Junto Boys

MORE ON ROSE

A reply to my pals Steve W. and the Dude. You’d be good spokesmen for MLB.

I don't see how the argument is any stronger than baseball has a right because Rose knew it was wrong. That's a procedural argument, not a moral one. I always hated the Reds and Rose can be a bit much, but his banishment was too selective to be a just sentence.

There is a double edge sword to gambling and sports. Sports don’t discourage gambling, because 20%-30 of viewership is attributed to gambling. It’s been estimated that 1/3 of all NFL watchers have something riding on the game.

Landis didn’t blackball those players for gambling, though. They were booted for a conspiracy to take money to throw games. One does not equal the other.

Rose was singled out for reasons more than his actions. Alex Karras and some other NFL players bet on some playoff games during the 1960s and were only suspended for a year. When word started circling that Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker conspired to throw the last game of the 1925 season, it was brushed under the rug. No investigation.

Gambling and even throwing games had been going on before 1919, but like steroids today they didn’t want to do anything because it would implicate too many great players and hurt the bottom line. I’m sure certain people had known about Rose’s habit for years, but only used it once Rose started bumping Dave Pallone and making a general ass out of himself. Why hasn’t anyone else been booted for gambling since? With all of the gambling addictions in this country are we to believe that only the all-time hit leader was guilty of that crime?

The analogy of Soto and Rijo is a better argument than others I have heard, but would he be any more tempted to over use players on a $1,000 bet than managers who are obviously on the hot seat and worry about their $500,000 a year jobs? Can’t the team owners decide whether or not to hire a manager that wants to wager on his team? Marge Schott could have fired Rose when the allegations surfaced if she thought he was a danger to her investment. Also, the Soto-Rijo argument doesn’t work for players who still play. What reasons prevent them from betting on themselves?

As a fan it bothers me more that players like McGwire and Bonds are breaking sacred records by taking steroids while baseball looks the other way. The 1919 World Series is a disgrace, but are the situations of Bonds and McGwire using substances to break records less harmful to baseball than Rose betting on himself to win? The difference is that baseball likes home runs and is willing to hurt its own heritage to have something flashy to compete with the slam dunk. Rose’s actions are just a part of an intense human being that doesn’t like to lose. He is, in essence, the competitive spirit that makes baseball great.

Rose may deserve what he got simply because he knew the rules, but I’m arguing the larger philosophical point about what is really bad about baseball. There is a whole list of people who disgrace the game to a greater level. If more players played like Pete Rose and real scumbags were booted from the game, baseball would be in a better place than it is now. The trouble is that too many teams would lose star talent like pre-1919. It’s hypocrisy to be hard on Rose when they are so easy on everyone else. What if the same investigation into Rose revealed that 10% of MLB players bet on their teams and many of the players were stars? You would have seen a much more lenient outcome.

Rose was banned because he was one man and easy to make an example of. It’s hypocrisy to boot him for a rule that implies possible cheating when other players who knowingly cheat get a slap on the wrist.