The Pete Rose debate goes on. It will continue to go on. It will outlast Rose. It will outlast Rob Manfred, the new commissioner. It will outlast Bud Selig, the old commissioner, who let Rose’s application for reinstatement languish in a desk drawer for 17 or 18 years. It will outlast Fay Vincent, the former commissioner, who last week contributed to this space a cogent explanation of why it is important for Rose to remain outside of Major League Baseball.
I readily and without reservation agree with Vincent. I haven’t trusted Rose since the day he lied to me in spring training of 1989, about 24 hours after he had appeared in Commissioner Peter Ueberroth’s office in New York to respond to questions from Ueberroth and Commissioner-elect Bart Giamatti about his alleged betting on baseball.
Rose lied in his reply to my question about why he had been summoned to New York, and he continued lying for 15 years. He was not only a gambler, violating baseball’s cardinal rule, but he was also a liar, whom his supporters believed until he came clean with the publication of his book in 2004.
Funny thing about those supporters. I don’t recall a single one who acknowledged he had been wrong for harshly criticizing John Dowd, the Washington, D.C., lawyer, and questioning his investigation of Rose’s gambling. He was right; they were wrong.
Rose, of course, was not banished for lying. The Hall of Fame, I am certain, has members who have lied about one thing or another. I believe in the next decade or two the Hall will have, if it doesn’t already, members who have lied about their use of performance-enhancing drugs.
If all Rose did was lie, he would already be a popular Cooperstown attraction. But he bet on baseball games and then lied, giving the Hall of Fame and Major League Baseball a legitimate reason to deprive him of baseball’s highest honor. Giamatti didn’t rule out the possibility of Rose’s reinstatement but said Rose had to “reconfigure” his life.
Rose was never one for those big words so it’s possible that he never knew or understood what Giamatti meant. Maybe that’s why it took him 15 years to come clean. Whatever the reason, an overwhelming majority of readers who commented agreed with Vincent’s position that Rose should not be allowed to enter the Hall of Fame.
“Right on, Commissioner!” wrote one reader.
Another reader commented on a few points in other columns and concluded his e-mail, “ALSO, NO PETE ROSE IN THE HOF.”
Similarly, another reader wrote, “and Rose —OUT.”
“No mercy on scum like him,” yet another reader remarked.
This reader, writing from Arlington, Va., chose to be less abrupt:
“I was stationed in Ohio with the Air Force while the Big Red Machine was at its apex and still admire the way Rose played and the incredible records he amassed, but your argument about the effectiveness of the ‘death penalty’ for gambling is irrefutable. Furthermore, the way he has acted since kicked out of baseball is disgusting. However, I wonder since you were so personally involved in the Commissioner’s action at the time, that there isn’t an emotional component at work in this case. What would you think about the veteran’s committee putting him in the HOF after he dies, based on his record as a player?”
(Editor’s note: I am out of the country and have been unable to reach Mr. Vincent to ask this question, but I don’t think there’s any chance he would support the idea.)
Here’s a question I can answer:
“Is there any evidence that Rose’s gambling ever affected the outcome of an MLB game? PED users obviously did, yet are not banned for life. If ARod can take another at-bat, then Charlie Hustle should.”
No one knows if Rose’s gambling affected the outcome of any Reds games, but we do know that Rose was the Reds’ manager, and every move a manager makes, from writing out the lineup to the last out, affects the outcome of his team’s games.
Furthermore, in Rose’s case, we know – as a result of Dowd’s investigation – that Rose did not bet on games started by Bill Gullickson. Rose obviously didn’t trust Gullickson and fed that information to the bookies by not betting on Gullickson games. Rose has said repeatedly that he never bet against the Reds, but his Gullickson strategy was as good as betting against the Reds.
Rose has also denied repeatedly that he placed bets from his office, but telephone records retrieved by Dowd proved otherwise.
An occasional reader did not agree with Vincent:
“My only issue with all of this is that Cobb and Speaker were caught red handed in the 1920’s for betting on teams and Commissioner Landis swept all the evidence under the carpet and about 8 years later they were inducted into the HOF.”
“I am for consistency. What’s good for one should be good for the other and if Cobb and Speaker were not in the Hall I could agree with your article but as long as they are in I cannot feel as though Rose should be banned for the same crime that Cobb and Speaker committed. To me this is Baseball hypocrisy.”
Another reader said he expect more from Vincent, referring to his column as pontification. Aside from that, though:
“the facts should not be ignored: bet on baseball; Lied; entered into an agreement not to seek reinstatement and only admitted what he did when he could personally benefit. Rose doesn’t deserve reinstatement. Baseball needs integrity, which it sadly lacks, having missed the steroid era. Let Rose be a freak, sitting at a table in Las Vegas and trolling the streets in Cooperstown during the H of F celebration weekend.”
Then there were these reactions:
“Thank you for running Fay Vincent’s letter on the subject of mercy for Pete Rose. Amen to Vincent’s reassertion of Rule 21: ‘Bet on your game and you are gone.’”
“Thanks for giving Mr. Vincent a forum to elegantly explain why reinstating Pete Rose would be a mistake with possibly dire consequences. I think Selig never decided, and thus left open the possibility of reinstatement, because his judgment was often influenced by the wind in so many other cases as well. There always has been some controversy about the Rose issue, and I’ve never seen Selig as a highly principled man as in the mold of Vincent or Giamatti. I feel he’s always been the pragmatic businessman masquerading as some wise overseer. It seems to make sense of the man and his lack of decisiveness.”
“Thanks for printing Vincent’s cogent point. We can’t know how many baseball people through the years have been deterred by the gambling ‘death penalty.’ If Rose wasn’t a sociopath he would understand (they don’t and couldn’t care less) that his penalty has helped the game he professes to love. Vincent’s right; Rose is still Charley Hustle.”
Finally, one reader put in a lot of time, effort and research to make his case for allowing Rose to return, producing links to about 10 articles explaining how beneficial his return could be for baseball. He makes three major points:
“POINT #1. The first is that it is just the right thing to do not only for Pete Rose but also for Shoeless Joe.
“When does punishment go too far? The above are varying issues where the line between punishing and when punishment becomes too much and gone amuck.
“POINT #2. At 73 it is questionable if Pete Rose could ever manage in the Major Leagues. He could do lots of good in terms of mentoring, making appearances for various causes all under the supervision if you will of the Commissioner and MLB.
“What is in it for Baseball?
“There are lots of Pete Rose fans count me among them. Do all of us know he was wrong. Absolutely. Do all of us feel he should have been punished? Absolutely. Do all of us feel Shoeless Joe Jackson was unfairly treated and convicted without just cause or just defense? Absolutely.
“What could Pete Rose do for the game of Baseball that isn’t being done now?
“POINT #3. All this talk about whether he will be elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame. I submit that in many ways the Hall of Fame is no longer that. Instead it’s a collection of some great baseball players for sure certainly not all inclusive, there are some who’s credentials are at best minimal, there are some who had the stats but their other antics would leave anyone to question how they ever got in.”
There is much I could write about why much, if not most, of this is nonsense, but I’ll leave it at this:
The case for allowing Rose back is as weak and as foolish as was the case supporting him when he denied that he bet on baseball.