“OK, he got caught, but it doesn’t mean he isn’t still the BEST at Rubik’s Cube…”
I was interviewed on a radio news show early this morning, and one of the questions I was asked was whether what the host called “the decline of ethics in the country” could be reversed. I’m not convinced there has been such a decline, but if there is, it sure doesn’t help to have so many journalists with big microphones displaying infantile analysis of ethics-related issues on a regular basis.
Today’s case was USA Today sportswriter Bob Nightengale, who took the occasion of the annual induction of new members into baseball’s Hall of Fame in Cooperstown this weekend to trot out nearly every rationalization and ethical invalid argument imaginable to explain why he would be voting for all the proven or suspected steroid cheats for the Hall when their time comes:
“There, I said it. I will vote for Bonds. And Clemens. And Sosa. And Piazza. I’ll think about Bagwell. And will continue voting for Rafael Palmeiro, who tested positive in his final season when he reached 3,000 hits.”
And then come the rationalizations:
- “Hey, it’s OK to admit racists, criminals, drunks and recreational drug abusers, but let’s not tarnish the sacredness of the Hall of Fame.” This is essentially a “there are worse things” argument with an overlay of ignorance and stupidity. This is a baseball Hall of Fame with very clear character requirements: “Voting shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.” No other sports Hall of Fame has such standards: just wait for the fight over admitting Joe Paterno into the College Football Hall of Fame (O.J. is a member in good standing.). But these are the requirements: character counts. Pundits like Nightengale try to get around them, but I think this is core to baseball’s tradition of standing for values as well as competition. The character clause clearly focuses on baseball-related character traits, not personal ones, and obviously must be assessed in the context of what was considered good character when the players were alive and on the field. Using racism is a cheap shot, usually directed at Ty Cobb. Cobb was a Southerner born in the 19th Century; of course he was a racist, like most Americans of that time. Drunks? Now Nightengale is channeling early, pre-AA, pre-AMA attitudes about alcoholism, which today we recognize as an illness, not a character flaw. Yes, Hall members Mickey Mantle and Grover Cleveland Alexander (as well as others) were drunks, and alcohol killed Alexander and nearly killed Mantle. But unlike steroids, alcohol is a performance impeding drug, and a societal scourge generally (with sportswriters being prime sufferers). As a measure of good character, it is ambiguous. “Criminals”? Unlike pro football, baseball has no felons in the Hall, except for some who were arrested on drug charges after their playing careers. Post career misconduct is, reasonably, only relevant if it embarrasses the sport and the Hall. The record shows that the vast, vast majority of Hall admittees meet the character requirements as applied to their athletic achievements. Cheaters are notably absent.*
- “These players linked to PEDs [ Performance Enhancing Drugs]… are the greatest of their generation. It just so happens to be the steroid generation.” Wrong. The greatest of their generation were the players who excelled without cheating, and we have a very good idea who those players are. They include Ken Griffey Junior, Derek Jeter, Randy Johnson, Jeff Bagwell, and many others. The “steroid generation” argument is just “everybody did it,” when in fact everybody didn’t. If everybody did, however, then that whole era, the Cheating Era, doesn’t belong in a Hall of Fame that regards sportsmanship and integrity part of the criteria for admission.
- “These guys played in a generation when everyone looked the other way.” So if the authorities aren’t looking, it’s their fault that you breaks laws and rules. This is called “looters’ ethics.” Nightengale conveniently ignores that integrity word, doesn’t he? Integrity during the steroid era meant not cheating even though cheaters were beating you on the field and getting big contracts. It meant doing the best you could without using banned and illegal substances, even though you could probably get away with it. Bob Nightengale, you see, doesn’t value ethical conduct. He doesn’t even seem to know what it is.
- “Did anyone really believe Mark McGwire and Sosa could hit balls farther than anybody ever, looking like cartoon characters with their massive arms and chests, and do it naturally?” Yes, in fact, many of us did, because we trusted the integrity of the game, and assumed that our heroes weren’t lying to us. Is Nightengale saying he knew they were cheating, and kept quiet about it? Then this is a remarkably self-serving argument, don’t you think? He’s the sports journalist; he had a professional obligation to blow the whistle if he really knew what was happening. Now he’s using his breach of duty as the justification for ignoring cheating, and rewarding the players who did it!
