rip: Pete Rose entered the cosmic hall of fame today

[BumbleBeeDave]

. . . about rules now vs. then. Totally irrelevant. He broke the rules then and was punished then. If he did indeed sign the agreement to avoid further investigation, then he had a reason. There may have been way more to what he was doing at that time than what came out at that time. We will likely never know.

To me, those trying to somehow excuse his behavior breaking the rules when he did-and he knew what they were when he broke them-are saying to me just as much about their own worldview as they are saying about Rose.

BBD

[ColonelJLloyd]

Let's say you believe that Rose only ever bet on his team to win. If you have an understanding of a 162 game season and bullpen management you can imagine the very real problems here.

[goonster]

Originally Posted by BumbleBeeDave

He broke the rules then and was punished then.

There's a legit gripe that the Hall didn't amend it's rules (exclusion := ineligibility for induction) until two years after the agreement.

It's the only thing anyone really cares about, and they could change it unilaterally.

But yeah: No Pete Rose without Joe Jackson.

[Mr. Pink]

Originally Posted by goonster

R.I.P. Pete Rose, whose baseball legacy speaks for itself.

Halls of Fame are dumb, and the entire induction discourse is a colossal waste of time.

Yeah, but, it's Cooperstown. You have to hear a speech before you pass judgement. It's an awesome place. Watch a game played in that hidden ball park in town. And some of the best cycling in the country.

[wc1934]

This was eluded to before - Maybe splitting hairs - but:
The HOF isn't keeping Rose out. It is MLB.

Rose is on the MLB ineligible list: A list of major-league players or otehrs found guilty of misconduct (attempting to throw games, bribe players or umpires, or bet on games) or convicted of crimes involving moral turpitude. Players on the ineligible list are not eligible to play or associate with any major- or minor-league club).

HOF states "Any player on Baseball's ineligible list shall not be an eligible candidate".

He admitted to betting on games as a player and manager - and if one goes into his personal life - tax evasion, sex scandal and alleged corked bat it seems unlikely that MLB will lift the ban.

[makoti]

Originally Posted by quacker2000

PED users, racists, criminals, etc are all in the Hall. Whole swaths of players are in the hall before the color barrier was broken!! Negro leauge players are only just now trickling in...

I'm not giving Pete a pass for the behavior, and I understand how his actions hurt the integrity of the game. He certainly "did his time". Even watching the recent HBO docuseries, it's clear Pete paid for this mistake for the rest of his life. Never got to move past it and was campaigning for his re-introduction till the end.

But! I agree with the stance that the Hall should be, if nothing else, to tell the story of baseball and sometimes that on the field greatness came with a lot of other junk. To scrub players like Bonds, Clemens, Manny, Arod, Pete, Mcgwire, etc from the hall because they broke the rules and admitted it does a disservice to how we should be able to contend with the history of a complicated game with complicated characters.

The only reason to not include them is pure moralistic gatekeeping for a game that has never had the high ground on this front.

If you don't understand the problem, I'd suggest you drop it.
Baseball will allow you to be a terrible person, and put you in the Hall. Ty Cobb.
Baseball will give you way too many chances to get your act together and still play. Steve Howe
Baseball will NOT allow you to screw with the game's integrity. If you mess with that through gambling, you are done. Pete Rose
If you mess with it through cheating or pushing the limits on what is legal, you might never see the Hall. Barry Bonds.

Baseball is not, never has, moralizing about the demon gambling. Baseball is, always has, protecting itself from the hint that the games may not be on the up and up.

I am lost as to why you cannot see the difference.

Baseball isn't scrubbing anything, it simply isn't honoring those who got where they did by unacceptable means.
Rose IS the hits leader. Look it up.
Bonds IS the HR leader. Look it up.

The only ones "moralizing" are those attempting to make his ban about something it never was to give themselves SOMETHING to base their insistence that he should be allowed in on.

[donevwil]

Bud Selig's in the Hall. If that doesn't provide perspective, nothing will.

[goonster]

Originally Posted by wc1934

HOF states "Any player on Baseball's ineligible list shall not be an eligible candidate".

