On Saturday night, given special dispensation by Commissioner Pope Bud I, the Cincinnati Reds honored their hometown hero, Peter Edward Rose, on the 25th anniversary of his 4,192nd career base hit, which made him Major League Baseball's all-time hits leader.
To honor Rose, who had been disgraced by his own actions and then by Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti, the only commissioner who was in and of himself the answer to a multiple choice test, was nothing really that significant.
Baseball teams honor their own all the time, but to allow Rose to participate in the ceremony was a step that if played out correctly might lead to some kind of at least partial lifting of the lifetime ban laid upon Rose by Giamatti for betting on his own team.
That Rose’s actions were reason to be banned from the sport cannot be denied. Nor was it in any way totally unexpected, considering that anyone connected with baseball knew that Rose was either a compulsive gambler or one who gambled often enough on horse racing, football, and basketball that it bordered on a compulsion.
The question is and always has been whether Rose’s suspension was too harsh and whether it was so harsh because of some vendetta Giamatti had for Rose.
Certainly there is evidence that Giamatti had been out to get Rose ever since the days he left the Ivy League setting of Yale to enter the real world and sport that he worshipped more for its poetic beauty than in any real-world sense.
Rose, if you were, was a rap song playing in a game Giamatti viewed as a sonata.
This is the way Giamatti saw the sport in the first paragraph of his essay “The Green Fields of the Mind”:
It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops. Today, October 2, a Sunday of rain and broken branches and leaf-clogged drains and slick streets, it stopped, and summer was gone.
There is no room in that description of the game for a tough “river rat” out of Cincinnati who played the game to win at all costs and was willing to do anything to get there. Their views of baseball were diametrically opposite, the game being a Sunday afternoon polo match to Giamatti and a Friday night barroom brawl to Rose.
Rose was, in many ways, the anti-Giamatti. There was the time when Rose broke Stan Musial's National League career hits record when he received congratulatory phone call from President Ronald Reagan and, upon being told that it was Reagan on the other end of the line, Rose grabbed the phone and said, “How ya doin’?”
Not since Babe Ruth had greeted President Calvin Coolidge by saying, “Hot as hell, ain’t it Prez?” had another come on to a President like that.
When Giamatti banned Rose for life after he had been proven to have gambled on baseball, it was not the first time he had suspended Rose, nor was it the first time when the suspension could be viewed as excessive.
In 1988, when Giamatti was National League president, Rose was managing the Reds and got into a confrontation with umpire Dave Pallone that escalated into something more than your normal argument, ending with Rose shoving Pallone. No one doubts or denies that Rose shoved him, just as no one doubts or denies that fans began throwing objects onto the field and Pallone had to leave the game.
Interestingly, during the 1973 NLCS, Rose slid hard into second base in Shea Stadium, popped up and began fighting with Mets shortstop Bud Harrelson. New York fans bombarded him with debris, a situation that didn’t calm down until that noted ambassador of good will, Lawrence Peter Berra, then manager of the home team, ventured into left field to negotiate peace with the fans. Rose was not suspended for that incident.
Yet when the smoke cleared following the run-in with Pallone, and Giamatti had his say, Rose was suspended 30 days.
This is what Murray Chass, the New York Times baseball writer at the time, wrote:
The suspension, imposed by A. Bartlett Giamatti, the National League president, was the most severe ever levied against a manager for an on-field incident. Leo Durocher, then the manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, was suspended by Commissioner A. B. (Happy) Chandler for the entire 1947 season for ''conduct detrimental to baseball,'' but the action had nothing to do with on-field activities.
“The most severe”? Was that called for? Bill Madlock of the Pittsburgh Pirates had shoved his glove in the face of umpire Jerry Crawford in 1980 and been suspended for just 15 days.
Lenny Randle of the Texas Rangers had also gotten a 30-day suspension, but that was for beating up his own manager, Frank Lucchesi, in 1977. In 2005, Texas pitcher Kenny Rogers was suspended 20 games for an outburst that sent a television cameraman to the hospital. And another Texas pitcher, Frank Francisco, would draw a 15 game suspension for throwing a chair at a fan in a lower box seat near the bullpen in Oakland during a 2004 game.
But Rose got 30 days from Giamatti for his actions against an umpire, actions that did not maim or scar him.
With that as history, is it not fair to assume that there was some agenda that Giamatti had when he nailed Rose for gambling. Certainly he had precedent in the Black Sox scandal of 1919, but those White Sox players were fixing a World Series, not betting on his own team to win.
