Joe Jackson and Pete Rose Should Be HOFers Because...

[darwinbulldog]

Independent of the issue of whether or not they should be eligible, there are already several better players who are eligible and haven't yet been inducted.

[brianclat11]

In the case of Shoeless Joe and Pete, I believe both should be in. Rules were meant to be changed and enough is enough. Back when Joe played, these guys could hardly make ends meat. For both of them, being kicked out of the game and time served should be enough. We all know about the hazards of gambling addiction, and it is not the worst offense that some of these guys in the hall have committed. How many things are still the same from 1920. Lets reevaluate what is fair and just. Pete has done his time and Joe needs to be recognized by being enshrined.

[Huysmans]

Originally Posted by darwinbulldog

Independent of the issue of whether or not they should be eligible, there are already several better players who are eligible and haven't yet been inducted.

So? What does that have to do with THESE players and their situations??

[robw1959]

Originally Posted by darwinbulldog

Independent of the issue of whether or not they should be eligible, there are already several better players who are eligible and haven't yet been inducted.

Interesting . . . can you name any better players than Joe Jackson that have yet to be inducted?

[darwinbulldog]

Originally Posted by robw1959

Interesting . . . can you name any better players than Joe Jackson that have yet to be inducted?

All of these guys definitely:
Barry Bonds
Roger Clemens
Alex Rodriguez
Mike Trout
Clayton Kershaw

And then these guys have/had better careers, but I wouldn't necessarily say they were "better players" than Shoeless Joe
Jim McCormick
Albert Pujols
Justin Verlander
Curt Schilling
Bob Caruthers
Adrian Beltre
Max Scherzer

[BRoberts]

Rose is an obvious HOFer.

[BobC]

Interesting facts, comments, and opinions all around. However, if you really want to have an honest and open discussion about this you have to remember that at the very core it comes down to some of the same basic things that seem to be the case whenever dealing with people.....greed and money!

Players back in Jackson's day didn't get paid so much that they didn't often have regular jobs during the offseason to make ends meet, they generally made more than the average worker of the day, but were by no means always well off. Baseball back then was totally controlled by the owners, who due to the way contracts were written and the reserve clauses they had, controlled players virtually for life. At best they were indentured servants, at worst, no more than.........!!! And having this power over the game, they often treated players unfairly, paying them as little as possible and probably breaking promises as to bonuses or rewards to players, and so on. Does anyone really think that the owners back then were not acting collusively to control the players so as to allow them to make as much money as possible for themselves? But at the same time, weren't they also granted a formal exemption from federal anti-trust laws stemming from a lawsuit with the defunct Federal League in the mid-teens? Believe that was finally formalized by the Supreme Court in 1922, even though it is crystal clear that they were doing what companies like Standard Oil and the American Tobacco Company were doing, yet baseball didn't get subjected to those anti-trust rules and regulation like those other major companies did from the laws that were in place. So in other words, owners had free reign to basically do to and treat players however they wanted. Also interesting how the date this exemption was formalized (1922) is right about the same time all this Black Sox activity and scandal was going on (1919-1920). Interestingly enough, there are actually some Senators in Congress today working on putting forth a bill to revoke major league baseball's anti-trust law exemption as we speak! Isn't it kind of ironic how still to this day major league baseball doesn't have to follow the same rules as everyone else?

Comiskey, the White Sox owner back then, was known to not always treat his players fairly and keep his promises to them, and so could be considered somewhat complicit in possibly pushing some of his players to talk with gamblers at the time, or at least make them more vulnerable to listening to them? Not saying he's totally at fault, but his and the other owners actions couldn't have helped. As has been stated, there were rumors and allegations of numerous other players and officials back then also being accused and linked to dealings with gamblers and the throwing of ball games, just that none of them ever got the same treatment that the Black Sox players got.

The fear at the time was that the American people would turn away from major league baseball if they began to think it was all fixed, and thus the owners would start losing money. So even after the Black Sox players were found innocent in a court pf law, the owners came up with the idea of an overall league commissioner to retroactively ban these Black Sox players that publicly stood up against the owners and baseball by looking to throw some games for money. And don't forget, MLB's rule 21(d)(2) regarding the ban on betting on games wasn't in place yet when this happened. And I dare even one of you to try arguing that the owners hadn't pre-arranged everything with Landis before they made him Commissioner and knew he would go back and ban them all as punishment. And to maybe more importantly send a message to every other ballplayer to keep their mouths shut and don't do or say anything that would damage the owners pocketbooks going forward, or let the public know how things really were. Can you imagine the public outcry if something like this was tried in today's environment by the baseball owners to retroactively do something and punish players after the fact, and how illegal those actions would be considered today?

