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To: jpl
I'll say Pete Rose doesn't belong in the Baseball HOF as soon as the Football HOF throws OJ out. The only thing Rose killed was his own career.
55 posted on 08/12/2003 8:05:08 AM PDT by Trust but Verify (Will work for W)
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To: Trust but Verify
Football HOF throws OJ out

O.J. (unfortunately) was aquitted by jury nullification, so it would be harder for the NFL to kick him out of the HOF. But your point is valid.

57 posted on 08/12/2003 8:08:46 AM PDT by bedolido (None of us is as dumb as all of us!)
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To: Trust but Verify
The only thing Rose killed was his own career.

O.J.'s status is up to the football hall of fame.

There is a clear-cut rule, posted in every stadium clubhouse, stating that gambling is 100% unacceptable and punished by (up to) permanent banishment from the game.

There are numerous examples from baseball history, going back well before the Black Sox, of this rule being violated and the players being banned for life. The rule and the sanction for violating the rule were both perfectly clear to Pete Rose.

"Guilty knowledge" (i.e. knowledge of a plot while keeping quiet about it) was treated just as severely as actual attempts to throw games (and, again, there was ample precedent for this). For all those who cite Joe Jackson's batting average in the 1919 World Series, his BA doesn't matter. Jackson had guilty knowledge of the plot and chose not to come forward. We can argue whether he made or didn't make a certain play, but the guilty knowledge was enough to get him permanently thrown out of baseball.

People kind of forget that baseball, which in 1920 was head and shoulders above all sports, was in real danger of suffering serious damage due to the scandal. This wasn't some meaningless late September game that was thrown; it was the WORLD SERIES.

The fact is, without the very strong action of Judge Landis to ensure the integrity of the game *and* the emergence of Babe Ruth, baseball could have suffered serious, permanent damage.

Bill James among others points out that one of the real heroes of the situation was Christy Mathewson. The 1919 WS scandal didn't break until Septmeber 1920. Mathewson, *during* the 1919 World Series, was telling people that it was obvious that the White Sox were throwing games. He had also tried to get the key perpetrator, former player Hal Chase, thrown out of baseball a couple years earlier for throwing games, but the league wouldn't do so.

61 posted on 08/12/2003 8:17:27 AM PDT by Numbers Guy
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