Twenty years ago last Monday Baseball Commissioner Bart Giamatti announced the lifetime ban of Pete Rose from the sport of baseball. During the week I read an article on the Pete Rose saga by Jayson Stark on ESPN.com. In his sports opinion piece Stark made it clear that he believes that Rose will never be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
He mentions several reasons why he believes the way he does. He thinks current Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig will never lift the ban as long as he is in charge. Also, if the ban is lifted by some future commissioner it will be the Hall of Fame veterans who will have to vote Rose into the Hall. That group has never, ever elected a candidate who appeared on the ballot and he doesn”t think they ever will.
Me ? I am an eternal optimist. I can”t say that I would like Pete Rose as a person. But as a baseball player, he definitely was one of the best players ever and should someday be in the Hall of Fame. For the all-time hits leader to not be in the Hall of Fame is more offensive than the transgression that caused the ban.
What he did to receive the lifetime ban, which was to bet on baseball games, including on his own team, was egregious to be sure, but with each passing year, it appears to me, at least, that a lifetime ban was excessive punishment for the rules that Pete broke. You see, not betting on baseball was a Major League rule. Rose didn”t break the law, so there was no arrest or jail time. Years later, he did do time for tax evasion, but he paid his debt to society.
In sports today, many top- name athletes have committed major crimes and have been allowed back to their sport and, as far as I know, with no cloud over their head concerning Hall of Fame induction, if their career is worthy of it.
Take football star Michael Vick, for example. He ran a dog fighting business, which is rife with gambling. Perhaps he didn”t gamble on football, but his behavior and actions were much worse than that of Pete Rose. He did his two years in jail and is back to work. Two other football stars, Leonard Little and now Donte” Stallworth, have been found guilty and served prison time for manslaughter while driving under the influence. Little returned to play again and it is a certainty that Stallworth will also.
I think the use of steroids, over extended periods of time, by many baseball players who are likely to reach the Hall of Fame makes what Pete Rose did seem rather petty. I certainly don”t believe that Pete Rose ever used any performance-enhancing drugs to attain the phenomenal baseball statistics that he achieved over a long career.
There are a number of Pete Rose” contemporaries, such as Joe Morgan, Mike Schmidt and now, Hank Aaron, who lobby for the lifetime ban to be lifted on Charlie Hustle. It isn”t like Rose is on his death bed. He is a healthy 68. It would be best for the ban to be dropped and the possibility of induction to occur while Rose is alive, though. I personally believe that it will be a great day for baseball when Pete Rose takes his rightful spot in the Hall of Fame.
Gary Dickson is the editor and publisher of the Record-Bee. He can be reached at gdickson@record-bee.com or 263-5636, ext. 24.