The National Football League had given Paul Hornung and Alex Karras only a year’s suspension for gambling on NFL games and associating with gamblers, but all parties apparently kissed and made up as Hornung is now a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Is it now time for baseball to come up with some kind of compromise on its position with Rose, to at least open the doors to the Hall of Fame to him? Certainly he is no lock even if he is given a special election by the Baseball Writers Association of America, which never had a chance to vote on him, or by a committee chosen for the purpose of deciding if he belongs in the Hall of Fame. But it seems only the right thing to do, considering the circumstances and the accomplishments of the man involved.
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No.
This article is misdirection at best. If you're going to make the case for Rose to be reinstated, you have to directly confront the reason he was banned. How long a suspension Rose got for bumping an umpire and how that compares to Francisco's penalty is simply irrelevant. And holding up the example of what the NFL did in a similar situation is a better argument *against* reinstatement than for.
And the "he only bet on his own team to win" canard is naive in several ways.
The only compromise that I could imagine being comfortable with is to consider enshrining Rose posthumously. (Which would even fit somewhat logically with a "lifetime" ban.) And then only if his plaque directly referenced his banishment and the reason for it. And even then I'm not going to argue with those who object to going even that far.
However, since it's looking more and more like the hall is just going to pretend the Bonds, Clemens, and MacGwire's never existed, can you give me a good reason why I should care about who is and is not a "Hall of Famer?"
Begin with an evidence-less, anti-intellectual, ad hominem attack against a dead man, then make a false comparison.
Perhaps Rose deserved a harsher punishment for the 1988 incident because, unlike all the other men mentioned, he was a manager and not just a player.
Rose violated the only restriction in baseball that carries a "death penalty" punishment, then spent years denying it, then gave a half-assed, self-serving apology. This piece is nothing but an attack on Giamatti followed by several irrelevant comparisons.
I don't know what this means. Is it a reference to his use of "A" as an initial rather than using his first name?
Can you support the statement "certainly there is evidence that Giamatti had been out to get Rose"? What supports your notion that ABG had a purported vendetta?
ABG applied his powers to punish in a progressively strict manner in the hope of changing behavior. That Rose's psycopathy knew no bounds is not evidence of a "vendetta" on ABG's part.
Rose is a convicted felon. He has been and remains a pathological liar. He lied both to baseball and federal authorities, even in the face of incontrovertible evidence laying bare his lies.
Rose was unquestionably a driven accumulator of a single stat. Start a discussion about his relative greatness around the merits of his "rate vs total" accomplishments.
But save the "the bitch set me up" nonsense for a Queen City barroom.
precedent
http://mtprof.msun.edu/Spr2008/weltzrev.html
Dudes, Rose is not the tough kid who beat up on us all back in 6th grade. Heck, when younger he may have bore no resemblance whatsoever to Nelson Muntz. Even if you just viscerally hate blue-collar white guys in general, let go of it a little bit.
Most people I talk to or read that dislike Rose do so because they dislike his ethics, and by extension the potential damage to baseball, not because he was a tough-guy redass.
Rose gambled on baseball. Gambling or the appearances of gambling calls into question the very integrity of the game. If the question, "I wonder if this game is fixed?" is ever asked en mass by the fans of the game, then baseball is finished as a professional sport. Giamatti understood this and acted appropriately. Baseball learned its lesson in 1920 and has not forgotten it.
Was it wrong for Pete Rose to gamble, at all, on the game of baseball? Yes.
Has Pete Rose served the most severe penalty for his actions AS A MANAGER over the last 20 years? Yes.
What did Pete Rose do AS A PLAYER do to deserve a lifetime ban? Nothing.
He has served his punishment. Now it is time to come up with a compromise for the HOF for his contributions as a player -- INCLUDING listing what he did AS A MANAGER on his HOF plaque.
So .....
"Is it now time for baseball to come up with some kind of compromise on its position with Rose, to at least open the doors to the Hall of Fame to him?"
Most certainly.
Shouldn't that be sufficient recognition, given his ban?
There is no forgiveness for this activity. If baseball can not be trusted to try to win games then it might as well disband.
As houstonuser's post shows, it goes far beyond gambling on baseball. People here have set Rose up as emblematic of the type of human being they hate. Ergo, even a writer writing 'maybe we should stop hating in this one way' is committing rank heresy, and needs to be shouted down as forwarding pure evil.
There is an assumption that Pete Rose would really like to be in the HOF and that baseball is being really awful to him by keeping him out. In my opinion that's not whats going on here.
