Pitchers and catchers report!

[quarter23cd]

Pete Rose bet on the Reds every night!!

I think Pete's HOF issues have less to do with the actual betting than the fact that we still don't know what his winning % was with his bets. These are important stats for the Hall to consider!

[Lammycat]

The key to Pete "coming clean" yet again after years of lies and slanderous remarks against his accusers is that he is probably still lying even in this latest "admittance." He wants people to believe that he "bet on them to win" every night because he "believed in his team." Please. A professional gambler claiming this?

 

Pete Rose is a crock of shit and deserves everything he has brought upon himself.

[cryptique]

Pete Rose is a crock of shit and deserves everything he has brought upon himself.

Agreed. But he should also be in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

[Lammycat]

As I can only put quaotation marks and cite the poster, not "reply," :

 

cryptique: "Agreed. But he should also be in the Baseball Hall of Fame."

 

No. He shouldn't. He broke a, if not the, fundamental rule of baseball. I don't care if he was playing, managing, or bat-boying at the time. The penalty for being found guilty of this baseball crime is banishment. Why should a player banished from the game be a candidate for the HOF?

 

Not to mention he volunteeringly accepted a lifelong ban from the game.

 

Also, does the HOF want a guy like Rose voting for other player's elibibilty/character? Yes, there are Ty Cobb's in the HOF, but they were just mean pricks.

[MattZ]

I am with Lammycat. The entire institution of sport is predicated on an assumption by the fans that everything is kosher. The instant that that credibility is shot, all of sport becomes nonexistent or irrelevant.

 

Even the slightest bit of doubt in a fan's mind about whether players are throwing a game or persons involved are gambling (for or against their team) is unacceptable. Hence, any player/manager involved in it needs to be punished so harshly as to send a message to anyone else in the game that would consider it.

 

On its face, Rose's penalty may not - on a gut level - feel fair or measured. But Rose needs to be made an example of. Sucks for him. He shouldn't have bet on baseball.

 

EDIT: so why is Gaylord Perry in the HOF? Because cheating is not gambling. Its impact on the sanctity of the game is completely different.

[bobbob1313]

EDIT: so why is Gaylord Perry in the HOF? Because cheating is not gambling. Its impact on the sanctity game is completely different.

 

So if someone can prove without a shadow of a doubt that Bonds used steriods in the seasons before there were rules stating penalties for being caught, would he get in?

 

It's the Hall of Fame, not the Honor Roll. Let the guys who earned it get in, and let the good guys go to a seperate hall. We'll call it the David Eckstein Memorial Hall of Average Players Who Were Really Nice People, or Who Put On A Good Public Persona.

[Lammycat]

So players banished from the sport deserve contemplation for a place in the HOF? This doesn't make sense to me. And it's not easy getting banned from the sport....

[quarter23cd]

EDIT: so why is Gaylord Perry in the HOF? Because cheating is not gambling. Its impact on the sanctity of the game is completely different.

So, by this logic, is gambling a more serious offense than, say, steroid use? One holds the potential to undermine the game on a large scale (via temptation to alter performance to suit ulterior motives), while the other can still be regarded as more of an individual offense.(even if it can undermine the game on a larger level if widespread) Which has more bearing one's legacy?

 

I understand wanting to make an example out of Pete, yet on some levels the "sanctity of the game" argument becomes hard to swallow. I'd much rather see him in the hall than, say, McGuire. Chances are neither will end up there anyway, so the point is probably moot. But then the question arises--do they deserve to be written out of history for their actions? Its already happening for Rose, as there's a younger generation who only knows him as "that gambling guy" and know probably very little about the fact that he was a helluva player. Are we focusing on the wrong things? In our efforts to maintain some sense of "purity" (whatever that means) are we forgetting the game's real history in favor of soap opera crap?

 

I'm really not sure I have a strong opinion either way, but its aways interesting to kick these ideas around.

[Lammycat]

I have to go but real quick: steroids use involves individual integrity/numbers/ etc. Gambling throws the entire game into another dimension. It jeopardizes the sport as a whole....

 

And, Rose has only Rose to blame as being known as : "that gambling guy." No one else is at fault here. It's too bad, but they were his choices to make.

[MrRain422]

The reason gambling is such a no-no in baseball goes back to the Black Sox scandal. In 1919, gambling almost destroyed the game. If Babe Ruth didn't come along and save it, baseball would have crumbled. Fact.

 

Steroids are certainly a big black mark on the game, but they have never threated the continued success of the sport the way that gambling did in 1919. It may take some time, but baseball can and will recover from the steroids scandal. Relatively speaking, it hasn't been hurt nearly as badly by steroids. Not even in the same ballpark.

 

I'm not sure if Pete Rose will ever get into the Hall of Fame, and quite frankly I haven't really decided if I think he should be. There's no question that he was a good enough player -- he was better than the majority of the guys already in there. But everyone in the game knows that gambling on the game is simply not allowed. It is posted on the wall of every clubhouse in baseball. Yes, Rose's gambling did not hurt the game in the same way that the 1919 White Sox did, but I think the MLB's position is that the potential is always there, and the potential harm to the game could have been greater than the good that Rose did for it.

 

He also has hurt his case immeasurably by lying about it for a couple decades before coming clean. He was a great player, but he could not care less about the integrity of the game, and that means something.

