I just read the Pete Rose article from last weeks SI.
I still think he is lying. After reading his "Confession" I am even more convinced that he DID not only bet on the reds, but bet AGAINST them.
Anyone who is down 100's of thousands to a bookie would throw a game here and there. It would be too easy not to.
I say Pete is the ultimate Scum Bag and should not be allowed near the hall of fame building, let alone as an inductee.
He had one of the best careers anyone will ever have, but he blew it. Shoeless Joe Jackson apparently "fixed" the 1919 world series despite his numbers being awesome during that series. He has a lifetime ban. Eff pete rose.
Originally posted by CANADIAN BULLDOGWhat about giving people a second chance in life?
When he comes clean. He is like a small child whose perception of what he can get away with is skewed by what he wants. The trouble is, he is supposed to be a grown man. He just doesn't understand what he did and why it was bad. Let him in the damn hall and then ignore him. He was an incredible baseball player but a troubled human being. If he ever understands waht he did, welcome him back with open arms.
Plus the way he hijacked the HOF inductees was BS.
As much as I love Charlie Hustle as a player, it's apparent he bet on Baseball and that's the rules. Shoeless Joe had to deal with as did the rest of the Sox and others.
If you read the reports, Rose is saying whatever it takes to get in the hall. But his runners are saying different stuff. And others are saying different stuff. And that's different than what he said before.
I forgive him. But there are consequences to your actions. The consequences to Pete betting on Baseball is he doesn't make the hall and people say his name in the same sentance with Joe Jackson's forever. I'd let him back in baseball to be anything except manager. If he stayed clean, I'd allow him to be on the ballot in another 10 years.
But I know addicts. They are rarely healed. I bet (hah!) Pete is laying down some coin on action as we type.
Bob Kohm (Co-owner and writer for www.rotojunkies.com ) had this to say about Rose, and I agree with it 100%.
Originally posted by Bob Kohm @ rotojunkies.comIn the context of baseball, the use of drugs hurts only the player. In the context of baseball, the use of alcohol hurts only the player. In the context of baseball, womanizing hurts whom? Maybe the wife of the player? In the context of baseball, felonies are crimes against society, not against baseball. In the context of baseball, gambling is the only crime against baseball.
Gambling, in the context of baseball, is a capital offense and Rose has richly earned-- hell, he agreed to-- his death sentence. Let him hang.
All Pete Rose cares about is his ego, and that ego is the reason year after year we hear his name overshadowing men like Molitor and Eckersley who played by the rules and deserved to get where they are now.
One point to mention? Rose was paid a $1,000,000 book advance to finally confess to his betting on the Reds. Yep, after all of these years, it wasn't Rose's chronic lying eating away at his conscience that resulted in a confession. If there's one thing Rose cares more about than his ego, it's money.
I don't mean to sound biased against Rose. I picked this topic for my junior paper and junior speech in high school, and I DEFENDED him in them. I know where he's coming from. Dozens and dozens of people in the Hall right now had character issues much worse than Rose. You had womanizers, alcoholics, racists, drug abusers, criminals and all sorts of bad apples. But those character issues don't undermine the sport of baseball as they do the individual. Betting on baseball is a whole different ballgame. Rose knew the rules, he broke them, and he should forever pay the price. I wouldn't care too much if baseball had a change of heart and let Rose in the HOF, because if player deserves it, it's him. But the current practice is the right way to go.
I think he should be let into the hall, as a player, because, as a player he deserves it. But, never, ever let him, in any way, shape or form, be associated with baseball ever again.
The problem with the Joe Jackson case is that whether he helped to throw the 1919 WS or not, which is of course more than debatable, is that to have him removed from the permanently ineligable list would require a hearing by Major League Baseball, and considering that no one who was directly involved with the case is still alive, it would be highly difficult to prove it in a formal hearing.
The one thing history forgets about then-Commish Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis was that he was a megalomanic of a bench judge who made these awful legal decisions that would constantly end up overturned on appeal, and one of the main reasons he took the job as commissioner was that he was given final authority and no longer would he have to face the embarassment of one of his decisions being overturned. So even though in a court of law the Black Sox were found not guilty (even though some were and some were not), Landis lumped them all together when he issued the order to put all of the accused on the permanant eligibility listw ith very little chance of it being overturned THEN, let alone 80 years later. But it certainly wasn't going to happen on Landis' watch. Not if it meant admitting to a mistake in judgement.
Do I think Jackson threw the 1919 World Series? Based on what I've read on the topic, I don't beleive he did. However, there's no firsthand eyewitness to say one way or the other and given the procedure of reinstatement in baseball, that's the problem.
In Rose's case, the problem is the opposite. There are too many people testifying AGAINST even what he's claiming now. Including the possibility that even after all these years he's only telling a portion of the truth and not all of it. Which for the purposes of him being reinstated isn't going to cut it. But that's the problem with people who recant lies of this nature...you don't know when to start believing them.
If he was lying then, whats to say he isnt now. A half-truth is still a lie.
I think if shoeless joe was going to get in, it would have happened 10 years ago when the 8 men out movie came out. That's when a case could have been made, because the public was interested in the subject again.
If he was lying then, whats to say he isnt now. A half-truth is still a lie.
I think if shoeless joe was going to get in, it would have happened 10 years ago when the 8 men out movie came out. That's when a case could have been made, because the public was interested in the subject again.
If they let Pete in, he likely goes in. It really appears that he didn't do anything and after all this time baseball owes it to him to clear his name.
When I interviewed Bill James he said he compared those who thought Jackson was innocent and should be in the HoF to women who fall in love with condemned murderers...
James had a bunch of points that lead to saying Jackosn helped throw the games, including newspaper accounts of him throwing to the wrong bases in key situations, his own admission that he "just poked" at the ball when asked, that the otherwise tremendous fielder allowed THREE triples to left field (one of the rarest hits in the game), plus the fact he had asked for more money from the gamblers before trying to rat out the team.
You can hide his actions behind his "lack of education" all you want, but it was more like a "lack of scruples". He was a game-throwin' rat bastard.
Damn...he was THIS CLOSE to playing in 7 or 8 different decades. :-) Ah, Jesse Orosco...another former Brewer. (Big deal...he was a former-any-other-team-in-the-damn-league too.)