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On the same day when the rundown of news stories with ethical implications already included the gifting of a $400 million plane from a country that reportedly funds Hamas and the potential of parole for two brothers who helped off their folks, somehow this breaking news pushed them and practically all else to the back burner. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS’ Ronald Blum supplied the kindling wood for this fire:
Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson were reinstated by baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred on Tuesday, making both eligible for the sport’s Hall of Fame after their careers were tarnished by sports gambling scandals.
Rose’s permanent ban was lifted eight months after his death and came a day before the Cincinnati Reds will honor baseball’s career hits leader with Pete Rose Night.
Manfred announced Tuesday that he was changing the league’s policy on permanent ineligibility, saying bans would expire at death. Several others will also have their status changed by the ruling, including all members of the 1919 Chicago Black Sox, former Philadelphia Phillies president Williams D. Cox and former New York Giants outfielder Benny Kauff.
Not to diminish the qualifications and candidacy of the esteemed Mr. Kauff, but I don’t think he’s going to create anything close to the volume of emotion that this has already produced. And they pretty much run the gamut of possibilities. USA TODAY’s Gabe Lacques offered one as close to down the middle as any of the 4256 pitches that Rose successfully connected with during his 23 1/2-year career:
We won’t go so far as to call this a dark day for baseball. Enough folks are already doing that work.
No, call it a dismal day for baseball. A stupid day for baseball. A grim relitigating of old business that the game would’ve been best served to leave in the dustbin alongside its many indignities. Pete Rose is off Major League Baseball’s permanently ineligible list, and who knew that you could speed run to Cooperstown merely by kicking the bucket, no matter how felonious, how detrimental to the game you were when you were upright and breathing? No, this decision by commissioner Rob Manfred smacks of executive branch overreach mixed with a dash of CEO malpractice. Manfred’s tenure – which will ultimately run about 15 years once he steps aside – was already a mixed bag, but dude was on a little bit of a roll there, for a minute.
You may think that sounds somewhat slanted, but consider what THE BOSTON HERALD’s Gabrielle Starr tossed onto the barbie:
On Tuesday, Major League Baseball announced that lifetime bans are just that, and therefore, the late Pete Rose is now eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Thus, celebrations for this unworthy man begin anew. Neither camp is focusing enough on what really matters in a discussion about Rose’s Hall of Fame eligibility, something far worse than betting on baseball while playing and managing the Cincinnati Reds.
In 2017, a woman testified about a sexual relationship with Rose in the 1970s, when he was a married, 30-something father of two, and star player for the Cincinnati Reds. She stated she had been 14 or 15 years old when it began, and said they had also been together out of state, alluding to places where the age of consent was older than Ohio’s 16. In court filings, Rose admitted to the sexual relationship, but said he believed she was 16 when it began and denied taking her out of state. He was never charged because the statute of limitations had expired.
But when an actual Hall of Famer, the ATHLETIC’s Jayson Stark, who typically focuses on quirky occurrences while the game is being played, decided to weigh in, his take seemed to come from a far more realistic and objective perspective:
(L)et’s think about what MLB commissioner Rob Manfred just did, when he effectively reinstated Rose on Tuesday, removing him and other deceased players from the ranks of men who have been “permanently” suspended from baseball.
Isn’t he basically telling us: This man served his time?
That’s what it feels like. And if that’s the message that begins to reverberate around baseball, the commissioner is going to discover he just did more than merely nudge open the door for a player who is no longer alive to walk through it. He’s about to be reminded that when you do that, you never know who might come knocking. Because if this leads the Hit King into the Baseball Hall of Fame, do we really think that will be the end? Or will Barry Bonds be pounding on that door … and Roger Clemens … and Mark McGwire … and the descendants of Shoeless Joe Jackson?