By coming out like some of those Black Sox players did in admitting their actions, it put a black eye on major league baseball, and pushed the owners to punish them, not for the good of baseball, but for their own pocketbooks. But back then, given the contracts players were forced to live with and how they were treated, what else were major league players supposed to do? It could almost be considered a form of protest by the players, and maybe even compared to something like how college players are denied the ability to make any money by the NCAA today (And where is that going right now?).

Taking the baseball owners to court back then when the courts and the government were clearly siding with the owners (ie: the Supreme Court Anti-Trust exemption), would have clearly been fruitless, plus the players probably wouldn't have had the resources to afford to do it anyway. Of course they could have just decided not to play in the majors then and forego it to play in the minors or semi-pro leagues, which is what Joe Jackson did for a number of years under an assumed name if I remember correctly. But is that fair to them then? They either do, say and act as the owners want, or they can't play. Hmmm, we don't have anything like that still occurring nowadays in sports, do we? And funny how it all seems to come down to the same thing still......money for the owners!!!!!

Even in the article the one poster linked to regarding the White Sox 1920 season, it talks a lot about the evidence that the Black Sox players were still throwing games and all the in-fighting with their teammates. Interestingly though, it didn't mention Joe Jackson that much, other than some running mistakes and a muffed fly ball between two players, and I also didn't see where it says the clean White Sox teammates were actively accusing Jackson of throwing these games or starting fights with him like they appeared to do with some of the others. I've never read the source material so maybe there is much more evidence in there that does point to Jackson's involvement, I don't know. But if the point of this link was to prove that Jackson should not be in the HOF, that link doesn't make sense.

Let's try looking at this whole thing from another point of view also then. Oftentimes when talking of sports, guys especially, will refer to military type euphemisms in regards to their teammates and their sports like, "going to war", "in the trenches", and "someone you would want to be in a foxhole with". These all convey a certain level of comradery, loyalty and trust, which is certainly thought by many to be the most admirable of qualities. Or to possibly put it another, more basic way, "don't be a snitch or a rat"!!! From everything I've ever heard or seen about Joe Jackson, he was a nice, friendly guy who loved to play baseball, and also was a very simple, not overly educated person, who couldn't even read and write. So here is Jackson playing on a major league team and some teammates come to him and ask him to participate in a plan to get back at Comiskey and to make themselves a little money in doing so that they feel they were due. He's a simple country guy who wants to be friendly and get along with everyone. People like Comiskey don't really know or interact with him, other than is necessary to make money off of him, and Jackson has seen and heard how he treats his own players. So what is he going to do, turn into a snitch and rat out his playing friends, his teammates in the trenches, brothers in the foxholes, and possibly garner the scorn of other baseball players in the sport who then hear of it and put his ability to play with them in the future in dire jeopardy? Or do you just shut up and go along so you don't upset your friends and teammates and hope nothing bad ever comes of it? Remember, there were a lot of allegations and rumors of players being involved with gamblers back then, but no actual league rule against betting, and no one else had previously been condemned for it (ie: Hal Chase among others). From all I've heard, including Jackson's own admissions, he seems to be honest about his involvement when asked and wasn't the instigator of the whole affair, and appears to be more of someone who got caught in the middle of all this and forced to make a choice that had bad consequences for him whichever side he ended up choosing. Plus, he didn't seem to continue throwing games like has been argued for some of the others. Just look at his 1920 stat line. Played in 146 games, 649 plate appearances, .382 BA, led the majors with 20 triples, hit most homers of his career with 12, had 121 RBIs (by far the most he ever had in his career), only had 14 strike outs, OBP of .444, and OPS of 1.033. Don't know about any of you, but that doesn't appear to be the stat line of someone looking to throw some games. And if I remember correctly, his stats in the 1919 World Series weren't too shabby either. Truth is, even if Jackson had batted 1.000 in the World Series or for the entire 1920 season, and had never made an error in either, there will always be someone that will still say he was involved in throwing games.

