ANALYSIS/OPINION:
Pete Rose, I hope you include baseball commissioner Rob Manfred on your Christmas card list. He did you a favor by upholding the ban against you returning in any official capacity to the game, which in turn will continue to keep you out of the Hall of Fame.
Congratulations, Pete. Your legend as an outlaw has now been immortalized. You will remain an icon for decades to come, a symbol to those who like to adopt causes of injustice.
There will be petitions long after you are gone seeking to right the wrong done to the great Pete Rose, baseball’s all-time hit leader, being kept out of the Hall of Fame.
Kids who haven’t even been born yet will grow up hearing stories about how the player with the most hits in the history of baseball was denied his rightful place in Cooperstown. They will band together with their geek friends and creates web sites dedicated to your name — and the cause for reinstatement to baseball.
Pete Rose? They’ll remember you now, Pete.
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You will mean more than 4,256, a baseball statistic. You will be flesh and blood for generations of baseball fans to come, and history will likely soften the rough edges around your story until it becomes the story of a hard-nosed kid from the streets of Cincinnati who grew up to be one of the great players of his generation. Betting on baseball while managing the Reds, the gambling debts to mobsters, the lying, the prison time for income tax evasion are all footnotes that will not nearly be viewed as harshly as time passes and society changes.
Gambling debts to mobsters? You mean it was once illegal to bet on sports? It will seem foolish to future generations who may be passing by slot machines on their way to their seats in the ballpark.
Pete, what are we talking about here? A plaque among other plaques? You’re already all over the Hall of Fame with Pete Rose artifacts. There are Pete Rose jerseys and helmets and bats and balls from hit famous hits on display throughout the museum.
Those other players with plaques — they don’t want you there, Pete. Some of your own teammates, such as Johnny Bench, have said you don’t belong up there on the stage with them during induction ceremonies.
How embarrassing would it be to have your baseball betting slips — you know, the bets on the game you admitted you still make, no matter what anyone tells you — fall out of your pocket while on stage?
As it is, every Hall of Fame induction weekend, you’re in Cooperstown. People line up for an autograph while you sit in the shadow of the Hall of Fame. You’re not just sitting on a stage with other Hall of Famers on display during the induction ceremony. You’re not just another Hall of Famer.
And that signature? Those autographs? They’re worth more as an outlaw, Pete.
“I think like anyone who gets into Cooperstown, he’d make more in the first five years by writing ’HOF’ on everything he signs,” Ken Goldin, now the president of Goldin Auctions and whose former company, Scoreboard, had a deal with Rose some 25 years ago, told ESPN. “But if you add it up over the years, I think it has benefited him more financially not to be in the Hall.”
That’s what it has always been about Pete — the money. You know that. For decades, those who knew you said the driving force being your efforts to get reinstated was to get back into baseball as a manager and cash in on the multi-million salaries being paid — far more than what you were making when you were in the dugout in 1989.
That ship has sailed now, Pete.
Do you really want to cash in the identity that makes you more than $1 million a year signing your name? Do you think Fox would have paid you to be an analyst during the World Series if you weren’t the guy banned from baseball? You think they hired you because of your TV skills?
You are Pete Rose, baseball outlaw, and people love you for it. They always will. And, most importantly, that’s where the money is.
⦁ Thom Loverro is co-host of “The Sports Fix,” noon to 2 p.m. daily on ESPN 980 and espn980.com.
• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
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