Pete Rose in/out

I feel the same way, joe. I went to the last game he played in the Astrodome just to see him. But, banishment is what he deserves.

Come on guys, give him a break. He made a mistake, we all make mistakes. 4,200+ hits is way too many to ignore.

He may have bet on the game,
But let him in the Hall of Fame,

i'm with ya, joe nation.

you simply cannot separate pete rose the player from pete rose the manager. he has to be held accountable for both portions of his career.

i was all for him being reinstated UNTIL he admitted he bet on baseball. any player found betting on baseball should be ineligible -- forever. period.

He didn't make A mistake. He violated what Trekkies would call the Prime Directive of Baseball- no betting and he did it with the same regularity and moral sense of a serial killer.

Listen, I know this to be true: Baseball is not important.
It doesn't save lives or increase our knowledge of universal string theory, what it is is fun. It brings back all those days of Spring in my old neighborhood when the mud of the Valley Street Playground had just barely dried and me and twenty other kids would play a game of impossible importance, forgetting by the next day what the score was. We didn't have umpires, we had to call our own balls and strikes. I don't know about other neighborhoods but in ours we didn't tolerate cheats or liars. Rose is both. He can't be a part of our game anymore.
We won't use his bat and he can't borrow our glove. Got it?
Pete Rose doesn't have the integrity it takes for a ten year old to call his own balls and strikes.

Baseball is not important but sometimes it's a matter of moral certainty.

Joe

Let him in, he busted his ass for 20 years and he deserves the reward. I don't care that he bet on baseball. When I hear that I think "Meh", Ty Cobb KILLED A MAN. Actually a funny story. Two guys were trying to mug Mr. Cobb, and he wrestled the gun away from them and pistol whipped them to death. The Georgia Peach indeed.

So now we are to believe that there is something immoral about self defense and something morally defensible about conscious and serial rule breaking.

Joe

Yeah, you are right about that. What about Mr. Cobb leaping into the stands to attack a fan with no hands? or refusing to play because there was a black member of the groundscrew? How bout nearly running over the less than nimble President Franklin Roosevelt with a golf cart?

Any way you slice it, Ty Cobb was an asshole, but you wouldn't suggest keeping him out of the Hall of Fame would you?

I would.

If it could be shown he bet on games after the rule prohibiting it was established.

Well a Hall of Fame without Ty Cobb is useless. He is the best overall player of all-time, he once held 60 something records. He could hit like a madman, and he could steal bases, and play defense. Some may say "Well he didn't have power, how could he be the best of all-time?". A writer once asked him "Why don't you hit homers like The Babe?" and Ty Cobb replied "Well, I guess I've never tried". That next game Ty Cobb hit 3 homeruns. The Georgia Peach indeed.

Pete Rose has his stats, doesn't he? The Hall of Fame is another aspect, and I agree on No on this.

Betting on your team as a coach, after your career is over, is a far cry from cheating against your team as a player. Let him in. He's considered one of the best ever, and he's among the most famous... By the way, should they kick OJ out of the NFL hall of fame?

Not the same thing. Baseball, for better or worse, has always had a sort of moral baggage that comes with it. Perhaps that's due to it being very old. Or, who knows? But the moral weight is there.

And the rule is the rule (which is not an NFL rule).

Do I think Cobb the racist shouldn't be in the hall? No. Why? Because there's - bear with me here - no rule against that. See, here in the US, we don't allow ex post facto convictions, e. g. trying and convicting someone for something that was not illegal when they did it. It's not the same, but tossing out someone for what was not against the rules when they did it should not be allowed (by the way, this doesn't mean I don't think there should be a rule against racists, etc. going into the hall; I do! I don't want to see drug abusers, cheaters, wife beaters, convicted felons, etc. in the Hall of Fame any more than I want to see gamblers. But until those become the rule, I will tolerate what the Commissioner's office and MLB make as their rules in the matter).

