The Confessions of Pete Rose

The New York Times ^ | January 2, 2004 | FAY VINCENT

[presidio9]

So word is that Pete Rose finally admits in his new book that he bet on baseball. I guess I am supposed to feel vindicated since he spent the last 14 years calling John Dowd and me names. Mr. Dowd was the baseball lawyer who did the investigation of Mr. Rose and prepared a report we're now told was accurate. Next we're likely to have the spectacle of Mr. Rose being embraced by Bud Selig, the baseball commissioner, and, like the Prodigal Son, ushered to the front row of baseball's most honored citizens.

Pardon me while I rise to urge some caution. Ever since St. Augustine set the bar pretty high, there has been a certain style to confessional tomes. Now we have a mea culpa by Mr. Rose and no saint is he. Augustine, having lived it up, saw the light and wrote with a sense of guilt and regret. He even anguished over having stolen a pear. Early reports are that Mr. Rose confronts his past with very little remorse. Between him and Augustine, there is little doubt whose book will live longer.

Why are we hearing from Mr. Rose now? Credit Mr. Selig for insisting on the admission of betting before letting Mr. Rose in baseball again. It's possible that Mr. Rose wants some of the big money being paid top managers like Joe Torre. But I think there is more at work here. A player has 20 years after he last played to be elected by the baseball writers to the Hall of Fame. After that time has run out, the election can be done only by the living members of the Hall. Thus, Mr. Rose, who last played in 1986, is running out of time. He knows his best shot is with the writers, many of whom share the view that the only conduct that counts is what took place on the field. The Hall of Famers are a cranky lot who last year failed to elect Marvin Miller, who led the players union and whose credentials are solid gold. So Mr. Rose, a careful historian of the game, is playing the odds wisely. Nothing wrong so far.

Now the issue for Mr. Selig is what to do. I suggest that if Mr. Rose is to be reinstated to full rights in baseball, there should be a two-year period of transition. During this time, I would require Mr. Rose to travel the baseball highway to spell out to youngsters and fans why gambling is a threat to the game and why his decisions as manager were corrupted by betting on one game and not another. The sincerity of his redemption can be tested and he will have done some public service to earn his way back. After all, the issue now is not what is best for Mr. Rose, but what is best for baseball.

The two-year delay in reinstatement will give him one shot at being elected by the writers. And then, if he fails that, he may receive the honor via the Hall of Famers themselves. And I can live with that, as I suspect most fans would, though I am not at all certain his election is a sure bet, if I may be excused that term.

I also suggest that Mr. Selig pardon all those whose names are still on the ineligible list, including Max Lanier, banned for jumping to the Mexican League to make more money, a Phillies owner who bet on his team and was tossed out and, of course, Shoeless Joe Jackson, whose participation in the Black Sox betting scandal might in today's jurisprudence be excused by his diminished capacity to have known fully what he was doing.

Perhaps this will be the end of the whole sorry Pete Rose case. As the baseball commmissioner at the time, Bart Giamatti, said when he announced that Mr. Rose had agreed to banishment, baseball has been hurt, badly, by Mr. Rose's actions. Now as we confront his plea for mercy and a second chance, we ought to remind ourselves of Mr. Giamatti's wisdom in identifying the pain inflicted by such a great player. I only wish Mr. Rose had a better sense of why Augustine's "Confessions" strike such a chord with the rest of us sinners.

[Bonaparte]

was = what

[Ann Archy]

I knew Pete Rose....he was certainly NO saint, but I cannot IMAGINE him betting AGAINST himself (Reds)....not for all the money in the world. He might have bet on baseball but he most assuredly did NOT bet against himself, thus throwing a game......NEVER!

[Ann Archy]

Fay Vincent is pitiful...he acts like Pete KILLED someone....he's a mite unforgiving little man.

[Ann Archy]

I think Shoeless was black and Fay Vincent is telling us that Jackson wasn't SMART enough to know what he was doing...(who delivered a bag of money to someone in a bathtub in a hotel in Cincy to fix that World Series?)....What a RACIST Vincent just showed himself to be.

[Ann Archy]

How do you know that Bowie Kuhn and Fay Vincent are outstanding Catholics?

BTW...Rose is NOT Catholic or even religious as far as I knew.

[Ann Archy]

You have NO idea of what you are talking about....none.

[Chu Gary]

I have held two theories about A. Bart Giamatti for a long time.

1. He knew his health was poor and his life expectancy was the pits and he wanted to do something in baseball that would result in him being remembered for generations. He accomplished that with the banning of Pete Rose.

2. God is a Pete Rose fan and demonstrated such.

[VOA]

"I don't like Pete Rose (at all), but the ability of Rose haters like Fay Vincent to
carry out their own personal vendetta via the national media is sickening.
Of course it's the NYSlimes."

It's not just the NYSlimes that's scrutinizing Pete Rose's situation.
This evening former Reds pitcher Frank Pastore made lenghty comment about this article
and what he has heard from a lot of players who are already Hall of Famers...
...Pastore said that many of these fellows he has spoken to are really reluctant to vote
for Rose because they feel it will demean the value of the Hall of Fame.

Pastore ain't no New York Times kinda' guy...he's just about to assume the reigns of
just about the biggest Christian live talk-radio show on KKLA (99.5 FM;3-7PM Pac Time)
in Los Angeles.
http://www.kkla.com
http://www.tbn.org/damascus/bios/fpastore.htm

[Chu Gary]

"If Shoeless Joe Jackson is ever admitted to the HOF, I'd like to see the HOF blown up with a MOAB, the wreckage burned, and then the crater covered with salt so nothing would ever grow there again."

