Why the level of hatred toward Pete Rose?

[Enginerd]

@Harborwolf

The main issue about the “girls softball” incident was that it was the All Star game iirc. It adds nothing to the stats. It doesn’t count in the win loss. It’s a meaningless fluff good time game. For him to go in hard and try to take out the catcher is mildly unsportsmanlike and majorly assholish. It helps prove that the guy was a jerk of legendary quality.

I play “meaningless fluff good time games” of football with friends, but we still play hard - you play to win. There’s no shoratge of proof that Rose is a lousy human being; I just don’t think this incident qualifies.

[Moirai]

Martin Hyde sez-

Taking a catcher out to score a run isn’t unsportsmanlike, it’s done all the time in Major League games. It’s part of the sport, you don’t go out of your way to hurt someone, but hey, it happens. It’s a physical sport. It’s not as physical as football or rugby but people still collide legally at times.

But not in a game that doesn’t matter one bit. I am all for hard play, and tough catchers- hell, Mike Scioscia manages my team! King of the badass catchers, that one. But in an All-Star game? Please. It simply isn’t done.

Also,

NameTag sez-

I don’t give a good goddamn that gambling is the “ultimate sin” in baseball – the question is whether it should be.

Yes, it should. We’ve seen what can happen when it isn’t. I am a huge baseball fan, and it would break my heart to see it end up like boxing, where the fix is almost always in, and there is barely enough integrity to fill a soup spoon. Allegedly.

[Martin_Hyde]

It was a legitimate slide, he didn’t interfere with a catch or anything like that.

People seem to think the All-Star game shouldn’t be played like a real game, which is something that really bothers me. If we aren’t going to play it, then don’t schedule it. Just use the All-Star break to give out little plaques to players who have been voted as All-Stars and to hold the Home Run Derby.

In ages of old when the All-Star game started it was an intense game played between leagues, each league wanting like hell to beat the other one. Now, the All-Star managers just mix up the roster so every single players gets to “play in the All-Star game” the game means nothing and you end up having the impossible situation of a tie in baseball.

I don’t like Pete Rose the manager, Pete Rose the gambler or Pete Rose the player-manager (that kept himself in the lineup over superior players just to break Cobb’s record.)

But Pete Rose the “player” was a guy who gave his all every single play, this guy was a real gamer and there’s no way he was going to play it like a fluff game when he felt he could score a run.

[don_t_ask]

@Enginerd

Incidentally, the term “lifetime ban” is more shorthand than an accurate description of MLB’s position. Rose (and others) are on the “Permanently Ineligible List.” Permanent extends beyond lifetime - the Black Sox players are still on the list, for example.

@BobT

Some members of the 1877 Louisville team in the NL are still on the Permanently Ineligible List, which wasn’t formally created until Rose was up for the HOF.

So much for my brilliant plan for a Zombie League.

[RickJay]

@Guinastasia

Well, the reason it is is because it can destroy the game itself. It became the cardinal rule after it was found that the White Sox threw the 1919 World Series for betting purposes.

Besides, I thought it was just that he wasn’t listed as a HOF-er, but he’s still featured in the museum parts, right?

In fact, it’s all over the place. The Hall does not downplay his position in baseball history.

[Little_Nemo]

Compare the problems major league baseball is having with drugs with the problems it’s having with gambling. If every player who failed a drug test was declared permanently ineligible, the drug problems would end. And on the opposite side, if MLB tried to “control” gambling problems rather than have a zero tolerance policy, gambling would be a serious problem in the sport.

[hajario]

@BobT

The catcher in question was Ray Fosse, who was not out for the rest of the season. Fosse caught 10 games in the 9 days after the incident.

I should have done some research before saying what I said because I did overstate things. Fosse was badly injured though (separated shoulder) and claimed that he never fully recovered.

[Fish]

For those people still looking for answers to the OP: yeah, the aversion to cheating and associating with gamblers goes way back in baseball to before the game even became professional.

