Pete Rose in/out

I dont think that a person who has broken the rules, and lied about it for over a decade, should be honored.......................now. When he is dead and buried, maybe!

If for no other reason, giving him the award would be a horrible example for both youngsters who watch the game, and young ballplayers.

^ I agree.

If he had told the truth and apologized immediately, I would say, give it to him, maybe now or definately after death.

HE PLAYED BASEBALL!! He wasn't a freakin' saint!

The hall of fame should look at his baseball career. That's why he would be in the hall of fame. Not as a coach, not as a human, but as one of the greatest baseball players in the history of the game! Yes, GAME! It's a game! Not a lifestyle or a religion.

I'm not really sure...in one hand, he bet on baseball while he was still involved as a manager...on the other hand, like McGentrix says, it should be based on his playing days.

I'm leaning on the side of him being allowed in.

An emphatic no. Betting on baseball is one of the cardinal sins of the game. Period. Lying about it for 15 years makes it worse.

Wait a minute... he admitted that he placed bets over 400 times on the Reds and that WAS his team.

Now he's a big fat liar, too.

I always wondered about his hair. Sheesh.

My vote was NO.

no way.
he made his bet, now he has to sleep in it...

I also voted no. Way back when, Kenesaw Mountain Landis made gambling THE cardinal sin of baseball. Shoeless Joe Jackson and friends were banned for life. Sad? Sure; poor Joe really wanted to play baseball and his stats should have put him in the Hall. But Joe died without being let back into baseball and, harsh as it may sound, I think the same is warranted for Rose.

Admitting it (after a decade and a half of denial) is nice, but shouldn't be enough to get him back in. After all, he doesn't apologize and, in fact, seems to be saying to the Hall voters and the public, "Get over it already!" (his quote is something like, "let's move on now"). No, sorry, but it doesn't work that way. I'm not going to move on on his agenda and due to his say-so; I'll move on per my own, thank you very much.

By the way, there are others who I think should have been banned long ago or for whom there should have been a similar type of banishment. Darryl Strawberry (yes, I know he's out now, but he had lots and lots of chances) comes immediately to mind. I don't think gambling is the worst sin out there - I think perhaps drug abusers, and wife beaters should also be banned from baseball. And how 'bout guys taking steroids? After all, that's also a form of cheating.

Then again, I do want someone to be around to play the game.

His so called apology was no apology at all. That plus the fact he bet on his own team should forever disqualify him.

Some of the greatest baseball players were complete jerks off the field. Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, Babe Ruth, Pete Alexander, even Lou Gehrig (don't be fooled by Gary Cooper's portrayal of him in Pride of the Yankees): none of them would have won sainthood either.

But saying that Rose should be judged by what he did on the field, rather than by his off-field gambling, is like saying that Ken Lay should be judged as the CEO of a successful, multi-million dollar company, not by Enron's corrupt accounting practices.

The fact is that baseball has had anti-gambling rules on the books since the Black Sox scandal. Note: baseball had these rules. Those were the rules of the game. Rose knew the rules, and he broke them. Not only should he be banned from baseball, he should be deported to some third-world country.

As a player, he did not violate those rules.

Plus, he never gambled AGAINST his team. Were he being voted for the hall of fame as a manager, I would say that you were right, but as a player, he did not violate the gambling rules...

And how do you know the extent of his gambling, McG? Because he said so? Some of what he's now saying is already being contradicted by some of his former cronies.

The man is a consummate liar. Has been and still is...

deportation seems a bit harsh.

think of the hall of fame as a restaurant. they reserve the right to refuse entry to anyone they wish. its a democracy -- "yay" or "nay".
rose does not fit the criteria for membership. period.

No matter what, he'll always be remembered as a great player. And if he got into the hall a few years back, you wouldn't be hearing his name as much today...so he's getting tons of publicity, good or bad.

Huh?

Major League Rule 21

I just read SI's article on Rose (pick it up if you don't subscribe; the article is very well-written and very telling).

A few things (I'm doing this from memory):
* Rose doesn't admit to gambling against his own team. He claims that every time he managed, he believed he would win, hence he bet on his team to win.
* However, he does admit that he initially lied about gambling because he knew he'd be banned. So he lied in order to see if he could get out of a banning.
* He also says that he "came forward" because Joe Morgan indicated that he (Morgan) had spoken to Selig and that Selig wanted a confession. So we may be seeing another aspect of the initial nonadmission, e. g. only a partial admission in order to get back into baseball, a sort of going only so far as he needs to go in order to get back into baseball.
* Rose admits that he's missed the game ever since he retired from playing, and had little else in his life. Hence there's another motivation for telling Selig what Selig needs/wants to hear, rather than the whole truth. Rose doesn't exactly say this, but it appears that Rose is concerned enough to do whatever it takes in order to get back in.
* The whole thing is on an interesting timetable. The idea is that Rose must be reinstated by late '05 (August?) in order to be eligible for the '06 round of voting for the Hall. That would mean that he would not be voted on by the Veterans' Committee, so there would be a far greater chance of Rose being voted in.
* Selig is considering retiring in '06.
* Many veteran players and Hall of Famers have told Selig that they will not return to the Hall if Rose is reinstated. They feel that strongly about it.
* There are extensive excerpts from Rose's book. Rose is not contrite. He admits the gambling but then pushes the issue, and demands to the reader, "Let's move on." That doesn't appear to be contrition; rather, it appears to be the push of an impatient child trying to get his own way.
* Rose admits seeing a psychiatrist. There was no mention of Gamblers' Anonymous or any similar group. Rose also complains that, unlike for drug abusers, he was not offered any way to rehabilitate himself. He blames baseball for this. He also says Bart Giamatti said that Rose should go into rehab and then Rose would have a chance of reinstatement.
* Of course, Giamatti died 9 days after the suspension was announced so, even if this statement attributed to Giamatti really was made, it doesn't matter.

He made the bets as a coach, and he was a good coach but not a Hall of Famer. But as a player, Hall of Famer FOR SURE. Ty Cobb=Racist/Murderer, but still Hall of Fame. Babe Ruth=Drunk/Womenizer, but still Hall of Fame. Mickey Mantle=Drunk, but still in Hall of Fame. Many great players had character flaws, but it shouldn't take away from their on field accomplishments, and that is what the Hall of Fame is. A museum that honors players for their on field accomplishments.

Hey why isn't Mickey Morandini in the Hall? He is a hell of a nice guy.

No, no and no.

I have to tell you I loved Pete Rose. I loved the way he played the game.
I used to watch him at bat, daring the out-of-town pitchers to throw anything anywhere near the plate, and him swinging, chopping, stabbing at the ball, full of fury. And run? Even if he hit a little dink, some homeless forlorn dinky roller towards third he's run full out, even after the ball was long in the first baseman's mitt he'd keep running, running hard, as if he could turn back time or get points for hustle. That was a baseball player. Pete Rose. Charlie Hustle.

He bet on baseball. He made or lost money of the game he was supposed to honor, a game that honored him. So shame on him. That's old fashioned isn't it? Shame.

My vote is for life banishment.
And let's not even talk about it again till he dead ten years or so.

Joe