John, as I recall, these bans are "lifetime" bans; SJ's lifetime ended years ago. Shoeless Joe had a .360 lifetime avg. He's the only batter who Ty Cobb ever referred to as a better hitter than Cobb himself. If you despise Shoeless Joe so much, how do you feel about Cobb?

[Keyes2000mt]

Um, Shoeless Joe was not Black. He was banned 27 years before Jackie Robinson.

[LibertarianInExile]

Rose haters? I love Pete Rose, I rooted for the Machine and have been a Cincy fan all my life. In fact, in comparison, I can't stand Johnny Bench, because I liked Rose so damn much.

But Rose is a gambler and unrepentant, and Vincent is right. I don't care if you call it a vendetta--he's still right. And what he proposes here is dead on. If Rose is all about doing what's right for baseball now, let him do it. He spent years on radio playing oddsmaker. Let him show that he's put that behind him by building the reputation of the sport that he so demeaned.

[capitan_refugio]

Rose's accomplishments and records will be duly noted in the record books.

"Ray, people will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it's money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered they're heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. And the memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come."
Dialogue from "Field of Dreams"

Pete Rose doesn't remind me of what's good.

[BlackElk]

Both Fay Vincent and Bowie Kuhn have been involved as active financial supporters and advisors to Deal Hudson's very Catholic: Crisis Magazine. I believe that Bowie Kuhn has written articles.

Bart Giamattei was an enemy of Christianity as president of Yale and gave disgraceful secular humanist speeches to incoming freshmen and departing seniors.

As to Rose, you are probably right that he is not religious but I have no actual knowledge. He was one heck of a baseball player though.

[BlackElk]

If you are complaining about my references to Vincent and Kuhn as Catholics, please settle down. I did so to contrast their admirable non-baseball lives (I am Catholic) with their abysmal and elitist baseball judgments on Pete Rose which were foolish and priggish. I agree with your assessment of Rose already. Being elected to the Hall of Fame is not an endorsement of moral character. Rogers Hornsby, Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker were all active in the KKK but no one ought to doubt that they all belong in the Hall of Fame.

[BlackElk]

So, don't invite him to hang out with your family. His base hit total earned him a place in the Hall of Fame. That is about history. There is good reason to believe that Cobb took payoffs to throw games. He made Pete Rose look like Mother Theresa. A Hall of Fame without Cobb would be a sick joke. So is a Hall of Fame excluding Shoeless Joe Jackson and Pete Rose.

[BlackElk]

Shoeless Joe Jackson was a somewhat primitive guy from very rural backwoods North Carolina who was so good at baseball that he was hired as a factory foreman (without much work obligation) at age 10 to play on the factory's semi-pro team. Connie Mack heard about him and signed him at 17 to a Major league contract. Jackson would not report because he learned he would have to travel by train and he thought that trains MUST be Satanic because he could not figure out how they worked. Eventually his contract was traded to Cleveland and he reported and played. He was later traded to the Chicago White Sox.

After he was banned for life, by circus clown commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis (previously the most overturned judge on the federal bench), Jackson continued to play for many years for chump cahnge under a variety of assumed names in the minors. He died in about 1950 of heart trouble and had been operating a modest grocery store in Sout Carolina. He was a brilliant player, a tragic figure, and a far better man than Gandil and Risberg who were the ringleaders of the Black Sox.

Joe Jackson was a white man and Fay Vincent, however poor a judge of Pete Rose's claim to Hall of Fame membership, is no racist.

[Ann Archy]

So, was Shoeless Joe the guy who delivered the bag of money to the guy in the bathtub in a hotel in Cincnnati....I think it was the Gibson, or was he the reciprient?

[Khurkris]

"If you are complaining about my references to Vincent and Kuhn as Catholics, please settle down. I did so to contrast their admirable non-baseball lives (I am Catholic) with their abysmal and elitist baseball judgments on Pete Rose which were foolish and priggish. I agree with your assessment of Rose already. Being elected to the Hall of Fame is not an endorsement of moral character. Rogers Hornsby, Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker were all active in the KKK but no one ought to doubt that they all belong in the Hall of Fame."

Thank you for the follow up re:yr post. It appears that we are much the same in our opinions of Pete Rose and the Hall of Fame. Thank you for the additional info.

My steam is mainly directed to those who are making such sanctimonious judgements of Pete Rose.

As I said, its BaseBall, judge his performance in BaseBall and save the 'Holier Than Thou' BS for the church pews.

[BlackElk]

We are probably never going to know for sure the specific facts of Shoeless Joe's knowledge. We do know that he played a flawless World Series and certainly did not hurt his team's chances. The movie Eight Men Out is probably not entirely accurate and seems to whitewash Jackson but I think, as to Jackson, it is credible that one of the ringleaders delivered anm envelope of money ($5000) to Jackson, that Jackson kept the money and did not report the bribe or his knowledge that the others were throwing the Series. That set of facts deeply ivolves the integrity of the game and justifies banning him for life. The Hall of Fame did not yet exist. Commissioner Landis was a lackey of the corrupt owners like Comiskey. The movie is also credible in suggesting that the plot might not have been accepted by several players if Comiskey had not stiffed them in many ways during the season and cheated them on their salaries.

I am unfamiliar with the detail of a guy in a bathtub receiving money but I very much doubt that Jackson was the delivery boy. Jackson was very likely frightened by the entire situation. The movie shows Claude "Lefty" Williams turning because the mobsters threatened to kill his young wife in the stands if he did not throw his game. Arnold Rothstein was not a croquet player and was himself gunned down some years later by other mobsters. Gandil and Risberg might easily have become mobsters after their banning. Bucky (I forget his last name), the third baseman, was also guilty of nothing more than knowledge and failure to blow the whistle. Likewise, the substitute infielder who was banned. Claude Williams acted under duress of the worst sort and should not have been banned. That duress would have excused any resultant crime in a court of law.