And just look at baseball still today, biggest issues still out there have to do with cheating and affecting the outcomes of games as we speak. However, the only big difference between how Joe Jackson and Pete Rose get treated, and all the other cheaters out there are treated, is that Jackson and Rose are vilified for supposedly trying to lose games, whereas everyone else is accused of trying to win games. That is a sad commentary on the state of the general public, even today, in that if you cheat to try and win we'll let it go and somewhat forgive you, just don't let us catch you at it to begin with. Isn't cheating cheating, whether you do it to win or lose? So why is one treated so much differently than the other?

And yet, isn't it also funny how today gambling is so pervasive in our society and with major sports that basically all of them have embraced it? And why is that, because all the major sports, including MLB, recognize that the public is actually for it and wants it. And because they also have come to realize that a big reason a lot of people still follow their sport is almost solely because of gambling and nothing else. So they now embrace gambling for one reason alone, to make money of course. All the major sports owners are still trying to figure out how they can get a bigger piece of the gambling pie for themselves, but heaven forbid any of their players or others directly involved get a piece of that pie for fear it will impact the way gamblers look at their sport and lower potential revenue the owners can possibly make off those gambling activities. Again, it is all about the money and the hypocritical owners that are in professional sports. For example, wasn't there a big stink once when Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays got in trouble for acting as greeters or something at some casino years back, long after they were both out of major league baseball as players? Don't remember exactly, but didn't MLB talk about suspending them or something, and it was only after an uproar from the public that they were forgiven? And yet today, you have some sports trying to see if they can get gambling concessions installed right in their own arenas/parks/stadiums so fans can come and gamble in person, and of course give a cut of the action to the owners if they can get it. Nah, not hypocritical at all!!!!!

And think about this also, in some ways gambling has kind of been treated like the liquor industry and Prohibition. After enacting Prohibition it was soon learned that you weren't going to stop people from drinking, and they finally had to bring it back, only now more controlled by the government so they could get their tax slice of the industry. Has taken much longer, but a similar evolution has been going on with the gambling industry, and the government has finally realized, if you can't beat them, then legalize it, regulate it, and tax the hell out of them. So the one good thing today about more legalized gambling is that for someone to make a whole lot of money, it will likely get recorded and reported to the IRS. And with what MLB players make today, there's a lot less chance they'll jeopardize their careers to win a few bucks from throwing a game.

I'll leave you with this thought. If back in the day MLB owners like Comiskey could have figured out a way to make more money for themselves off the gambling that was going on around their sport, do you think they would have been so much against it? I'm betting (pun intended) if they were able to make money from the gambling somehow you wouldn't have ended up with the 1919 Black Sox scandal and Shoeless Joe would be in the HOF today. As for Pete Rose, the rule was in place by then against gambling and even though I doubt think he ever played or managed any game to consciously lose, he knew he wasn't supposed to do it, but did it anyway. Of course there are many that will also now argue that he was/is subject to a gambling addiction and that is a type of mental disease that we are now discriminating against him because of. And honestly there is merit to that argument. He was/is outspoken and arrogant about it though and instead of admitting and really doing something about it, never did, and MLB has been punishing him ever since. I've often felt that MLB will wait till after he is gone and then finally relent and let him in the HOF. And because of that, MLB couldn't go back and let Jackson in the HOF before then either because then they'd have to let Rose in. Time will tell.

[Case12]

Originally Posted by BRoberts

Rose is an obvious HOFer.

He will never need a plaque. His baseball record is written in stone for all history.

[jiw98]

I'm for letting both Jackson and Rose in the HOF. Joe Jackson could not have broken a rule that didn't exist until years later. (Rule 21 adopted 1927) Even after being found not guilty by the jury on Aug 2, 1921, it wasn't until the following day that Landis said that any player betting on baseball will be banned.
As for Rose I'm for letting him in for what he did as a player. I do believe he should be banned from baseball for betting as a manager.
JMHO

[rats60]

I don't understand how anyone could support Pete Rose for the HOF. He knew the price for betting on baseball was a permanent ban. He deserves his punishment.

Joe Jackson at least has a case because there was no rule. The facts are not clear his level of participation, but at a minimum he knew the fix was in and didn't try to prevent it.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by jiw98

I'm for letting both Jackson and Rose in the HOF. Joe Jackson could not have broken a rule that didn't exist until years later. (Rule 21 adopted 1927) Even after being found not guilty by the jury on Aug 2, 1921, it wasn't until the following day that Landis said that any player betting on baseball will be banned.
As for Rose I'm for letting him in for what he did as a player. I do believe he should be banned from baseball for betting as a manager.
JMHO

It doesn't take a rule to know you can't take money to throw a World Series.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by jiw98

As for Rose I'm for letting him in for what he did as a player. I do believe he should be banned from baseball for betting as a manager.

