CARE GODDAMIT SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP WHO THE FUCK CARES!!!

Yesterday, the results of the mock trial were front page, above the fold in the Enquirer. Today, the news of a prisoner’s release from Ohio’s death row after being locked up 26 years for a crime he didn’t commit was buried on page two of the Metro section.

I’m like, way sick of Pete Rose.

60

Maureen:

Let’s forget about baseball for a moment. Let’s pretend we’re looking at a completely different business.

Suppose I own a bar. Pete Rose is my best employee. He’s a great bartender, and most of my customers love him to death. Not only does he mix a perfect martini, but he’s charming, funny, and does a great job entertaining my customers. I’m thinking about giving him my Employee of the Year award.

Now, imagine a few scenarios:

  1. I find out that Pete, who is married, has been having sex with a lot of my female patrons, when he’s off duty .

    Do I fire him? Well, no. I may think what he’s doing is morally repugnant, but hey, nobody ever said you have to be a saint to be a good bartender. As long as he’s doing a good job, I don’t really care what he does in his spare time. And I’ll probably go ahead and give him is EMployee of the YEar award.

  2. I find out that Pete is a cocaine addict. After work, he usually drives downtown, and scores some coke, and snorts up with some friends. It’s never affected his work; he’s always shown up on time for work, and he’s always done a fine job. Do I approve of this? No! Do I fire him for it? Well… no. I don’t approve, but what he’s doing isn’t hurting my business, so I’ll offer him a stern warning about all the trouble he could get into, but I won’t fire him… and I’ll still give him the EMployee of the YEar award.

  3. I find out that Pete has a violent temper, and regularly beats his wife. She’s called the cops on him a few times, but he’s managed to charm the cops each time, and he’s always managed to sweet-talk his wife into giving him one more chance.

Do I approve of this? No! But should I fire him? I don’t see why. Even if he’s a creep, there’s no reason I should fire him if he’s doing a good job for me. And he’d probably still get his Employee of the Year award.

  1. FINAL scenario: I find out that Pete has been stealing petty cash from me. It doesn’t amount to much- maybe a few hundred dollars a year, but he’s definitely been stealing small amounts of money from me.

Do I give him an award? HELL, NO! Do I fire him? You’re DAMN RIGHT I do! And I NEVER give him a second chance! Not even if all my customers beg me to reinstate him. And not even if he offers a tearful confession and apology!

Now, does this mean stealing petty cash is a WORSE crime, morally, than beating ones wife? Not at all. Beating ones wife is far more morally repugnant. But it’s a crime that has nothing to do with my business. It doesn’t hurt my business in the least if a stellar employee does repulsive things in his outside life. But if he commits even SMALL crimes while working for me, it is DEFINITELY my business. He can’t be trusted, and he’s history. It’s that simple.

Similarly, while O.J. Simpson is a depraved murdererer, that doesn’t affect what he did on the field. He deserves to be in the Football Hall of Fame. But a stellar player who conspired to throw ANY football game does NOT belong in the Hall of Fame, even if his crime is far less serious than murder.

And what Pete Rose did is FAR more serious, from a baseball perspective, than any crime Ty Cobb or Darryl Strawberry or Kirby Puckett ever committed… even if those guys are far more evil than Rose.