Commissioner Bud Selig may be thrust into the spotlight once more due to comments made by hall of famer Hank Aaron. Selig draws comparisons to grandpa from the TV show the "Munsters". Selig like Grandpa seems to always bungle things up. He's the grandfatherly figure you'd like to see succeed, but more often than not fails and forces a grimacing pose caught on camera time after time. Reaching from the early history of baseball, is this the commissioner of baseball that fans should want weighing in on such a critical issue as Pete Rose's re-instatement?
Pete Rose holds the MLB record for total hits at 4,256. Baseball is a game driven by statistics that help compare one generation of players to another. To hold one of the games most prestigious hitting records would almost certainly punch an automatic ticket to the hall of fame, but there are several key factors involved before Rose could come close to entering the Hall of Fame.
Removing the ban from baseball for Pete Rose and pave the way to the HOF would then clear the way for Shoeless Joe Jackson to enter the HOF, as well. And therein lies the biggest hurdle for Pete Rose. It's the images and comparison to the 1919 Black Sox that links two of the game's greatest players not in the HOF.
Pete Rose could have helped himself by acknowledging so much sooner that he bet on sports including baseball and games involving his own team. He could have become a leading figure to encourage others to seek help for gambling addiction. Rose had a chance to help others see what addiction can do to your life. Rose could have shown that similar to drugs or alcohol, gambling can ravage your life, your family & friends, and tear apart the most important things in your life. And for Pete Rose baseball was the most important part of his life. The goodwill and sympathy from helping others could have made things more difficult for MLB. Pete Rose made all his decisions himself and now lives with the consequences.
To quote then Commissioner of MLB Bart Giamatti from August 24, 1989 - "The banishment for life of Pete Rose from baseball is a sad end of a sorry episode. One of the game's greatest players has engaged in a variety of acts which have stained the game, and he must now live with the consequences of those acts. There is absolutely no deal for reinstatement."
When Pete Rose bet on baseball it conjured images of 1919. The scandal of such players knowingly and willfully throwing a game drew into question the integrity of the sport once again. The ban from baseball for Pete Rose wasn't a personal attack on the player but to ensure when a game is played that it's played fairly, legitimately, and without any question as to the outcome of the game.
Gambling especially on his own sport while in uniform raised speculation as to the outcome of games and as such similar to the 1919 Black Sox where a stiff penalty was levied by Federal Judge Landis & 1st Commissioner of MLB on the Chicago White Sox players to assure that the national past time was indeed a fair game without a pre-determined outcome. He ruled that -
"Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player who throws a ball game, no player who undertakes or promises to throw a ball game, no player who sits in confidence with a bunch of crooked ballplayers and gamblers, where the ways and means of throwing a game are discussed and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball."
To allow Pete Rose back into baseball and undoubtedly the Hall of Fame would pave the way for Shoeless Joe Jackson to enter the Hall of Fame as well. It tarnishes the game to open pandora's box that's been kept closed all these long years. The integrity of the game would lose its luster when the verdict that assured fans that baseball wasn't crooked could be reversed. Pete Rose may only see the hallowed halls of legends in the Hall of Fame just like everyone else - as a fan. For his fate is forever tied to baseball's storied past of 1919. No matter where he goes in life a string of bad decisions connects and keeps him tethered to a past he can't escape.
Podcast RSS Feed
