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Posted on 11/14/2013 12:01:57 PM PST by EveningStar
...We are coming on 25 years of Pete Rose's banishment...
Pete Rose played baseball with an intensity and love that might be unmatched in the game's history. He cracked more hits and reached base more times than anyone ever. He represented a way to play baseball that inspired millions of people. Then, he gambled on games, breaking one of baseball's most cherished rules. Rose is 72 years old now, and I think it's time to let him back into the game. I don't think anyone should ask him to apologize again or come any cleaner than he has. I don't think anyone should expect Pete Rose to be something that he is not. It has been almost 25 years. He has paid his debt.
(Excerpt) Read more at hardballtalk.nbcsports.com ...
Of course not. He doesn’t have the range. But as an American League DH?
If Rose is going to be left out then we need to deduct Cobb and Speaker from the HOF....
Long Before Pete Rose, Hall-of-Famers Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker Bet on Baseball Games
December 15, 1925: Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis allows Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker to remain in baseball despite evidence of gambling
LANDIS MIGHT HAVE BEEN BLACKMAILED.
After retiring in 1925, former Detroit Tigers’ pitcher Dutch Leonard went to American League President Ban Johnson and presented him with letters indicating that Ty Cobb, the Tigers’ player-manager, and Tris Speaker of the Cleveland Indians, had fixed a late-season game between the two clubs. Detroit won, allowing the Tigers to finish third and quality for World Series money. Leonard also charged that Cobb and Speaker bet on games in the 1919 Black Sox World Series.
With the Black Sox scandal just a few years removed, Johnson deemed the documents so potentially-damaging to baseball he paid Leonard $20,000 to suppress them.
When Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis heard about the cover up, he forced Johnson out of office and made Leonard’s documents public. But after a hearing, Landis ruled that Cobb and Speaker could remain in baseball because of lack of evidence - huh?.
This is the same Landis who threw Chicago White Sox third baseman Buck Weaver out of baseball for life because he had knowledge of the 1919 World Series fix, and while he didn’t participate in throwing games, he didn’t inform officials either.
Perhaps Landis spared Cobb because they both came from Georgia and were close friends or maybe because, as Cobb later claimed, attorneys brokered a deal with Landis (blackmail) that if he and Speaker were banned, they would expose gambling so widespread it would destroy baseball.
“The man is a serial liar and broke the rules. “
Then run him against Hillary.
Yes.
> No, Landis was a pompous, racist, ass; Babe Ruth saved the game.
Next, you’ll be saying it was the Russian invasion of Manchuria that ended WWII. :-)
Love or Hate Pete...he was that great! As far as anyone knows he didn’t cheat, like steroid users did...Let him in!
No. Not ever.
What allegedly made Pete Rose great was his allegedly-good character. He was Charlie Hustle. He didn’t make it big mostly on talent. He wasn’t an archetype of athleticism. He was the guy to made it big based on his alleged attributes of good character, his willingness to work hard, harder than anyone, his adherence to the rules, his decency.
His alleged greatness lie in his alleged good character. That was the foundation of his success and fame. I’ve never heard anyone compare his raw athletic talent to Ty Cobb or Babe Ruth, whose reputations rested not on being role models of good character but on being spectacular athletes. He was great because he was good. He was just that - a role model to our youth of what someone with good but not great talent could do if he just worked hard enough, was honest enough, played by the rules.
Then, we found out that he was too good for the rules, not such a decent fellow, after all. A liar, a cheat, a fraud. The facade that made him seem great was just that - a facade. Behind it was a fake, a charlatan, a con man. A liar. A born thief. A man, once caught, who refused to own up to his crimes, and who carried on trying to con us that he was innocent for many years thereafter.
He only came clean and showed remorse and regret when it was finally impossible to lie anymore, to fool anyone else, once all his credibility was shot to Hell.
He should NEVER be inducted to the Hall of Fame, and he should die shunned from baseball forever.
And let’s face it - he killed Bart Giamatti with his malicious lies and con jobs.
I spit on Pete Rose, Bastard.
Re: “Pete Rose has paid his debt.”
With money he won betting on games?
In my salad days, I played womens' professional baseball (hardball overhand pitching). Pete Rose was my hero for years and years.....and an inspiration to me to always "play to win".
When I visuaize him today it's always a mental picture of him with arms outstretched, sliding head-first into a base amidst a cloud of dust!
He's been clean for a quarter of a century. I'm sure he's had his private hell during this time. It's time for forgiveness. Life is never perfect.
Play ball!
Leni
This is off topic. But that was Pete's hype in his playing days and I never bought it. He was very fast and strong as an ox. And he was an all-star at 5 positions. He was a gifted athlete!
Well said....
Rose has, in fact, admitted it many times over. He has a book dedicated to it.
I've often wondered if we'd know Shoeless Joe's name after all these years if he'd not been banned. Rose and Shoeless are in a League of their Own, and with a good PR guy, Rose could have played that angle to "bad guy" fame and fortune.
I'm sure he's had no end of PR gurus telling him that.
That he hasn't gone that route says something to me about what he considers to be a better legacy. It also says something about his love of baseball. As a youngster in Cincinnati when Rose broke in as a rookie, I never doubted his love of the game.
Searching for some clincher argument that proves Rose should be readmitted to baseball has always drawn a blank for me. Nothing proves Rose deserves anything.
It really boils down to baseball deciding what is best for baseball. Maybe leniency and forgiveness is best. Maybe it isn't. I'm not all that forgiving about the steroid home run record. I'd asterisk it and those who juiced.
I think that's best for baseball. So, if there are asterisked stars, then Rose would be just one more of them.
Wasn’t he the first white player to have a black roommate? I know he actually caught heat for being color blind back in the day when that took guts.
I don't know. Isn't Satchel Paige still pitching for Kansas City?
Pete has admitted to gambling on baseball, and even the Reds, but he never bet on the Reds to lose.
And Bart died a long time ago. what;s his name has been Commish ever since.
his records are in there.. his bust isn’t. This is a message to the rest of MLB that someone as accomplished at Charlie Hustle isn’t above the rules.
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