[Duck-Billed Catechist]

So if someone can prove without a shadow of a doubt that Bonds used steriods in the seasons before there were rules stating penalties for being caught, would he get in?

 

It's the Hall of Fame, not the Honor Roll. Let the guys who earned it get in, and let the good guys go to a seperate hall. We'll call it the David Eckstein Memorial Hall of Average Players Who Were Really Nice People, or Who Put On A Good Public Persona.

Straw man.

[quarter23cd]

Yes, Rose's gambling did not hurt the game in the same way that the 1919 White Sox did, but I think the MLB's position is that the potential is always there, and the potential harm to the game could have been greater than the good that Rose did for it.

Yeah, I get that. I just like playing devil's advocate sometimes. Sometimes it seems weird to take such a hardline stance against potential harm, you know? Certainly Rose's betting didn't have the same effect on the game as the Black Sox scandal--you could make the argument that we have little or no evidence that it had any, at all. But there's something to be said for making an example of him to warn others. Like you said, its not like he didn't know the rules. (and he most certainly has acted like an ass for a couple decades now, which has only hurt him) Oh well. Them's the rules. Gambling is wrong, people.

 

Excuse me, I gotta go update my tourney bracket...

[rwrkb]

it's better that he got his betting on the reds out of the way. that man would be dead broke right now if he were still doing that...

 

 

 

come to think of it, i think i now know why tyson is broke too.

[bobbob1313]

Straw man.

 

Que?

 

 

The new Firejoemorgan.com post has one of my favorite lines ever:

 

Quiet respite from his hectic schedule is hard to come by, but in the seconds before every plate appearance, Juan Pierre makes the sign of the cross and prays in silence.

 

"Please God, give me the strength to OBP higher than Alfredo Amezaga this year."

[MrRain422]

I like it when they call him John Peter.

[Duck-Billed Catechist]

Que?

No one suggested that anyone should get extra points towards the HOF for being a "good guy."

 

It was only suggested that certain things compromise the game enough to warrant exclusion.

[cryptique]

I'm not a Rose apologist by any means ... I'm repulsed by what he did -- AS A MANAGER. But as a player, he was quite simply one of the top five or ten players ever to play the game. A baseball hall of fame that omits him is rewriting history and ignoring the facts.

 

I think he's an idiot, a scumbag, and worse ... but no one can legitimately deny that he earned it on the field, and consequently, I believe he should be in. If the folks in Cooperstown want to post warnings and cautionary tales about his later gambling anywhere his ugly mug is displayed, fine, do that. Etch the word "SHAME" in the forehead of his bust, if you want. Tarnish his name at every turn -- but he earned it, and he should be there, even if it's in a compromised form.

 

I happen to think that performance-enhancing substances are a bigger sin than betting on one's own team, and you know there will be plenty of 'roid-heads in the Hall when it's all said and done. Sure, there's a little bit of moral relativism in that view, but we're all kidding ourselves if we think that everyone who's already in the Hall is squeaky-clean. I understand the outrage over what Rose did, believe me -- but I also believe that his playing career earned him the right to be enshrined, end of story.

 

Rose certainly hasn't helped his cause, and I won't exert any further effort defending him (not that I feel that I'm actually defending him at all). I've merely stated my opinion.

[caliber66]

I think he's an idiot, a scumbag, and worse ... but no one can legitimately deny that he earned it on the field, and consequently, I believe he should be in.

[bobbob1313]

No one suggested that anyone should get extra points towards the HOF for being a "good guy."

 

It was only suggested that certain things compromise the game enough to warrant exclusion.

 

I wasn't saying they deserve extra recognition, I'm saying that those who were "bad guys" shouldn't have that taken away from them. It should be about what you did on the field, period.

[rwrkb]

It should be about what you did on the field, period.

 

i agree. but i believe it only as long as what they did on the field wasn't done with illegal assistance.

[MrRain422]

Joe Jackson too then, right?

[rwrkb]

Joe Jackson too then, right?

 

i'm all for his reinstatement.

[quarter23cd]

I think there's a fair chance Pete will get in posthumously, but I don't think it will happen in his lifetime. The lifetime ban was instituted partially to use him as a warning to others--its harsh, but I don't think we'll see them back down from that. But I do wonder if he'll be granted a bit of forgiveness once he's gone. After all, if part of the Hall's job is to record the history of the game, it would be a glaring omission to go on pretending he never existed.

[bjorn_skurj]

The reason why gambling is dealt with so harshly is that it undermines what makes baseball interesting - the suspense generated by two teams doing their level best to win the game. Once that is gone, you may as well be watching professional wrestling. If you can't trust the outcome is an honestly generated one, the game will wither and die. So fuck Pete Rose. He was a great ballplayer, maybe one of the top five of all time, but his excommunication is very well deserved.

[MrRain422]

I think there's a fair chance Pete will get in posthumously, but I don't think it will happen in his lifetime. The lifetime ban was instituted partially to use him as a warning to others--its harsh, but I don't think we'll see them back down from that. But I do wonder if he'll be granted a bit of forgiveness once he's gone. After all, if part of the Hall's job is to record the history of the game, it would be a glaring omission to go on pretending he never existed.

 

Well, not to nitpick too much, but the building itself is the Hall of Fame and Museum. The Hall of Fame is meant to honor people, and the museum is meant to record the history of the game. And Pete Rose is in the museum. His records are acknowledged. There are pictures of him. He's just not in the Hall. They're not pretending he didn't exist.