But in the case of Rose, the rule was already in place. And it was no obscure, fine print type of rule. It's posted in every single clubhouse. Rose was in the majors for what, 25 years? He had ample time to read the rules or hear about them from owners, coaches or teammates. He knew what he was doing. But he did it anyway. He completely thumbed his nose at the Commissioner's office.

And another thing - on Primetime Live, he was interviewed by Charles Gibson the other day. Gibson asked him, "Did you bet while at the ballpark?" Rose says no - but the same TV program showed records from the time which indicated that he did call. He called his bookie every single day, in fact. So the lying continues.

Gibson also asked Rose if he still bets. Rose said, "Placing a bet is the furthest thing from my mind." Yet in the same TV program, Mike Schmidt (who favors Rose being allowed in the hall) says that Rose still goes to the racetrack, still bets on the horses, and is thinking of buying an interest in a horse. And Schmidt also says that he has told Rose that, if Rose really and truly wants to be inducted into the hall, he has to stop going to the track. He (Schmidt) says Rose has refused to do so. Again, the lies continue.

Rose (in the same TV program) was given the opportunity to speak to the people and the Commissioner's office and plead his case. He went on for, I dunno, maybe 5 minutes, and all the while the two words which he never uttered were "I'm sorry."

And, Fay Vincent has said that it's clear that Rose is not 100% coming clean, and that there is plenty that Rose is not owning up to. Rose does not admit he has a gambling problem. He does not admit that he was ever addicted. These are classic signs of someone who is still addicted, although Rose, when asked if MLB can trust him to no longer bet, claimed that he wouldn't. Nonsense.

Finally, it doesn't truly matter that Rose didn't bet against his team. After all, the days that Rose did NOT bet on his team are nearly the same thing. Got a tired pitcher and the guys in the locker room are all fighting off food poisoning? Just don't lay the bet on the Reds - put it on the ponies or somewhere else. Rose was shrewd enough to not bet every single time. To imagine that he did so for any reason, other than that he though his team would lose, is disingenuous.

Rose is a chronic compulsive gambler.

Rose is also guilty of a few decades' worth of bad judgment. He was a bad husband, a bad father, consorted with a laundry list of felons, lied about his gambling on baseball games...the list goes on.

But if Pete were a six-time loser as a drug offender, like Steve Howe, he would have been forgiven every time and MLB (i.e. the teams he played and coached for) would've paid for his -- failed -- rehab.

The commissioner should temper the retribution Rose has already endured with a bit of mercy (and IMHO common sense) and allow him to be voted into the HOF.

He deserves no other opportunity to participate in MLB because of his inability to confront his disease.

I keep see things like "He broke a major rule". The rule that is keeping him out of the Hall didn't even exist until he was caught gambling. The baseball hierarchy changed it just to keep him out of his deserved destination.

The rule against gambling didn't exist before Rose? I'm afraid, Child, your knowledge of baseball history may be as skimpy as the fetching swim suit worn by your icon. The first betting scandal in baseball occurred in 1865, and three players were banned for life for being involved. There was also the Black Sox scandal in 1919. The first baseball commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, was a federal judge who was hired to make sure such a thing never happened again.

Any player not knowing the rules about gambling on baseball is a liar. Even Rose admits he was wrong to bet.

The rule I was referring to was the rule that basically says, If MLB bans you, Hall of Fame bans you. I have a pretty substantial knowledge of the game considering the amount of time I have been following it.....about 8 years.

Hmmm, Pete Rose left baseball six years before you started following it.

And you would assume that I have no idea what the Pete Rose debate is about huh? When I said follow, I meant watching daily, and following the stories. Just because I didn't watch the story as it unfolded doesn't mean I never read a book about it, or saw an ESPN special on the subject.

And I would have been more aware of the Pete Rose scandal at the time, but I was only 2 years old.

integrity, sportsmanship, characterNo automatic elections based on performances such as a batting average of .400 or more for one (1) year, pitching a perfect game or similar outstanding achievement shall be permitted.