Pete Rose is not an idealist. He's a realist. I'm not a resident of Cincinnati, but I'm sure someone who is from that portion of Ohio could tell you that Pete is still a public figure in the area. I'm sure he still does commercials. I'm sure he still does memorabilia shows. I'm sure he still has several sources of income associated with his fame as a former Red.
Would being in the HOF change that? No. Pete Rose is famous. More famous than Joe Morgan, Don Sutton, Early Wynn, Robin Roberts, Joe Sewell, or any number of Hall of Fame players, not to mention those HOF managers. So what does getting into the HOF buy Rose? nothing.
What Pete Rose REALLY wants is to manage again. To coach. To get out on the field and interact with players, throw batting practice, help a guy out with his swing, show him how to field a grounder the right way, etc. Barring that, Pete would love to join the media, be a color analyst. Its not like he'll be worse than Harold Reynolds or Joe Morgan or Rob Dibble or any of those ex-jocks providing "color" next to the real broadcasters out there.
That's what Bud is going to prevent. I'm sure that if you asked Bud Selig which would be worse, Pete Rose in the HOF or Pete Rose in a dugout, he'd say "dugout" before you could even finish the sentence. Plus, to be honest, Bud Selig isn't keeping Rose out of the HOF. The HOF made the decision that Rose could not be on the ballot while he was suspended. That doesn't stop writers from writing his name onto the ballot. But curiously, there's been no campaign to get him put on the ballot that's had his endorsement.
The other being 'how dare a BP writer propose such a horrible terrible immensely immoral thing?' I reallyreallyreally disagree with this sentiment.
This article was a baseless attack on a commissioner who properly applied his responsibility to punish. It's horrible in any context. But it's also useless in advancing a discussion on Rose's credentials.
(One thing Hertzel doesn't note is that Pallone inadvertently(?) poked Rose below the eye, drawing blood. Rose's shove was an immediate response to this. IMO, that's mitigation.)
I agree with Richie that there's a great deal of deep-seated Rose hatred evidence here. Hertzel's hardly-original article has brought out a surprising amount of twisted panties and even a few cases of the vapors.
However, I do think he should be put into the Hall of Fame (or at least considered) at some point. I'm OK with holding off until his death. If we want to make it a lifetime ban, let's limit it to a lifetime. However, on his plaque it should have a line that says something like:
"Major League Baseball banned Pete Rose for life when as a Manager, he bet on baseball."
When kids go with their parents to the Hall of Fame and read the plaque, it becomes an educational experience and emphasizes MLBs position on gambling. Something similar should happen with Shoeless Joe.
Who cares what Bob Hertzel's personal opinion is? His meandering thoughts on Bart Giamatti shouldn't mean any more to anyone than his thoughts on Paul Giamatti's last movie.
If he had some new information, a new way to to look at the issue, or simply a coherent argument one way or the other, fine, let's hear it. Otherwise, this is an empty piece about a moot point.
I agree with Hertzel.
This is a common misconception, and is often used to say that's why Rose should be inducted after he dies. It's a spurious argument.
Also, Mr. Hertzel, as a longtime subscriber i'd like to apologize for the amount of self righteous bullshit being flung about in this thread. It seems the standards of BP's readers has slipped in recent years.
And in my book, lifetime means lifetime.
:)
LOL? Grow up.
Do you seriously believe that the ani-Rose-for-the-HoF positions expressed in this section are the result of some sort of Pete Rose hatred? So everyone hates Pete Rose and is just looking for an opportunity to vent it, to have it validated in the public sphere? Good thing these gambling charges came along!
Or just maybe it has to do with principles, especially where the importance of upholding the integrity of the great sport of baseball is concerned. Go back and read the comments. A few people may hate Pete Rose. Maybe it's because he's acted like an ass a thousand times over, and maybe it's because he bet on baseball. Sounds to me like most of these people are simply nterested in upholding the standards of institutions that they care about.
Pete Rose bet on baseball, and baseball has harsh rules against betting on baseball. These rules were put in place for a reason, and the Hall of Fame has decided to follow suit. Go back and read some history about it, and then think about how crappy it would be if we all wound up thinking of baseball the way that we now think about boxing or harness racing.
I love Pete Rose the player. I wish there were more guys who played with his brand of exuberance and hard-nosed panache. This has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not he should be ineligible to either the Hall or MLB. I love baseball more than ever hate Pete Rose, which I don't. I hate Brett Myers and Gary Sheffield, but I'm not about to start a movement to ban them.
