Baseball Rant
So, this morning (actually, it was early afternoon, but whatever) I get up, and what is the first thing I see? Apparently Pete Rose has now admitted that he in fact placed bets on the Cincinnati Reds while he was their manager. This has, of course, just reopened a can of worms that should have been welded shut years ago. And quite frankly, each new episode in the Pete Rose saga only makes me more and more adamantly opposed to him ever being reinstated to baseball, to say nothing of being let in the Hall of Fame or managing again.
I'm not going to deny that he was a great player. He was a very good player for a very long time, and he has a hit record that is nearly unassailable. That's all well and good, except... He bet on baseball. While being a manager of a major league club. Everyone in baseball, and I mean absolutely everyone knows that this is completely and utterly against the rules. It's posted in every clubhouse. Everyone knows that doing so is pretty much guaranteed to get you banned from the sport, because way back when, the Chicago White Sox threw the World Series.
The people who go around saying that Rose should be let back in, because he's a great player, or that it's fine now that he's admitted it, or it's not a big deal since his latest claims assert that only bet on his team to win, clearly have no real comprehension of what this entire ordeal means, and they apparently have a very selective memory.
There is nothing in the pantheon of baseball offenses worse than betting on the game. It's called the integrity of the sport, and that is a huge deal. To say nothing of the fact that as part of his deal, Pete Rose did not admit to having bet on baseball, and ACCEPTED a lifetime ban. He agreed to that. He does not get to ask for reinstatement. This was the deal. He's out of baseball for good. Furthermore, it took him twenty additional years to finally admit that he, in fact, did bet on baseball, but still maintained he did not bet on his own team. And now, we have him changing his story again, in another desperate attempt to work up enough sympathy or pity or what have you in order to reenter the game in some fashion.
I say absolutely not in a million years. How many more times is he going to change his story before the end of this? He doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt. And even if he did really only bet on his team to win, which I'm not inclined to believe, it doesn't change the fact that betting on baseball was completely against the rules, and he knew it. He broke the rules. He doesn't get any sympathy, not from me. Maybe it'd be different if he didn't go around with the attitude that now that he's apologized, and admitted to his transgression, that he now deserves to be brought back in. If he had served out his sentence quietly, maybe after his death, or near the end of his life, I would have been willing to let him in at that point, in recognition of his great play. But not after all the crap he's pulled, not after all this.
I'm not going to deny that he was a great player. He was a very good player for a very long time, and he has a hit record that is nearly unassailable. That's all well and good, except... He bet on baseball. While being a manager of a major league club. Everyone in baseball, and I mean absolutely everyone knows that this is completely and utterly against the rules. It's posted in every clubhouse. Everyone knows that doing so is pretty much guaranteed to get you banned from the sport, because way back when, the Chicago White Sox threw the World Series.
The people who go around saying that Rose should be let back in, because he's a great player, or that it's fine now that he's admitted it, or it's not a big deal since his latest claims assert that only bet on his team to win, clearly have no real comprehension of what this entire ordeal means, and they apparently have a very selective memory.
There is nothing in the pantheon of baseball offenses worse than betting on the game. It's called the integrity of the sport, and that is a huge deal. To say nothing of the fact that as part of his deal, Pete Rose did not admit to having bet on baseball, and ACCEPTED a lifetime ban. He agreed to that. He does not get to ask for reinstatement. This was the deal. He's out of baseball for good. Furthermore, it took him twenty additional years to finally admit that he, in fact, did bet on baseball, but still maintained he did not bet on his own team. And now, we have him changing his story again, in another desperate attempt to work up enough sympathy or pity or what have you in order to reenter the game in some fashion.
I say absolutely not in a million years. How many more times is he going to change his story before the end of this? He doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt. And even if he did really only bet on his team to win, which I'm not inclined to believe, it doesn't change the fact that betting on baseball was completely against the rules, and he knew it. He broke the rules. He doesn't get any sympathy, not from me. Maybe it'd be different if he didn't go around with the attitude that now that he's apologized, and admitted to his transgression, that he now deserves to be brought back in. If he had served out his sentence quietly, maybe after his death, or near the end of his life, I would have been willing to let him in at that point, in recognition of his great play. But not after all the crap he's pulled, not after all this.