REVISITING PETE ROSE

The biggest sports controversy today remains his ban from Baseball and Pete Rose’s eligibility for the Hall of Fame.

If I may quote from Wikipedia: “Rose, a switch hitter, is the all-time Major League leader in hits (4,256), games played (3,562), at-bats (14,053) and outs (10,328).^[1] He won three World Series rings, three batting titles, one Most Valuable Player Award, two Gold Gloves, the Rookie of the Year Award, and made 17 All-Star appearances at an unequaled five different positions (2B, LF, RF, 3B & 1B).”

OK, he bet on baseball games including on his own teams, both as a player and a manager. These are the facts generally known to exist, and that he agreed to his ineligibility from baseball.

The books may be closed on the facts, but if you can include his records in the record book, recognize what he did as a ball player, that you should then expunge the records or reinstate the man. It seems that Major League Baseball is taking a position of unfairness, utilizing his name and records to sell baseball!

Let’s face it, someone will come along and challenge Pete’s records, and MLB will capitalize on it to sell tickets and hype the game. Is that right?

I can see the cheaters being excluded from the hall, they cheated and inflated their numbers artificially, and Pete Rose put the numbers up naturally, without cheating. His crime is he likes to bet, and we all know Pete Rose would never bet against himself, that along should qualify him for the Hall.

So, do you reinstate him?

If you do, you run the risk of having someone else betting on baseball and against his team, so how do you set a rule that makes sense? He did what he knew was wrong, but did it anyway. That was against the rules that he deliberately broke.

Would it make more sense to rule that Pete Rose was wrong, fine him and then put him in the hall? Is the severity of the punishment maybe too over the top? His being disgraced on the world stage of sports should be enough, and maybe what you do is deal with these cases on a case-by-case basis, those that bet on the game and those that bet against their interest with the idea of making money by deliberately throwing the game?

I’d love to hear form you on this.

That’s all I wrote, folks!