If Pete Rose couldn’t be honest about Pete Rose when he was alive, let us, at least, try to be in his death – Pete Rose is what stopped the all-time baseball hit leader – “the hit king,” as he liked to call himself – from being in the Hall of Fame.
Rose passed away Monday at the age of 83. He was baseball’s tragic hero who had one of the most revered records in the game – 4,256 career hits – yet was banned from the game he ruled over for 24 years playing for the Cincinnati Reds, Philadelphia Phillies and Montreal Expos from 1963 to 1986 because he bet on that game, banished for life in 1989 by Commissioner Bart Giamatti.
It wasn’t just the numbers that defined Rose. It was his all-out, hard-nose playing style – he was known as “Charlie Hustle” when he played – in an era when the perception of players changed from boys who played the beloved national pastime to selfish millionaires who would go on strike and leave their beloved team’s fans for more money elsewhere.
Rose became a folk hero of sorts, with his ban from Major League Baseball becoming a rallying cry for fans disenchanted with those millionaires. Former President Jimmy Carter made the cause to reinstate Rose and put him in the Hall of Fame a pet project.
Ironically, no one worshipped money more than Rose.
He brought the ban on himself by committing baseball’s mortal sin – betting on baseball while he was manager of the Reds from 1984 to 1989 – the sin that nearly destroyed the game during the Black Sox scandal in 1919, when a group of Chicago White Sox players were accused of betting on the Reds team they were facing in the World Series and then were charged with throwing the games.
Rose’s crime was not as blatant – from what we know, he bet on his Reds team when he was manager from 1984 to 1989. But because of the Black Sox scandal, any whiff of betting sent shock waves through baseball. A manager, of all things – the clubhouse authority figure – betting on the game, even his own team, was devastating.
Of course, it wasn’t as simple as that. Based on the investigation by the lawyer hired by baseball to investigate Rose – John Dowd, a former U.S. Attorney who once ran the Justice Department’s Organized Crime Strike Force – it was learned that Rose bet with mob bookies, among other crimes. That is just one example of the damage that a manager betting on his team – even only to win, if you believe Rose – could do to the credibility of baseball.
That’s if you believe Rose. He spent years denying he ever bet on baseball, then, when it appeared he had a chance to get reinstated by baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, he sabotaged it. In a 2002 meeting, Selig detailed several steps Rose needed to take before they would consider reinstatement, including changing his gambling lifestyle and public press conference where Rose admitted he bet on baseball and apologized. Rose left the meeting and then went to an appearance at a Vegas sports book, according to The Athletic.
Two years later, when Rose did finally confess – after 15 years of telling his beloved fans that he was innocent – he did so for money, in a book “My Prison Without Bars” (ironically, he spent five months in prison in 1990 for income tax evasion). That was the end of any chance for Rose to remove the ban. Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred refused to reinstate Rose when he took up the case in 2015 and has not reconsidered the case since.
This would have been the only path to Rose entering Cooperstown. As long as he remains banned, he would not be considered for a vote. The baseball writers never voted on him, and neither did the veterans committees who consider players passed over by the Baseball Writers Association of America voters.
Even if he had come up for a vote before the writers (I am a Hall of Fame voter), it’s difficult to believe Rose would have gotten the 75% needed. The criteria for the Hall includes integrity, sportsmanship and character. Rose was once accused by a girl of having sex with her when she was 14 years old. His response was that she was 16. Rose was in his mid-30s at the time.
Yes, there are those already in the Hall who fall short of those qualities, but past votes do not dictate every vote that follows – probably not enough to guide the decision of three-quarters of the voters needed for induction.
As far as the veterans, I had one Hall of Famer tell me that the primary reason Rose was lobbying for reinstatement in the years following his banishment was not to get into Cooperstown. It was to manage again because of the salaries new managers were making in the game – two or three times more than the $1 million Rose made managing the Reds.
Pete Rose is a Hall of Famer. He was a 17-time All-Star; a three-time World Series champion; a National League Most Valuable Player; a World Series MVP; a three-time batting champion, and, of course, the most hits in baseball history. His artifacts are on display throughout the museum section of the Hall of Fame.
But the money line was more important to Rose than the game he professed to love. The odds were the numbers he cared about the most.
Will his passing now lead to a lifting of the so-called lifetime ban? Shoeless Joe Jackson was a member of that 1919 White Sox group of players that were banned for allegedly throwing the World Series. He is considered one of the greatest hitters in the history of the game. They have written songs about Shoeless Joe, made movies and Broadway plays about him.
He’s been dead for 72 years. Shoeless Joe still doesn’t have a plaque in Cooperstown.
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• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
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