Right. Quite simply, there is no reasonable grounds to suspect that a player using steroids isn’t doing his best to help his team win every game; there is very reasonable grounds for so suspecting a player known to be involved with gamblers.
Because it calls into question whether the players are trying to win.
A player who is surreptitiously doing something to try to win - be it taking PEDs, using a corked bat, maybe scuffing the ball a little, things like that - is cheating and that must be punished, but the competitive nature of the game remains what it is.
A player who is deliberately losing casts the entire enterprise into inherent doubt. Say what you will about Barry Bonds, but he was trying to win, which is his job and in fact is the point of the entire show.
[QUOTe=kunilou]
Dixie Walker also tried to lead a player’s strike against Robinson – a movement which quickly evaporated when Commissioner Frick threatened to throw any strikers out of baseball.
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You appear to be conflating different events and confusing the details as well. For one thing, Ford Frick wasn’t the commissioner at the time, Happy Chandler was. Frick was the President of the National League. For another, Frick didn’t send that letter to the Dodgers; it was directed to, and in response to, a supposed plan afoot among the St. Louis Cardinals. It is not clear how serious the plan was but Ford Frick sure crushed any chance it would get serious.
Walker, in fact, did go to Rickey, saying he wanted to be traded, a demand Rickey refused. That is not in dispute. It is also no doubt the case he brought a petition from among other Dodgers asking Robinson not be on the team, which was also crushed by Rickey. But there is no evidence of a planned Dodger strike, and all evidence suggests the Dodgers rallied around Robinson very quickly (as Branch Rickey has correctly predicted they would) and Walker played his heart out and was a good teammate.
I’m not defending racism, but Walker has been unfairly vilified when his reaction wasn’t any worse than 200+ other guys in MLB and significantly LESS bad than dozens of others. He expressed misgivings, got over it when Rickey told him to shut up and do his job, and went on to a fine career as a coach and manager being kind and decent to black and white men alike. He didn’t hold Robinson or integration up an inch and was deeply remorseful for what he did. What he did was wrong but he was a decent man who made a mistake and to categorize him with people like Pete Rose and Ty Cobb is unfair.
I read a terrific article today about how we react to celebrities saying offensive things, specifically homophobic things; I guess Iggy Azalea, the pop star, made a homophobic tweet back in 2010, for which she has apologized but for some reason people were tearing her a new asshole over it again this past week. As the (lesbian, for what it’s worth) writer pointed out, you cannot make social change without individuals changing, and unless you are prepared to throw 99% of the population under the morality bus, part of progress is accepted people’s apologies for being on the wrong side of issues like (segregation, gender rights, gay marriage, etc. etc.) People who do legitimately horrible, evil things are evil, but being on the wrong side of the attitude fence and admitting you were in something you HAVE to be willing to move on from or else progress cannot happen without an awful social schism.
I accept your correction of my recollection and apologize for not checking my facts. And, to be fair, I did point out that Walker eventually apologized. I should probably apologize to the Walker family, as well.
There are a lot of other Assholes who hurt baseball for the HOF display.
Yes, he should be in the HoF, based on his performance as a player. His alleged and admitted gambling had no effect on his prior performance. As long as he didn’t bet against any team he played on or managed, then the gambling is irrelevant. If he bet on his own team to win, then, who the fuck cares? It doesn’t change the dynamic of trying to win a baseball game. Now, if he bet against his own team to win, that’s obviously a different set of circumstances; but I’ve never seen evidence, ever, that he bet against a team he was currently involved in.
What’s different than a team trying to win a game and a manager betting on his own team trying to win a game? Now, if he bet against the team he was playing for, or managing, then I get your point. Otherwise, what changes for a manager trying to win a game and betting on winning that game?
If he bet equally on every game, then you’d be right. But if you bet on one game and not another it would absolutely change the dynamic of trying to win a game. Especially when he was coaching it represents a large conflict of interest.
Asked and answered several times in this thread. Start from the beginning.
I saw Pete Rose play at Wrigley, in my youth, when he was in his prime. What a ballplayer! He’d come up to bat and everyone boo’d. He’d make a great play, offensively or defensively, and he would garner a respectable golf clap, which was good sportsmanship, from the fans. Those days are sadly long gone. And so is Pete.
This has been asked and answered many times, but let me see if I can perhaps explain it in some detail.
During Rose’s tenure as Reds manager the team was consistently good but not great; they had a .525 winning percentage while Rose was managing, having losing records only in his first season (which was only 41 games) and last. Therefore, bookies would have been setting the team’s odds at a level proportionate to their being a .525 team, adjusting for the opponent, expected starter, home field, and so on, and then applying the vig. All that math ensures the total expected value of all bets is slightly under the bet.
So suppose it’s late in the 1986 season and the Reds are home against the Expos on Thursday, and then hit the road to play the Phillies on Friday. Here the Reds would be favourites against the Expos and would probably be an even money bet against the Phillies. The lines would likely be -120 against the Expos (you must wager $120 to win $100) and +105 against the Phillies (wager $100 to win $105.)
