Posted on 11/22/2005 7:58:50 AM PST by cloud8
NEW YORK -- The Hall of Fame's doors will remain shut to Pete Rose, who won't appear on the baseball writers' ballot in his final year of eligibility.
Commissioner Bud Selig will not rule on Rose's application for reinstatement before the 2006 ballot is released Nov. 29, according to Bob DuPuy, baseball's chief operating officer.
Rose, who last year admitted he did bet on the Cincinnati Reds while managing the team in the late 1980s, doesn't understand why the rules, unless changed, won't allow him to ever appear on the annual ballot of the Baseball Writers' Association of America.
"How can I be on a list that expires after 15 years if I'm suspended?" Rose said Sunday in comments relayed to the Associated Press through his manager, Warren Greene. "It should be that time stops."
Rose, baseball's career hits leader, agreed to a lifetime ban in August 1989 following an investigation of his gambling, and the Hall's board of directors decided unanimously in February 2001 that anyone on the permanently ineligible list couldn't appear on the BBWAA ballot.
Rose applied for reinstatement in September 1997 and met with Selig in November 2002. His efforts to end his suspension appeared to falter after he admitted in his 2004 autobiography, Pete Rose: My Prison Without Bars, that his previous gambling denials were false.
"The matter remains on the commissioner's desk. He has given no indication that he's prepared to issue a formal decision," DuPuy said.
Rose's final season as a player was 1986, and the rules for the Hall's BBWAA ballot state that players must have been retired for at least five years but no more than 20 to be eligible for election.
He received nine write-in votes in 2005, his lowest total, and has been written in on 239 of 6,687 ballots (3.6 percent) over 14 years.
Jane Forbes Clark, the Hall's chairman, left open the possibility that the Hall would give a Rose a chance to appear on the writers' ballot if he ever regains reinstatement.
"I think that we would look at the situation if the commissioner changes the situation and the position of Major League Baseball," she said. "If something happens, we'll react to it."
In 1989, just after baseball's investigation began, Rose considered himself a shoo-in for the Hall.
"4,256 hits. 2,200 runs. That's all I did," he said. "I'm a Hall of Famer."
Now 64, Rose might never get in despite a career in which he became a 17-time All-Star and the 1973 NL MVP.
"It would be a great honor if I made the Hall of Fame," he said through Greene. "If it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, it doesn't."
The guy gambled and is unapologetic. Even so, that doesn't take away from his abilities as a player. He was great in the same way that Jim Thorpe was great. They took his olympic medals because he earned some money over a summer playing baseball. He died and the medals were returned. Probably the same will happen with Pete Rose. In 2055, all these old farts will be up on stage teary-eyed saying Rose should have been inducted back in 2005, but better late than ever.
There's a difference between Jim Thorpe getting caught in the shifting definition of "professional athelete" in the early decades of the 20th Century and what Rose did.
Rose bet on his team. That's been against baseball regulations for decades. He knew it was against the rules, and he continued to do it anyway. He then lied about it for years and made accusations against the people who found the evidence against him.
Like Watergate, like Lewinsky, like Martha Stewart, it's the lie that gets you. Rose broke baseball's cardinal rule, he lied about breaking the rule, and even when he did start to come clean he did so in order to promote his book and make a buck.
Had he come clean at the start, had he fallen back on the "gambling is a disease" tactic, he'd be in the Hall now. But instead he chose to lie and keep lying.
Ten years ago, Charlie Hustler lied about betting on his team. Now, he says he never bet against his team. How can we ever believe that?
It's not the gambling. It's the lying. Had Rose fessed up back then, he's have been out of baseball but he'd be in the Hall now. It's the lying, and the accusations made against the people who had Rose dead to rights.
Surely you're not suggesting that rules don't apply to "fan favorites"?
Maybe if Hall of Fame recipients get anything of value, ole Petey could pawn it off to raise funds for his son's legal defense on recent drug charges
I agree with you on that.
The message that Selig and the MLB is sending is that drug use/abuse, alcoholism, violence, and criminal records are perfectly okay for HofF selectees. But don't gamble - it's BAD!! Complete and utter nonsense.
I disagree. Betting on baseball is the worst thing a player or manager can do, because it directly destroys the integrity of the game itself. Those other offenses are bad, but they concern individual players, not the game itself. And which HOF inductees are you referring to?
Maybe if Hall of Fame recipients get anything of value, ole Petey could pawn it off to raise funds for his son's legal defense on recent drug charges
Makes you wonder how involved he was in his son's life.
Son: Dad, let's play catch.
Pete: In a minute, I've got 5g's on this playoff.
(Calm down, its only humor.)
The gambling has nothing to do with his performance as a player (unlike Shoeless Joe Jackson) - it was way after the fact. If he doesn't get in the HoF it will just further cheapen the meaning of the HoF and of baseball in general. Nobody got more hits than Pete Rose, ever - if that isn't HoF material then what is?
Pete Rose should be allowed in the Hall of Fame, but only after Shoeless Joe, the rest of the Black Sox, and every other player of moderate ability who lived up to the rules of the game and respected the integrity of the game are inducted into the Hall of Fame.
I wonder what George Will's take on it is.
I bet that as long as Pete is alive, he won't get in. For Selig to do otherwise, would mean that kid's could grow up thinking it was okay to gamble in the pro's, and still enjoy the fruits of being in the Hall of Fame.
"And tonight's guest who will be throwing the first pitch of the Season, Hall of Famer and Last year's Texas Hold'em Champ, PEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEte ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSe."
That's just nonsense. Pete Rose gambled on his team as a manager. He was in a position to impact the games on which he was betting. How does that not compromise the integrity of the game?
Secondly, how do we know that he didn't bet on games while he was a player? We only have his word for that, and he's proven over the past decade and a half what his word is worth.
Which he was able to do since he could put himself in the lineup.
Let Pete start his own Hall of Fame. He can set the starting gate at 4,000 hits to make it REAL exclusive.
You really think there's no more to it than that?
So Barry Bonds etc. lying about steroids gets what penalty?
Given that, I don't see how Rose's after-the-fact behavior is any worse than that of Barry Bonds and his ilk.
That's more evidence for keeping Barry Bonds out than it is for letting Pete Rose in.
Do you really think that beacuse some cheaters haven't been banned from the Hall, no cheaters should be banned?
Personally, I think it should get the same penalty.
But there is a difference between the two cases - Pete Rose knew than gambling on baseball would result in a lifetime ban. No such ban has ever been in place for steriods, much as I think there should be.
Rose knew the consequences of his actions. The rules were laid down before he was born. They're posted in every clubhouse, and Rose had to walk past the sign every day of his career. He knew what he was doing, and he did it anyway. Now he has to pay the consequences.
Barry might might get in. He spent this year keeping his head low. Perhaps next year he'll do just enough to pass Ruth and then exit stage left.
It's not "after-the-fact behavior." We know that it stems from his time in a Reds uniform as manager. It may well stem from his time as a player/manager as well. It's on-field behavior, done in uniform and when he had the ability to affect the outcome of a game.
This isn't like some retired player going to a poker party. This is about someone betting on his own team when he has the ability to impact the outcome of the game.
It should be all or none. Keeping Rose out because he cheated AND is unpopular, while letting Bonds play even though his cheating is virtually certain, is inconsistent behavior and does nothing for the integrity of the game.
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