Initially, players weren’t paid, but playing for fun. A mercantile company’s might compete with a team from the grocery, or whatever. It wasn’t very long before the game started to change. Good athletes were given broom-propping jobs at the company in order to be a “ringer” for their company’s team.

I believe it was near the inception of the American League (as a discrete business entity from the National League) that the AL advertised its games as being a cleaner, better brand of baseball, free from the alcoholic rowdies in the stands, and games were ten cents cheaper. Once upon a day, the alleged absence of the gambling influence was a selling point between competing leagues.

One presumes now that the prohibition on cheating and gambling stems from two sources: one, that’s what we’ve always done, going back to players in the 19th century. Throw a game, and you’re out. Two, there’s probably a perception among owners that cheating decreases ticket sales. (I wouldn’t know if that’s true.)

Personally, I don’t like Pete Rose, but I’m a bit of a cynic about the Hall of Fame. If they think that keeping Rose out will hurt their ticket sales and tourist revenue, they should put him in. If they think they’re better off banning him, then do that. They’re just a big building with stuff in it, and a list of names not everybody agrees with. I don’t care who’s in the Hall of Fame, because I have my own personal list of players I know and like; who gives a rip what some place across the country says?

[zamboniracer]

@BobT

The catcher in question was Ray Fosse, who was not out for the rest of the season. Fosse caught 10 games in the 9 days after the incident.

Are you saying that Rose’s act did not cause Fosse’s injuries? Players were much more hesitant to go on the DL in 1970. They didn’t have multiyear guaranteed contracts and a young player like Fosse was justiafiably fearful of losing his job, and so even with legitimate injuries many players back then tried to tough it out and play. Before the injury Fosse was being compared to Johnny Bench (who was already a great star) after the injury Fosse was not close to being the same player.

In 1970 I was a little league catcher in suburban Cleveland who worshipped Ray Fosse, so it isn’t that I’m bitter at Rose or anything.

Even so, Rose’s play was a cheap shot. Fosse was blocking the baseline without the ball, but Rose could’ve easily slid around him. A blindside hit on a catcher is a dirty play, “Charlie Hustle” be damned.

[Martin_Hyde]

Fosse just wasn’t all that great.

In the 1970 season (the season Fosse got hit by Rose in the All-Star game) Fosse was an All-Star and a Gold Glove Catcher. He had a batting average of .307 and 18 home runs.

In the 1971 season Fosse was again an All-Star and again a Gold Glove winner. His batting average went down to .276 and his home run totals went down to 12. But he had more at bats in 1971 and more games played.

After that Fosse’s career declined steadily and eventually he wasn’t even a regular player by the time he retired in 1979.

I think Fosse was a baseball player who had a few good seasons in him, and never would’ve become great whether or not he had been slid in to by Pete Rose in the 1970 All-Star game.

[BwanaBob]

@astorian

You’re being obtuse here.

The problem isn’t that gambling is a “sin.” It isn’t that gambling is immoral. It’s that gambling and/or associating with underworld figures in the gambling business puts the credibility and integrity of the gamer of baseball at risk.

If Pete Rose were charged with going to prostiitutes, with smoking pot, with being a secret member of the Ku Klux Klan… if he were charged with any number of things that some people consider highly immoral, he would STILL belong in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and he would STILL be eligible to be a coach or manager. The issue is not whether Pete is a nice guy. The issue is whether he would compromise the integrity of the game.

To use an analogy, my boss would NOT fire me if she found out I was committing adultery. She would NOT fire me if she found out I cheated on my income tax return. She would not fire me for beating my wife. But she WOULD fire me if I stole $20.00 worth of office supplies.

Does that mean petty theft is worse than beating my wife? NO! But it DOES mean that a minor job-related crime IS a valid reason to fire me and blackball me, while a serious crime that’s NOT related to my job isn’t.

I’m sure there have been many baseball players and manager who were worse human beings than Pete Rose. But as long as their crimes were unrelated to baseball, that’s unimportant.