OK, and when did they state that?

1991.

[Mr. Pink]

Originally Posted by makoti

Baseball will NOT allow you to screw with the game's integrity. If you mess with that through gambling, you are done.



...

Unless they get a piece of the action?

[glepore]

Originally Posted by makoti

If you don't understand the problem, I'd suggest you drop it.
Baseball will allow you to be a terrible person, and put you in the Hall. Ty Cobb.
Baseball will give you way too many chances to get your act together and still play. Steve Howe
Baseball will NOT allow you to screw with the game's integrity. If you mess with that through gambling, you are done. Pete Rose
If you mess with it through cheating or pushing the limits on what is legal, you might never see the Hall. Barry Bonds.

Baseball is not, never has, moralizing about the demon gambling. Baseball is, always has, protecting itself from the hint that the games may not be on the up and up.

I am lost as to why you cannot see the difference.

Baseball isn't scrubbing anything, it simply isn't honoring those who got where they did by unacceptable means.
Rose IS the hits leader. Look it up.
Bonds IS the HR leader. Look it up.

The only ones "moralizing" are those attempting to make his ban about something it never was to give themselves SOMETHING to base their insistence that he should be allowed in on.

This. I was in Philly in 80, and it was special. Pete was a special ballplayer. But the hall? He disqualified himself.

I despise nothing more than the current atmosphere of sports gambling. Its horrible for our youth/young adults. But baseball "embracing" it isn't contradictory. They've always been fine with money. What they're not fine with is ANY indication that games might not be on the level. Same deal with all professional sports leagues.

And really, who cares about the HOF? Its a popularity contest run by sportswriters. Winners win, they don't get "elected".

[tctyres]

No thanks.

Lance Armstrong but in a different sport.

[froze]

Pete Rose was always about the money. Even trivial things like his son when he was in middle school had to sell stuff for the school, and who ever sold the most won something, well Pete Rose stood right beside his son at the mall, and his son won!

This is a tough thing, Pete, like Lance, worked hard to get where they were. There is cheating going on in every sport, whether drugs, gambling, mechanical advantages, everyone cheats, even some of you reading this cheat on your taxes, college students cheat on their exams and term papers, there's cheating in high school sports, cheating on trying to get you child into college, the list goes on and on, we seriously live in a world that cheats any chance we get. Even Mohammad Ali was in a fight where his opponent threw the fight, and Ali screamed at him saying: "GET UP, I DIDN'T EVEN TOUCH YOU!" But it was ruled a knockout because the guy couldn't get up before the count. There's an old saying that came out of NASCAR: "If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying". Professional fishermen cheat too, one guy put lead weights in his fish to make them scale heavier; another put pre-caught large fish at his pre-selected fishing hole that were strung up and still alive when he got there. I can't list every cheating situation, it would take over a year to type it all in, but you get my point.

In any sport if the winner is caught cheating, the second-place person becomes the winner. The Lance Armstrong thing, the whole peloton was cheating, that's why the second-place person didn't become the winner, because the Cycling committee knew it would open a can of worms, and Lance would have opened it, so they left 7 years without a winner. A lot of people cheated in the TDF, one person was suspected of putting a motor inside the frame of his bike, now they x-ray the bikes, but they all will cheat and they still do today, not as much but new methods of hiding drugs are catching on. Eddy Merckx face doping allegations during his career. Notably, he tested positive for banned substances three times, including during the 1969 Giro D'Italia, and others that knew him knew he was cheating in all of his races, as were they, did they take away his wins? No, because they couldn't test for it back then as well as they can today. The TDF has a very rich and long record of cheating.

Do I think Rose should get his accomplishments in the hall? Man, this is tough, but I think he should. His gambling did not make him accomplish all that he did, unlike a lot of sports where cheating makes a person accomplished, his accomplishments were all on him. Lance is another tough one, they should have given the wins to the second-place people and not left it blank, and tested every single person in the peloton, but had they tested all positive, then they should give the wins to Lance with a foot note about the cheating. Now we have this weird TDF historical record of 7 years without a winner, that's just insane.