- “And how about this: Do we know there aren’t any steroids users already in the Hall of Fame?” Yes, how about that? Nightengale is arguing that if one player snuck into the Hall without being discovered as the cheater he was, that validates cheating. This is the juvenile reasoning of the older brother: “Hey, you let HIM get away with it!” Nightengale isn’t making an argument that using PED’s wasn’t wrong; he’s making the fatuous assertion that if one player gets away with cheating, every player should get away with it. A pure rationalization, and one of the really dumb ones.
- “Aren’t amphetamines considered a performance-enhancer? If so, can any Hall of Famer stand up and say he never used amphetamines before a game?” This is the ascendant argument of the steroid cheat rationalizers these days, since baseball finally banned “greenies” in the clubhouse. It’s tougher than the rest of Nightengale’s arguments. The difference, I think, is that the players never saw amphetamines as cheating, or regarded them as “performance enhancers.” No college has suspended a student for writing a term paper or studying for an exam on speed: it’s just not treated as cheating in this culture. Baseball players didn’t hide their amphetamine use from management or fellow players—in this case, everybody really was doing it, and those who weren’t never felt they were being cheated by those who were.
- “The trouble with being judge and juror as a Hall of Fame voter is that we don’t know who was clean and who was dirty.” Oh, baloney. You know who’s “dirty” for sure (Bonds, McGwire, Palmeiro, Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez) and you make a decision on whether other players are lying or not. You don’t presume steroid use without significant evidence. We don’t know that Pete Rose is the only former great who gambled on baseball—but we know he did. He’s out. If we find out that another player in the Hall did what got Pete banned from baseball, throw him out. What is so hard about that?
- “Are you going to keep Bonds out but let Clemens in because Clemens was exonerated in court while Bonds fights his conviction on obstruction of justice?” This isn’t a rationalization, but just proof positive that Nightengale is a dolt. Clemens wasn’t “exonerated” of anything. They couldn’t prove that Clemens was lying to Congress about his PED use beyond a reasonable doubt, because his primary accuser isn’t trustworthy, having a record of lying as he does. But liars do tell the truth; it’s just hard to tell when. Deciding that the evidence that Clemens used PED’s is substantial enough to keep him out of the Hall of Fame (it is) doesn’t require the same burden of proof or sufficient certainty necessary to send him to jail. Here is my question: how can someone as ignorant as NIghtengale, even for a sportswriter, qualify to have a vote for the Hall of Fame?
- “The Baseball Hall of Fame, after all, is a historical museum and not a cathedral.” No, it’s a museum and a Hall of Fame. Halls of Fame are intended to honor members of a nation, society or profession that the nation, society or profession can be proud of, that represent the best of that nation, society or profession, and who can serve as role models in the future.
A profession that honors cheaters disgraces itself.
NOTE: A couple of years ago, I wrote an article for The Hardball Times Annual regarding how the character clause should be interpreted. It’s the property of THT, but if anyone wants a copy to read, just let me know, and I’ll send a file.
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* The controversy on this point involves the alleged spit-ballers, especially Gaylord Perry. Baseball’s attitude toward using the illegal pitch has always been strange, reflecting the gray area between scuffing a ball (also illegal) and putting a foreign substance on it to make the ball deal cards. I would have rejected Perry on this basis, but for some reason his spit-ball use was always regarded as cute.
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Sources:
Graphic: Funny Pictures
Ethics Alarms 
I’ve been hearing that Ty Cobb was a racist for years bit from everything I’ve read from black people who worked for Ty Cobb or knew him he was anything but a racist. And even if he was a racist in that he thought blacks were inferior it never effected his relationship with them and be treated them with kindness , respect and as a equals.
From what I’ve read, Cobb’s supposed racism was exaggerated — at worst, his racial attitudes were typical of the unenlightened era he played in and the South he grew up in.
But even if one brands him a racist during his playing days, it’s ridiculous to claim he was a racist his entire life. In 1945, he contributed $100,000 to a modern hospital that was built in a predominantly black area of his hometown, Royston, Ga., and served all races without discrimination. In 1953 he established the Ty Cobb Educational Foundation, which awarded scholarships to needy students in Georgia, many of whom were black.
The clincher, however, is what he told a reporter the previous year. Asked whether black players should be allowed to play alongside white players, Cobb said (using the racial terminology of the day): “Certainly it is O.K. for them to play. I see no reason in the world why we shouldn’t compete with colored athletes as long as they conduct themselves with politeness and gentility. Let me say also that no white man has the right to be less of a gentleman than a colored man, in my book that goes not only for baseball but in all walks of life.”
Says it all, doesn’t it?