He bet on games as a player.

[robw1959]

Originally Posted by darwinbulldog

All of these guys definitely:
Barry Bonds
Roger Clemens
Alex Rodriguez
Mike Trout
Clayton Kershaw

And then these guys have/had better careers, but I wouldn't necessarily say they were "better players" than Shoeless Joe
Jim McCormick
Albert Pujols
Justin Verlander
Curt Schilling
Bob Caruthers
Adrian Beltre
Max Scherzer

It's hard to compare pitchers to Shoeless Joe Jackson, but comparing the rest is laughable! The guy batted .382 at age 37 in a full season, with 20 triples. He batted .356 lifetime, and is credited with teaching Ty Cobb how to bat. Even in the deadball era, Jackson's OPS is better than anyone on your list except for the steroid abusers.

[bmattioli]

Rose is a Hall of Famer to me and that's all that counts.

[Econteachert205]

I’ll play devil’s advocate. Rose and Jackson belong in because their roles as villains serve so many purposes. They allow for others of questionable morals and ethics to finger wag. They are responsible for some of the best stories in the history of the game. They are modern day Shakespearean tragic figures and their fall is a direct reflection on the times they lived in. The hall itself has little moral authority to deny the greatness of these two men based on their transgressions. Let them in and clearly state what they have accomplished, good and bad. Then please do the same for everyone else.

[Mark17]

Originally Posted by Econteachert205

I’ll play devil’s advocate. Rose and Jackson belong in because their roles as villains serve so many purposes. They allow for others of questionable morals and ethics to finger wag. They are responsible for some of the best stories in the history of the game. They are modern day Shakespearean tragic figures and their fall is a direct reflection on the times they lived in. The hall itself has little moral authority to deny the greatness of these two men based on their transgressions. Let them in and clearly state what they have accomplished, good and bad. Then please do the same for everyone else.

I've often thought about how maligned Judas and Pilate are. Look what an essential role they played in the birth of Christianity.

[Bigdaddy]

Originally Posted by Econteachert205

The hall itself has little moral authority to deny the greatness of these two men based on their transgressions. Let them in and clearly state what they have accomplished, good and bad. Then please do the same for everyone else.

It is not the HOF that has judged the players, but rather MLB. If MLB revoked both Rose and Jackson's ban, then they would be eligible for the HOF and would then be judged by the voters as to their worthiness of admission to the Hall.

[ThomasL]

Honestly there is so much gray area about Jackson and his involvement I dont think he is a fair comparison with Rose in these HOF debates.

I think Eddie Cicotte or Hal Chase are better for these debates. Both would be HOFers and their guilt, like Rose, is pretty black and white.

Ya I think Cicotte is a HOFer, better record and ERA than HOFers and as Cummings is in basically bc he was the first real effective curveball pitcher (if not inventor) the same can be said about Cicotte and the knuckleball.

Chase was considered the greatest 1B to play by many even well into Lou Gehrig's career in the 1930s.

[sreader3]

I would like to see the Hall live up to its name — fame not just stats minus the guys they don’t like.

So Shoeless Joe and Pete Rose in, Fred Lindstrom and Rick Ferrell out.

Honestly, I would rather see a Barry Bonds exhibit than a George Kell exhibit.

Just provide the relevant context.

[esd10]

Based on statistics rose and Jackson are hofers and I believe both should be enshrined in the hof.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by robw1959

It's hard to compare pitchers to Shoeless Joe Jackson, but comparing the rest is laughable! The guy batted .382 at age 37 in a full season, with 20 triples. He batted .356 lifetime, and is credited with teaching Ty Cobb how to bat. Even in the deadball era, Jackson's OPS is better than anyone on your list except for the steroid abusers.

Joe Jackson was 32 when he played his last game. Ty Cobb came up years before him.

[robw1959]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Joe Jackson was 32 when he played his last game. Ty Cobb came up years before him.

Sorry to mess up on the math, but Cobb has been quoted as saying that he owed much of his batting prowess to imitating the batting swing of Joe Jackson.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by robw1959

Sorry to mess up on the math, but Cobb has been quoted as saying that he owed much of his batting prowess to imitating the batting swing of Joe Jackson.

It was Babe Ruth who said he imitated Joe Jackson, not Cobb.