Rose himself made his case one last time in what turned out to be a self-produced epitaph in a two-part HBO Sports documentary that dropped last July. We mused on that, of course, and we weighed in with what turned out to be a unfortunately precient take of our own:
(T)he current enshrinee that Rose has the most in common with, both in playing style and attitude, was the man whose all-time hit record was broken on a glorious September night early in Rose’s tenure as player-manager on his homecoming stint with the Reds, one Ty Cobb. Cobb was revealed to be a unapolgetic racist, a product both of his time and his Georgia upbringing. Anyone from the West Side of Cincinnati, from the Rust Belt of Ohio, from indeed as representative a world as any Hillbilly Elegy author, could relate to better than I. Isn’t that right, James Bowman?
So I suppose if people like Bowman–his real name, incidentally–and said Republican candidate have a chance to win election and reverence in these times, it’s not all that impossible to at least consider Rose as still having a fighting chance for his own retribution.
Which is effectively the path of browbeating that Lacques went off on during the balance of his piece, laying full responsibility on how the current head of the sport has gotten in goosestep with so many other CEOs in the wake of the election of Bowman and his boss:
Manfred’s legacy won’t, for many fans, extend much further than being known as the man who breathed. life into a pariah in most markets, all while creating the perception that he was dog-walked by a president whose approval ratings are historically negative…two months after President Donald Trump promised pardons of Rose and urged he be sent to Cooperstown, nearly four decades of establishing a moral high ground was sacrificed.
Yes, during those decades there seemed to be more overall support for “moral high ground” than there is now. But since Rose’s death last fall it’s pretty clear than the amount of weight those kinds of crimes–er, accusations–against humanity carry has diminished significantly. And, by the way, we’re not merely talking about politics here. Do consider that Rose’s beloved Reds will beam that Pete Rose Night tonight over a regional sports network now dubbed FanDuel Sports Ohio.
And Lacques effectively points out amidst his own wails the checks and balances that actually exist in this case that, at least for now, the sport appears committed to honoring:
In two years, a committee will determine if he should be on a ballot, and if so, 16 men and women will vote on Rose’s candidacy. If 12 of them say yes, Rose is a Hall of Famer.
Yes, he needs a 75 per cent vote to gain admittance to Cooperstown. Just like the all-time major league home run leaders for both a single season and all-time. Just like the guy who’s won more Cy Young Awards than any other pitcher in history. Just like the #4 all-time home run king who just got approved to run an NBA franchise a win away from its second straight conference finals.
They’ve been on ballots a lot longer than Rose. Collectively by my count, 37 times. As recently as last summer, the last time the Classic Baseball Era conclave convened. Even without the lengthy rap sheet that Rose brings to the table, there was no white smoke eminating from the camps of Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire and Alex Rodriguez.
So all of this merely means that now Rose, despite being a convicted felon, will get a chance to win a free and fair election. With a new generation of fans and their moral turpitudes to placate–not necessarily the ones of the last four decades (again, by my count, more than three and a half-ish, but I digress). Are we perhaps afraid based on recent precedent we’re merely feeling what we currently think will be the result?
I’ve always passionately believed that it is not in anyone’s best interest–including their own–to expect vox populi to reflect personal discourse. Not only is it often a lousy business model, it’s overly arrogant.
And I’d further offer: If 37 previous votes didn’t produce a winner among the morally ambiguous–still more if you count the somewhat less strong candidacies of the likes of Sammy Sosa and Curt Schilling–are we honestly that browbeaten to think that the verdict for December 2027 has already been written in stone.
There’s only one sure bet in this process: Shoeless Joe won’t be walking through the ivy (heck, not even Ray Liotta will) and Rose won’t be doing any more documentaries to plead his case. The testimonies are locked–as is the case that the woman who Rose had a relationship with decided to bring against him a mere forty something years after the fact.
There’s roughly two and half years between now and when Rose and company will be up for consideration for enshrinement. That’s two more years (we assume) of the current administration, with a midterm barrage tossed in for good measure. That’s an awful lot of hot stoves yet to come. By the time that conclave convenes we’ll have a much better idea where vox populi is at that moment. To issue any sort of a prediction would be extraordinary premature.
You could bet that even Rose would have been unlikely to drop a dime on something like that.
Until next time…