“The character clause clearly focuses on baseball-related character traits, not personal ones, and obviously must be assessed in the context of what was considered good character when the players were alive and on the field.”
Jack, I don’t see the “character clause” you refer to; maybe that is only because we differ on what we call clauses. I see “character” listed, along with more specific character traits including integrity and sportsmanship. But even if the solitary word is a clause, I don’t understand how you can say the character clause “clearly focuses on baseball-related character traits, not personal ones,” mainly because I don’t see how character traits can be baseball-related without also being personal traits.
Ty Cobb was hardly a model of baseball-related sportsmanship, in any era. When he was alive and on the field, I doubt whether many of his fellow ballplayers, and other principals of the game in his time, would say Cobb had good character. And yet there he is in the Hall. I suppose you could say Cobb exhibited such integrity of un-sportsmanlike conduct, his integrity of un-sportsmanlikeness trumped his lack of sportsmanship and thus qualified him for membership, despite any lack of good character.
Being a spectator sport, American major league baseball (MLB), such as its performance exemplars deliver, is an entertainment business. For that reason, I side with Nightengale. For the same reason, I am increasingly anxious about the players of my favorite brand of baseball these days (make that my favorite brand of sport), which culminates in the Little League World Series. Screw the Olympics! I want to see spirited, un-paid, truly amateur players of a sport – “paid” by nothing more than their own intense love for the game, and “compensated” by nothing more than the positive support of their families and of their most immediate small communities – competing to the highest levels of performance that can be reasonably expected at their unavoidably (however imperfectly) innocent ages.
Yes: MLB players used PEDs, and those players thereby acquired performance advantages over PED non-users. But, the performers’ enhanced performances were entertaining; they put asses in the seats. We don’t care and have no objection when some entertainers, in other professional entertainment venues, win their jobs, then perform in a stunningly memorable, admirable (and entertaining) manner, then win all manner of recognition, accolades and awards, before we find out what kind of junkies (“cheaters”) they are or were. Sure, we rightly think they are or were fools, to screw-up their bodies and minds like that. (Lordy! I so admire and am grateful for Sandy Koufax! He came along – and left – at exactly the time, and in exactly the way, I needed him.) But we never regret how the entertainers benefitted us, and even when we know, we truly do not care that they found a way to perform with advantages over other entertainers. They entertained us, and that was all that mattered. Leo Durocher is in the Hall. I believe he was credited with saying, “Nice guys finish last.”
There is an unbreakable mutual dependency between entertainers and the entertained, and of course it is corrupting. Showcasing the performers of a time frame where PEDs enabled those performers’ supremacy, when presented with the whole truth, would be valuable for reminding us of who those performers were and all that they did, but would be equally valuable in reminding us of who we are and ever will be. I’m heading for a prayer meeting now, and you can be sure those Little Leaguers and their families, and all that makes that league as wonderful as it still seems to be somehow, are going to be on my mind.
I think you are being willfully obtuse. A player could exemplify excellent sportsmanship on the baseball field and in his athletic endeavors, and in his private life be a rotter. When the private life became public in ways that impacted his team, his game, and his performance, that became baseball-relevant. The character clause in the HOF criteria is widely known as “the character clause”: I didn’t make it up: call it the rutabaga clause if that makes sense to you. It specifically makes good character, not just statistics, part of the required criteria for admission to the Hall of Fame—I don’t know why you would call it anything else.
Cobb had some bad incidents, but saying he was unsportsmanlike in the context of baseball as it was played then is just wrong. The game was played tough and mean with lots of physical contact, spiking and intimidation, and that was how the game was played. Cobb continued to play it that way after the culture had begun to change, but the sportsmanship slur is like the racism slur. He was an extreme case, but spiking players in 1915 wasn’t considered bad sportsmanship. Cobb was hated (as was Pete Rose in his day—today his absolutely legitimate collision with Ray Fosse would be called “bad sportsmanship” too.), but he was respected on the field. He played the game harder than anyone who ever lived, and that was his integrity.
The context of the traits in the clause—-player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played
, sandwiched between purely baseball considerations, makes it clear that the intent was to evaluate character as it affected the team, the game and the player’s performance. Reading it any other way is perverse.
As for Durocher: cherry-picking. He was an awful choice based on his record; you don’t even need to get to his character. But “nice guys finish last” isn’t an endorsement of unethical conduct: sadly, it is often a fact. There have been many players who were, in fact, “nice”, and this enhanced their candidacy—Ryne Sandberg, Kirby Puckett, Cal Ripkin. Not being nice could also rise to a level where it impacted the team…Albert Belle for example. Character matters. That’s the standard. And “nice guys finish last” doesn’t mean “Cheat.”