I'm not saying I'm right about all of this, just another way to look at things.

[e-RICHIE]

Originally Posted by froze

Pete Rose <cut>

agreed in spades.

who are we, any of us, to judge?

ps

arrange disorder

[Mr. Pink]

Originally Posted by froze

Pete Rose was always about the money. Even trivial things like his son when he was in middle school had to sell stuff for the school, and who ever sold the most won something, well Pete Rose stood right beside his son at the mall, and his son won!

This is a tough thing, Pete, like Lance, worked hard to get where they were. There is cheating going on in every sport, whether drugs, gambling, mechanical advantages, everyone cheats, even some of you reading this cheat on your taxes, college students cheat on their exams and term papers, there's cheating in high school sports, cheating on trying to get you child into college, the list goes on and on, we seriously live in a world that cheats any chance we get. Even Mohammad Ali was in a fight where his opponent threw the fight, and Ali screamed at him saying: "GET UP, I DIDN'T EVEN TOUCH YOU!" But it was ruled a knockout because the guy couldn't get up before the count. There's an old saying that came out of NASCAR: "If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying". Professional fishermen cheat too, one guy put lead weights in his fish to make them scale heavier; another put pre-caught large fish at his pre-selected fishing hole that were strung up and still alive when he got there. I can't list every cheating situation, it would take over a year to type it all in, but you get my point.

In any sport if the winner is caught cheating, the second-place person becomes the winner. The Lance Armstrong thing, the whole peloton was cheating, that's why the second-place person didn't become the winner, because the Cycling committee knew it would open a can of worms, and Lance would have opened it, so they left 7 years without a winner. A lot of people cheated in the TDF, one person was suspected of putting a motor inside the frame of his bike, now they x-ray the bikes, but they all will cheat and they still do today, not as much but new methods of hiding drugs are catching on. Eddy Merckx face doping allegations during his career. Notably, he tested positive for banned substances three times, including during the 1969 Giro D'Italia, and others that knew him knew he was cheating in all of his races, as were they, did they take away his wins? No, because they couldn't test for it back then as well as they can today. The TDF has a very rich and long record of cheating.

Do I think Rose should get his accomplishments in the hall? Man, this is tough, but I think he should. His gambling did not make him accomplish all that he did, unlike a lot of sports where cheating makes a person accomplished, his accomplishments were all on him. Lance is another tough one, they should have given the wins to the second-place people and not left it blank, and tested every single person in the peloton, but had they tested all positive, then they should give the wins to Lance with a foot note about the cheating. Now we have this weird TDF historical record of 7 years without a winner, that's just insane.

I'm not saying I'm right about all of this, just another way to look at things.

Well, he was a Professional ballplayer after all. (As per: he was all about the money) In a time when you could actually make some money.

[quacker2000]

Originally Posted by makoti

If you don't understand the problem, I'd suggest you drop it.
Baseball will allow you to be a terrible person, and put you in the Hall. Ty Cobb.
Baseball will give you way too many chances to get your act together and still play. Steve Howe
Baseball will NOT allow you to screw with the game's integrity. If you mess with that through gambling, you are done. Pete Rose
If you mess with it through cheating or pushing the limits on what is legal, you might never see the Hall. Barry Bonds.

Baseball is not, never has, moralizing about the demon gambling. Baseball is, always has, protecting itself from the hint that the games may not be on the up and up.

I am lost as to why you cannot see the difference.

Baseball isn't scrubbing anything, it simply isn't honoring those who got where they did by unacceptable means.
Rose IS the hits leader. Look it up.
Bonds IS the HR leader. Look it up.

The only ones "moralizing" are those attempting to make his ban about something it never was to give themselves SOMETHING to base their insistence that he should be allowed in on.

"Suggest you drop it" ... I guess I struck a nerve!

In any case it seems I'll "drop it" like this. Turns out the MLB and rule 21 aren't even the limiting factor for getting Pete in the HOF since the HOF operates independently, and could put him on the ballot if they wanted to. So if it isn't ~technically~ the rules and the continued threat to the integrity of the game that's keeping him out then what is it?