Gambling strikes at the heart of a sport though. The promise that sports makes the viewers is that the people on the field are pursuing victory for the sake of victory and have no reason to want anything other than victory. Once you open the door to gambling, especially illegal gambling, that promise is broken, now you have the possibility of points shaving, thrown games, and other perversions of the game. All the leagues except the NBA (who have terrible officiating and recently found out most of their officials violate the leagues rather loose gambling rules) have learned the lesson of the Black Sox, keep far away from gambling or risk destruction.
And Pete made his situation even worse with the constant lies. First he didn’t gamble, then he gambled but it never distracted from the game, then he gambled DURING games but never on baseball, then he gambled on baseball but never on games he was involved in, now the current story is he gambled on games he was involved in but always to win. Does anybody actually believe him anymore?
I just don’t see that he is any worse than the steroid junkies. Throw them all out and no Hall of Fame for any of them, then.