Okay, I understand and accept our discussion following from calling one word a clause. It doesn’t say “good character,” and that is fortunate for your purposes. I know: you’re saying that “good” is implicit, the spirit of the grouping of criteria. (Or, you’re going to say, since “good” is not included, “not good” is irrelevant. You made that clear by what you said about Cobb.) I’m sorry if that still seems like I am being willfully obtuse. I’m really just trying to be precise, consistent, and to tell the whole story, like I think the Hall should be doing.
My evaluation of Cobb’s character as it affected the team, the game, or his performance is not perverse; it is accurate. My grandfather played in the same league as Cobb before 1905, played against him (like even Cobb’s teammates did, even not-so-secretly), and said aloud what I am sure every player who experienced being on the same field with Cobb felt like saying aloud: Cobb was the dirtiest player of them all. “Dirty” and “cheat” are fairly synonymous to that generation, notwithstanding whatever level of brutality of on-field play was tolerable then.
I figured you would dismiss my citation of Durocher by one device or another. But there he is, in the Hall, right along with Cobb. So is John McGraw (and come on! Surely you know enough of that guy’s character to see his Durocher-like, tragically flawed “just win, baby” ruthlessness). So is Juan Marichal, who committed a couple of felonies in broad daylight at home plate during a game and got away with them – acts that would trigger race riots these days. So, is your position that Durocher, Cobb, McGraw and Marichal should be removed from the Hall? I don’t want the history of baseball book-burned like that.
More than ever, I want Pete Rose to be in the Hall – because of his performance on the field.
I’ve always had a problem with the fact that Pete Rose isn’t in the Hall of Fame, yet Ferguson Jenkins is — even though, unlike with O.J. Simpson and the football hall, Jenkins committed his personal transgressions before he was voted in.
In Jenkins’ case, we have the following, courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com (http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Fergie_Jenkins):
“Jenkins became the first player in baseball history to be permanently suspended from baseball for a drug-related offense. He was arrested in Toronto on August 25, 1980 for possession of cocaine. Fourteen days after the arrest, Commissioner Bowie Kuhn banned him. In an unprecedented decision, he was reinstated by an independent arbitrator on September 22, 1980. He returned to the mound and had a few more solid seasons. He was back with the Cubs in 1982 and 1983 and led the team in wins the first year.”
Look, I freely acknowledge that Jenkins’ accomplishments between the white lines were of Hall of Fame quality, but no more so than Rose’s.
Either on-field performance is paramount or it isn’t. Either character matters in Cooperstown or it doesn’t — and if it doesn’t, delete the character requirement already and be done with it.
Either take Jenkins out or vote Rose in.
I can’t see the reasoning. Ever since the 1919 World Series, baseball decided that gambling had to be kept out of baseball at all costs, because the sport’s integrity was imperiled. Every player us told again and again that betting on baseball will result in a lieftime ban; there’s a sign prominently displayed to that effect in every clubhouse. Rose knew that was his risk, and he did it anyway. Jenkins’ coke use didn’t effect the game at all, just his own reputation—there was no evidence that he pitched while using. Betting on baseball called the legitimacy of the game into question. No comparison, no contest.
We know what Rose did, but I don’t believe we know with any certainty what impact his gambling had, if any. I agree that regardless of whether his off-field gambling had any impact on the field, its discovery is relevant and significant, to the obvious (to me) extent where he could never thereafter be trusted to have any further role in any team’s business. But in my view, his gambling still does not erase what he did as a player and the worthiness of that performance to be remembered.
I feel likewise, and I’ve seen no evidence that Rose’s misdeeds had any significant effect on the credibility of the game. I mean, seriously, have you ever heard anyone — even on TV — say with a straight face, “I used to love baseball, but that Pete Rose thing just soured me on the sport for good.”
Oh, brother. Can a point be missed more blatantly? Yes, and isolating plague sufferers is unfair, because, really, what are the chances the Black Plague will spread again Don’t you get it? MLB personnel gambling on baseball gets the “death penalty” because the game must send an unequivocal message that gambling is not tolerated, that there will be no mercy, that it threatens the credibility of the game if there is a hint that i will be tolerated, and a player’s status in the game will make no difference in enforcement. You make the penalty of gambling even a little, even on your own team, so complete that no sane individual will ever risk it, and the public understands that.