Pete Rose has a permanent place in baseball history. His story is told over and over again, by people who admire him and people who don't.
I'm not sure why when writers write articles like this one, anyone even notices, much less argues. Whose mind is going to be changed?
The one observation I have is that many of the articles on this site obviously have a tremendous amount of preparation behind them: research, a search for alternative hypotheses to consider, etc.
Hertzel's pieces here are different. They read like personal ruminations, like he lit a decent cigar, poured a finger or two of scotch, and then knocked out 1,000 words on a subject he's talked about around the pool table a hundred times already.
Which can be fun to read, I suppose. But it's such an odd fit here.
Look, the guy bet on baseball games of teams he managed. Do you understand how serious that is?? The guy had total influence who would play for his team in those games and the situations they would be used in. Unless you could show that once he bet on a game involving his team he always bet on them you are stuck with the rather obvious notion that he was doing less than his best to win the games he didn't bet on.
Do you recall Rose's conduct every year during HoF week?? Instead of laying or staying away he showed up every year to get his bonanza in autograph fees and distract from the inductees day of honor. You might recall he even allowed his tell-all book to be released immediately after the announcement of Molitor's and Eckersley's election to the HoF. He did this callously and without regret. He simply wanted to generated publicity for his book. In this case it backfired.
And for fourteen years he lied to us. Lied to us in a most relentless manner before finally fessing up. And for fourteen years his sycophants and toadies in the press told us what bastards we were for keeping him out of the HoF. Do these people have any pride??
The only argument that is left for Rose is the simple "is twenty years enough". No B.S., no half-truths, no whining and gnashing of teeth as if he is the offended party. That's it.
And we should answer this question before we put him into the ground. For myself, if it was decided that he could face election through the VC process and that all living HoF members would have a vote and that their vote would constitute half the electorate I could live with that.
When the accusations came out, I gave Pete the benefit of the doubt. I believed his story. This country is a forgiving place - I figured if he was gambling, he could just claim "addiction" and beg for forgiveness - since he wasn't begging, I thought he must be telling the truth. (I still wonder what might have happened if he took that path 25 years ago.)
20+ years later we find out he has been lying all along. Foolish me for ever believing him. You reap what you sow. Pete had everything, and wanted more, wanted to get away with it. Well, too bad. To hell with him. Keep him out of baseball, out of the HOF forever. He still has his money, and his fame. Its not really a harsh punishment, he leads a nice live I'm sure. But he earned his banishment, his infamy. I have no sympathy.
And I grew up reading Bob Hertzel in the Cincinnati. These rambles down memory lane show just how far BP has strayed from its original mission.
On a side note Pete makes more money being the martyr with his own "hall of fame" right down the road where he sells his autographs, presumably so he can go bet on horses.
He lied for 20 years and only confessed to sell his book. A great player but one with no ethics and no integrity. He belongs in baseball purgatory with the elite 8 black sox.
Mr. Hertzel needs to address some issues. For example, Rose has admitted he violated a baseball rule, a rule whose origins and punishments predate both men's involvement with the game. Regardless of who was commissioner, Pete Rose should be "declared permanently ineligible." That is clear if you read Major League Rule 21.
Regardless of personal histories of parties involved, I find it reasonable to say someone banned from life from an organization as a consequence of breaking one of its most fundamental rules should also not be eligible for its highest honor.
In short, whether Giamatti disliked Rose, had abused him in the past, was known to kick puppies, stole candy from children, or regularly sniffed glue, isn't really an issue when discussing whether someone rightly banned from a sport for life can then receive its highest honor.
Since the HoF clearly sucks at passing proper and fair value judgment on people's legacies, why should it insist on the legitimacy of its moral judgments against rose etc. Just treat it into a "hall of significant figures in baseball history" and only record brute facts and honest stories. Let the fans and visitors pass judgment on their own.
Yes, there are mistakes in who is in the Hall of Fame. It doesn't mean we should make more.
A Hall of Significant Figures in Baseball History would have to include all sorts of people--how about all of the Black Sox? They were so significant that baseball had to create rules in response to their behavior (the very rules Pete Rose broke). McGwire, Bonds, Clemens and Palmiero would belong because of the significance of their steroid use, regardless of their performance. How about Mario Mendoza, whose ineptitude withe the bat was so legendary we now have the "Mendoza Line." We would "celebrate" the significantly bad and the significantly villainous, along with the stars.
I'm not too interested in that Hall.