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Volume CXXXII, Number 14 |
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No Hall for Pete Rose
JAMES BAUMBERGER
COLUMNIST
In baseball, 3,000 career hits is considered a remarkable achievement. Pete Rose had 4,256.
Nobody disputes that Rose, who played for the Cincinnati Reds for the majority of his career, was a remarkable athlete. Players of his caliber usually earn a place in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Rose, however, has never been inducted.
In 1989, while serving as the manager of the Reds, Rose was the subject of an investigation that revealed that he had placed bets on a number of major league games, including games played by his own team. As a result of the investigation, he was banned from Major League Baseball and declared ineligible for the Hall for Fame.
Rose's ineligibility has been the subject of ongoing controversy. Recently, he has renewed his battle to be reinstated and therefore be eligible for induction into the Hall. He has consistently denied betting on any baseball games, despite significant evidence suggesting the contrary.
It's true that baseball has had its fill of drug users, tax cheats, and racists. Many members of the Hall have committed much greater harm to society than Rose ever has. If these players were allowed in the Hall, the argument goes, than Rose should also be allowed. Right?
Not so fast.
When evaluating a player's performance on the field, we can and should take into consideration behavior that directly affects the integrity of the game itself, such as betting. We cannot prevent ball players from being poor role models in their personal lives, but at least we can preserve the purity of the game by preventing the possibility of corruption.
The nature of Rose's violation sets it apart from that of the common player with less than exemplary moral standards. Betting on games is clearly prohibited by baseball's Rule 21, which covers offenses that strike at the core of what baseball is about.
It is for this reason that Pete Rose should be kept out of the Hall of Fame.
Betting on one's own team to win, as Rose did, is not a benign act. If a manager has personal financial interests at stake in a game, he may be tempted to make risky decisions to win that may not be in the players' or the team's best interests.
And even if all of that did not matter, Rose has neither admitted his guilt nor apologized to baseball. How can we make a moral exception for someone who has not even atoned for his mistakes?
In a time when heroes in sports are not always easy to find, we should do what we can to preserve the dignity and purity of our nation's pastime by preventing Rose from entering the Hall of Fame. Caving in to Rose's request would only perpetuate our society's tendency to overlook a player's wrongdoing as long as he can play the game like no one else can.
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