If Rose decides to bet on one game but not the other, first of all he can win more by betting on the Phillies game. The bookies’ lines are based on the information that have about the Phillies, Expos and Reds, but Rose can now change that information by using his players in ways that benefit HIS betting choices, rather than the Reds’ odding of winning. So by betting $25,000 on the Phillies game and nothing on the Expos game, he can redeploy his resources to make it much likelier than people expected for the Reds to win that game. The example already used is that he can underuse his bullpen on Thursday, using the mopup guys and risking a loss, to ensure his best relievers (John Franco, especially) are rested on Friday. Or he could suddenly decide his top hitters, like Eric Davis and Buddy Bell, need a day off against the Expos to ensure they’re fresh on Friday. Heck, let’s rest the catcher, Bo Diaz, too. Once Friday rolls around, Rose can then use all his starters and stretch Franco to two innings to make victory likelier.
Hell, he could even change the starting pitcher after he’s placed his bet; say Bill Gullickson, one of his best pitchers, was due to start on Thursday. Rose places his bet for the Friday Phillies game at +105 and then announces he’s bumping Gullickson back a day for some reason, and starts Gullickson on Friday. The line would promptly drop to something like -120 because having Gullickson start over anyone save Tom Browning makes the Reds a much better team than they normally are, but Rose got his bet in at +105. He’s got a bet placed for an underdog but can make his team the favourite. It’s the baseball equivalent of a poker player being allowed to see one of his opponents’ cards. Once you place a bet at a certain line, you keep that line, even if it changes later; he’s screwed the bookie.
If the bookies knew this was happening they could adjust the lines. But they don’t, so they can’t. Rose can manipulate how the Reds play to change the lines, therefore giving himself superior knowledge to actually have a positive expectation. But in so doing, he is hurting his team in the aggregate, since he’s not optimally using his resources to win the maximum possible number of games; he’s deploying them to win games he specifically placed large bets on.
Of course, if Rose bet on his team to LOSE, this magnifies by 100 times. But even if he just bet on some games but not others, the conflict of interest is enormous. A bright man who had the discipline to not place any other sports bets - Rose is neither - could use this system to make more money from betting than they’d make from the managerial salary.
I’ll offer a scenario I’ve offered before:
SUPPOSE Pete Rose is telling the truth (for once) and he only bet on the Reds to win. Now suppose he bet a pile of money on the Reds every night for a week, and the Reds lost all those games.
Now Pete owes a lot of money to some Very Bad People (just who do you think controls the gambling biz?). Is there anyone who cannot see how dangerous it would be to have a manager who’s heavily in debt to the Mob?
The Mob doesn’t even need to have him in financial debt to be able to manipulate him; the threat of blackmail alone would suffice.
Fans applaud good plays by the opposing team all the time. When’s the last time you saw a game in person? There’s always plenty of good sportsmanship to go around these days.
Do you not understand that the days he DIDN’T lay money on his team he wasn’t managing to win? Or, worse, the bookies had him by the balls and told him that they would kneecap him unless he lost? There is enough history of that sort of thing that it cannot be discounted.
He was an active member of a Major League Baseball team, arguably the most important member of that team as his decisions directly impacted the game, and so he was banned. What he did as a player is totally, completely, and utterly irrelevant.
Of course, that’s been said (and ignored) multiple times in this thread, so I don’t expect reality to make a dent now.
PEDs puts you in bed with doctors … Gambling puts you in bed with the Mafia … I think that’s the difference.
I have always been torn about this. Rose was an amazing player, with a huge impact on the baseball history as he chased Ty Cobb’s hit record. He brought people to the park. He was also already in a deep financial trouble by then because of his gambling. Baseball knew it. The reason the he and the Reds couldn’t agree on a contract in 1978 was because they couldn’t or wouldn’t pay him enough to cover the debts. So he went to the free agent market.
Baseball knew that. Anyone in the game back then will tell you it’s so if they’re being honest. People knew he gambled. Baseball knew. The Reds knew.
But as soon as his value was over to baseball, just a player manager who no longer drew the great crowds, baseball jumped on his egregious sins.
That is such a huge sticking point for me. Always.
He should be in the HoF, with both his achievements and his downfall for all to see. I remember 1985. I remember how amazing the chase was. I remember the thrill when he returned to the Reds. It was grand theater.
But his enshrinement should be posthumous. And Shoeless Joe should get in, too.
Yes, but not until he’s dead and can no longer embarrass the sport.
There are other bad actors in the Hall and his stats are among the very best.
Yes, agree. I hope baseball is waiting until Rose dies. He’s 74, it won’t be much longer. Would be cool if they inducted Shoeless Joe at the same time.
Maybe put them all together in a bad-boy alcove?
The same alcove as Barry Bonds, yes. They can call it the Ty Cobb Alcove.
I am not a fan of this type of claim, where you maintain that “everybody knew” something that is widely thought to have been unknown, but then you add “if they’re being honest” so that you can’t be refuted by denials.
I don’t believe knowledge of this was at all widespread. What’s your evidence?