Rip Pete rose your good works will never be forgotten legend.

Some people are pining for a HOF nod now that Pete has passed, but having the Wander Franco trial starting is bad timing on top of bad timing.

I don't think anyone is ready to have a Pete HOF discussion under the shadow of that going on.

Maybe further down the line...maybe not.

Good quick read.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...ll-great-dead/

Extra quick with the paywall... hahaha

Sorry, I didn't think about the paywall issue.

Washington Post Article by Rick Reilly below:

Pete Rose died Monday, which surprised me. I never thought he’d slow down long enough to do it.

I knew him well. He fascinated me. I’d never met a guy who looked at life like a door he had to knock down, even if there was a perfectly good doorknob waiting.

Pete lived his entire 83 years, not just his spectacular baseball career, like he was double-parked. He’d sprint to first base the instant the ump called ball four. Vin Scully once told his listeners, “Pete Rose just beat out a walk.” I once saw him sprint off after striking out.

He’s the only player I ever knew who’d calculate his batting average before rounding first. Gave him something to do. I always felt that’s also why he got into gambling. Playing baseball like it was a midnight prison break wasn’t thrilling enough for Pete. He needed more action, more adrenaline, more chances to beat somebody.

One night, in 1985, I went to stay at his house after he’d won a home game as the Cincinnati Reds’ player-manager. It was the same year he got his 4,192nd hit, breaking Ty Cobb’s record and making him the all-time major league hit leader. It had been an exhausting night with a hundred managerial moves. After he dealt with reporters and grabbed a two-minute shower, we were rolling home in his car, Pete fiddling with the radio so he could yell at the sports-talk hosts.

“Idiots!” he said, turning it up.

We got home around midnight, but his wife, Carol, a former Philadelphia Eagles’ cheerleader, was still up and asked if we wanted pancakes. I wanted pancakes, but Pete didn’t even notice her. He was already working the TV, trying to find out who’d won the night’s hockey games. Then he moaned, “Goddamn Canucks!”

Pete was a guy who did everything very fast and all at once. Thinking never entered into it. There wasn’t time. He was a dive-into-home-plate-first-and see-if-a-catcher’s-standing-there-later kind of guy. Potential consequences never came up. All that mattered to Pete was the game. He lived for it. Teams, wives, decades, kids and grandkids would come and go; it was always baseball.

Michael Jordan took up golf. Jimmy Carter took up construction. But Pete Rose lived only baseball to his dying day. In fact, on Sunday, the day before he died, he was at a baseball card-signing event in Nashville with some old teammates. Who got the last autograph?

One time, on my way to the Las Vegas airport, I dropped by his sad little autograph booth in a Caesars Palace memorabilia shop, where for years he sat several hours a day, a couple of weeks per month, hawking his tacky baseball wares. I had my luggage.

“Where you off to?” he asked.

“Italy,” I said.

“Why the hell you goin’ to Italy?”

“Who doesn’t like Italy?”

“Never been,” he said. “I don’t go nowhere that don’t have baseball. Why would I? I can’t sell no autographs there. Can’t talk baseball with nobody there. What am I gonna do in Italy?”

“Relax?”

“Nah!”

That’s why banning Pete from baseball in 1989 — and from Cooperstown — was about three floors past unfair. It was all he had.

Baseball way overthought him. They figured that of course Pete knew players couldn’t gamble, so he must have had some game-fixing conspiracy going on. But Pete never cared about the money. Pete just cared about the juice.

“How do you feel about it?” I asked him once.

“About what?”

I stared at him.

“Getting banned from baseball?” I said. “For gambling?”

“Well, sh--,” he said. “I never bet against my team. I always bet on us to win. See? I can’t understand what’s so horrible about that.”

“But Pete,” I tried to explain. “The day you don’t bet is the day the bookies bet against you.”

“Nah!”

The whole Pete Rose Hall of Fame kerfuffle is a hurricane in a hat anyway. Pete is already in Cooperstown. They can’t avoid mentioning his achievements, even if he doesn’t have a plaque. You don’t need a plaque to know this 17-time all-star was one of the baseball greats. And, my God, he admitted to everything and apologized to everybody years ago. What more did the game want from him?

The sad thing now is that Pete’s obituaries will have “banned from baseball” in the first sentence. He played 24 pedal-to-the-metal, jaw-dropping, fabulously entertaining years un-banned. That’s the first sentence.

He loved baseball, from his constantly tapping feet to the helmet that was always flying off his head.

It’s just too bad baseball didn’t love him back.

Ty Cobb's career hit record of 4191 had stood for 57 years when Pete Rose broke it in 1985. The irony here is twofold. Pete Rose was the "modern" day player whose competitive drive was most like Ty Cobb's. And if alive Ty Cobb would have been the last person to congratulate Pete Rose for breaking his record. Ty Cobb would have just sneered.

:D

Awesome piece... thank you for posting it!

Does anyone know if Pete Rose collected Baseball cards?

:confused:

Many of us on this forum obviously met him. I’ve never heard about him being anything other than gracious.

I for one would like to see him enshrined. After all, what is the Hall of Fame? A museum.

I don’t know how you could possibly know that. If you deduce that from Al Stump’s biography, it’s apparently less than truthful.

Much exaggerated you say? You mean that I have to give up another one of my anti-heroes? Who's left then?

:confused:

A word to the wise. Allendalemark9 was banned mere hours after saying something nice about a Cincinnati Red. :eek: The rest of us can take that as a warning I guess.

:(

I really enjoyed watching Pete Rose play as a kid. Even gave myself a bunch of strawberries from emulating his headfirst slide. But I was really shocked and sad to learn that he bet on baseball. Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I support the ban and, separately, don't think he should be enshrined in the Hall of Fame.