This argument presupposes that gambling indeed destroys the credibility of the game. I submit to you the billions of dollars bet on football. Unless you want to say all of the NFL is meaningless/fixed crap…

[Guinastasia]

Do the coaches and players bet on their own game in the NFL? It’s not just gambling in and of itself. No one would have cared if Pete Rose had been having a weekly poker night, for example.

[zamboniracer]

@Guinastasia

Do the coaches and players bet on their own game in the NFL? It’s not just gambling in and of itself. No one would have cared if Pete Rose had been having a weekly poker night, for example.

In fact, nobody DID care that Rose also bet at horse and dog race tracks. Rose’s gambling with local bookies on NFL and college sports, as opposed to at Las Vegas casinos, was more problematic because those activities were illegal. Baseball’s poobahs frowned on illegal gambling but they turned a blind eye so long as baseball games were not involved.

[Cardinal]

@BwanaBob

This argument presupposes that gambling indeed destroys the credibility of the game. I submit to you the billions of dollars bet on football. Unless you want to say all of the NFL is meaningless/fixed crap…

The point here is that those billions are bet by people with no control of the outcome. You can be SURE the NFL commissioner would get very cranky if news came out that someone on a team payroll were betting on NFL games (well, maybe not the secretaries, I don’t know).

As a case in point, I quote here from ESPN:

Paul Hornung, the Green Bay Packers running back who had scored an NFL record 176 points in 1960 and been named MVP in 1961, and Alex Karras, the Detroit Lions All-Pro defensive tackle, were suspended by Pete Rozelle for betting on NFL games and associating with gamblers. Hornung, said Rozelle, had bet up to $500 on NFL games, and Karras, he said, had placed at least a half dozen $50-$100 bets.

Both players sat out for a full season, before being reinstated.

I think the NFL hasn’t gotten as strict about it as MLB because of the reason already mentioned: MLB almost died from gambling scandal.

[DKW]

There was a time that I actually sympathized with him a bit. I found the reasons for keeping out of the Hall of Fame at best overblown, and this whole righteous vendetta to keep him out smacked of vindictiveness. Some people on this board tried to explain to me why gambling was so unforgivable, but I just couldn’t understand.

Now, I just wish he’d just stop being so damn full of himself and come clean. I don’t see what the hell he has to gain with a hard-line stance. His problem is that the ones with the power to vote him in don’t want to. He wants in, he neds to fix that. Geez, didn’t anyone teach this guy about PR? Public image? Compromise? Looking out for number one?

If you’ve been dealt a bad hand, I sympathize. If you don’t make any effort to improve your lot, I just stop caring.

[RickJay]

@Cardinal

Paul Hornung, the Green Bay Packers running back who had scored an NFL record 176 points in 1960 and been named MVP in 1961, and Alex Karras, the Detroit Lions All-Pro defensive tackle, were suspended by Pete Rozelle for betting on NFL games and associating with gamblers. Hornung, said Rozelle, had bet up to $500 on NFL games, and Karras, he said, had placed at least a half dozen $50-$100 bets.

Both players sat out for a full season, before being reinstated.

I think the NFL hasn’t gotten as strict about it as MLB because of the reason already mentioned: MLB almost died from gambling scandal.

there’s also a rather massive different in degree. I really do not believe an MLB player would be suspended for life if it was discovered he’d placed a $50 bet on a baseball game. Rose was betting tens of thousands of dollars on a weekly basis.

[Fish]

I can go along with that. There was a previous betting scandal involving Ty Cobb (of the Detroit Tigers) and Tris Speaker (then of the Cleveland Indians) which led to nothing close to a lifetime ban:

In 1926 a gambling scandal broke concerning a questionable game between Detroit and Cleveland in 1919. Speaker and Ty Cobb were alleged to have participated, and AL president Ban Johnson secured their “resignations” as managers to protect baseball’s image. Speaker ended his career with single seasons with the Senators and Athletics.

From here.