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Originally Posted by nolemmings
I don't follow this at all. Landis investigated while the allegations of fixing were still fresh, not "after the fact". He was hired because of the Black Sox scandal. Moreover, players had been banned before the Black Sox scandal, and I mean banned, not suspended. The Black Sox can maybe argue they were acquitted and that ought to count for something (an unimpressive argument IMO) or that enforcement was spotty, but the concerns that baseball had with gambling were long-established and serious before that scandal. It was prominently displayed that no betting was allowed.
Check the background on these cards: --"No.... Betting"
 
As for Rose, the warning about being permanently banned was posted in the clubhouse of every professional team for whom he ever played. That punishment is hardly ex post facto, which if course is a criminal law precept that has marginal if any application to entry into a place of honor. The theory behind the doctrine is that people should know what "punishment" might await them if they engage in certain conduct so they can make informed decisions and assess the penalties of risky or wrongful behavior. IMO, it is lame to argue that Rose knew he could be permanently banned from baseball if he gambled as a player or manager but that he never would have taken that risk if he also knew that it could make him automatically ineligible for the Hall of Fame.
Keep him out. |
This proclamation is certainly after the fact.
"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"
Now I am particularly thinking of Buck Weaver when I say this. He didn't take money and didn't throw games, yet Landis banned him for not "promptly" reporting it. It is one thing to ban a game-fixer, but vastly different to ban someone for not reporting something. Considering how wide-spread game fixing was at that time, that part of Landis' proclamation seems completely after the fact to me and incredibly unfair to Weaver. I think Buck always had a strong argument to be reinstated and he should be cleared long before either Pete Rose or Joe Jackson.