Pete Rose was a fantastic baseball man, definitely a flawed human being in his personal life.
I don't see how Manfred and MLB can currently justify keeping Pete and Joe Jackson out of the hall when they have wholeheartedly dropped to their knees and embraced gambling with vigor in today's game.

+1

I agree it is inconsistent for sure. But two wrongs don't make a right. I'd love to see the gambling sponsorships gone from the game. There is nothing socially positive or redeeming about having the gambling industry as a sanctioned partner of MLB or, frankly, any sport.

But Joe Jackson was involved in actually throwing World Series games. Pete Rose on the other hand always played full out to win.

Joe Jackson was acquitted by a Chicago court, Landis was hired to clean up baseball and get rid of the gambling element, his decision was the right one at the time but banning Joe was throwing out the baby with the bath water, just look at his stats during the series.
Understandable decision at the time but revisionist history is all the rage right now so letting Joe and Pete in, all things considered, would be a net positive imo.

What I find most troubling, in fact maddening, is the hypocrisy. Yes, MLB was correct. Any association, any link, between pro sports and gambling threatens the integrity of the game. Case closed.

But many/most governments across North America have legalized whatever forms of gambling from which they can derive a piece of the action (but of course only those). And now given the sanction of politicians and the bureaucrats living off the taxpayers' dime, pro sports have followed suit. If Big Brother says gambling is fine, then it's now fine with pro sports leagues (provided that they can get a piece of the action of course).

But what about "the integrity of the game"? I guess that's no longer a concern so long as Big Brother and pro sports can derive their piece of the action from an activity they previously castigated. Like I say, it's the hypocrisy that's galling.

:mad:

Pete Rose was the man when many of us were growing up in the 70s and buying packs of Topps cards for a quarter. Pulling a Rose card out of a wax pack was like finding gold!

Not to mention that there's already one here in the B/S/T forum.

:(

Maybe MLB isn't as against gambling as they used to be.

I remember in 1976 when Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays were banned from Major League Baseball (MLB) by then-commissioner Bowie Kuhn for their association with casinos. Their duties included playing in golf tournaments with casino customers and appearing at public functions for the hotel. In 1985, commissioner Peter Ueberroth reinstated Mantle and Mays. Ueberroth said he made an exception for them because they were "two of the most beloved and admired athletes in the country today".

Press release March2, 2023: "As fans eagerly await the return of baseball, Major League Baseball (MLB) and FanDuel Group, the premier online gaming company in North America, today announced a multi-year partnership making its industry-leading sportsbook a co-exclusive Official Sports Betting Partner of MLB."

MLB is still banning players for betting on baseball, even this season, multiple players, one permanently.

MLB has lots of rules, but Rule 21 is specifically in every single MLB clubhouse.

It's kinda crazy we live in a world where there's more professional sports leagues than ever to bet on and baseball players still choose to break the barrier of the one thing that's specifically printed out and displayed in every home and away clubhouse in the game.

They can go Michael Jordan style in all the casinos they want. They can bet their entire paycheck on football or basketball or curling or synchronized swimming in any legally approved market/venue if they want.

There's one thing off-limits and it's been clearly stated for many decades. They walk by this reminder a few hundred times a year.

Now I'm not arguing that Pete Rose should be admitted to the Baseball Hall of Fame. In truth I don't give a damn. But hypocrites they are at MLB.

Disturbing report here, about Pete being turned away at a hospital five days before he died:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/oth...776f6151&ei=14


Steve

I think Pete would have been reinstated if he showed he was sorry, but signing baseballs as "I'm sorry I bet on baseball" wasn't very believable.

That's terrible, and unfortunately not too uncommon.

Sad news. I met Pete in Vegas in 2014 when he was signing autographs in a shopping center. As soon as I walked away, I had about a 100 questions that I wanted to ask him but missed the chance [Doh!]

That’s my favorite Pete quote. He signed this for me last year.

As far as I am concerned it was a "lifetime ban" from baseball. With his lifetime now over, his ban is now complete, time served. Let him in.

I agree. Let him in. His playing definitely deserves it.
.

+1 could not agree more.

He as a player, is a BASEBALL hall of famer period. Outside of baseball is another discussion. Baseball, At this point should be all that matters.

I think that is a good argument that his lifetime ban is now technically over...I haven't heard that argument made before. There was recently an interesting article in ESPN on this. https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/mlb...nt/ar-AA1tT95Q

Interested to hear the board's thoughts.

That argument hasn't worked for Shoeless Joe Jackson. He has been waiting 73 years. I have a feeling Pete Rose will be waiting just as long.

As long as Wander Franco is in the news I wouldn't count on the 34 year old who stated in court documents that the girl he cheated on his wife with was at least 16, not under 16, as an excuse is going to get far with the HOF argument.

There's other accusations, but even ignoring those because of the slimy sources (which happen to be friends of his), the court documents are damning.

I wouldn't count on it after the Franco stuff blows over, either.

That's a good point!

:)

"Slimy"? Those are pretty strong words. Would you be willing to exchange them face-to-face with those sources?

Why would you as an arms' length observer be wading through court documents?

:confused:

These are widely reported things, not some hidden dirt.

Google "Pete Rose 16 year old" and "Pete Rose Michael Bertolini" to fill in some blanks.

Michael Bertolini ties into the Dowd report, a radio interview with Dowd, Rose suing Dowd over what he said in a radio interview, and a court throwing Rose's lawsuit out.

Edit - Since Bertolini is technically involved in the hobby (or was, I haven't heard his name in years), I'm not sure if I'm breaking site rules bringing up my own personal opinion of his trustworthy nature so I'm deleting that bit of editorializing.