Whether Rose’s specific acts “had any significant effect on the credibility of the game” couldn’t be less relevant.
Indeed, Rose’s specific acts “couldn’t be less relevant” — IF one blindly buys your premises. But I don’t buy your premises, blindly or otherwise.
Let’s review your assertions:
1. “MLB personnel gambling on baseball gets the “death penalty” because the game must send an unequivocal message that gambling is not tolerated.”
That’s like saying that America could discourage shoplifting by executing everyone caught doing it: The statement might be true, but who says it’s the only way to accomplish the desired goal? Where’s the evidence that the lifetime ban is the ONLY effective way to “send an unequivocal message that gambling is not tolerated”?
2. “[I]t threatens the credibility of the game if there is a hint that it will be tolerated.”
But you’re defining “tolerated” as “anything besides a lifetime ban.” Where’s the evidence that a two-year ban, or a five-year ban, or a 10-year ban, wouldn’t send the same message and achieve the same desired result?
And where’s the evidence that allowing Rose into the Hall would damage the credibility of the game in the eyes of the fans? One could just as easily argue that the credibility of the game is threatened when the player with the most hits in baseball history doesn’t have a place in the Hall of Fame.
3. “You make the penalty of gambling even a little, even on your own team, so complete that no sane individual will ever risk it, and the public understands that.”
The public may understand that, but where’s your evidence that the public agrees with it? As Jimmy Carter once wrote in USA Today: “A 1994 article in Sports Illustrated reported a telephone poll of Americans in which 97% of respondents said that Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame. I have found virtually no fans who disagree.”
Show me proof that a large number of baseball fans would lose faith in the game if Rose entered the Hall.
I stand by my original argument: Yes, MLB must discourage gambling, and yes, current MLB policies prohibit Rose from being admitted into the Hall of Fame. But MLB policies have been changed numerous times in the past. Where’s the evidence that baseball can’t effectively discourage gambling with something less than a lifetime ban?
Ridiculous. The “death penalty” has worked—baseball has no gambling problem. The system should change because of a lying, greedy, low-life like Pete Rose? You have the burden of proof: show that a more lenient system would work as well as the current one has. Citing polls: who cares what the public thinks about Rose? Do you run your business by polling the public? If MLB follows the public’s ill-informed, barely thought out whims, and suddenly a gambling scandal devastates the sport, those 97% just shrug and say, “Oops! Guess I was wrong!”
You have yet to cite a substantive argument supporting your position.
Jack Marshall wrote: “Citing polls: who cares what the public thinks about Rose?”
— You tell me, since you’re the one who wrote this: “You make the penalty of gambling even a little, even on your own team, so complete that no sane individual will ever risk it, and the public understands that.”
What the public thinks about Rose’s lifetime ban is what the public thinks about the penalty for gambling on baseball. If it doesn’t matter what the public thinks about the penalty for gambling on baseball, then why did you deem it important to assert that “the public understands that”?
Furthermore, you wrote this: “it threatens the credibility of the game if there is a hint that it [gambling] will be tolerated.”
The credibility of the game WITH WHOM, Jack??? The public, the players, the peanut vendors, or just ethics bloggers like you?
The issue is gambling, not Rose. Public polls are notoriously fickle, and are based on momentary thought, if that. Again, the issue is whether the public has reason to believe that players and managers are in league with gamblers. The fact that baseball throws out anyone who has dealings with gamblers addresses that. Whether or not the public comes up with one of its classic “yes, but” responses–YES, I oppose capital punishment but we should fry the Batman killer—regarding the specific case of Pete Rose—YES, any player who gambles on baseball should be banned, but not Rose because he’s the all-time hit leader—it’s the game that has to be consistent, not the public.
Rose should be in the Hall of Fame . The day after he passes away.
Yep, agree, only more stringently. I think that should be the rule from now on for all HOF inductees: be dead for at least 10 years. I believe that is a necessary bow to the dynamics of the modern information-driven economy.
Honoring players after they can’t enjoy the honos kind of loses the point, and those Hall of Fame alumni gatherings will look like Night of the Living Dead.
I hate that idea.
So do I. For lifetime fans of a sport, what’s more fun than seeing one of the stars you admired as a kid attain a permanent spot at the sport’s highest level — especially when he’s still around to enjoy it?
Even if they have to wheel him in, there’s something heartrending about watching an aging star get choked up during his acceptance speech, particularly when you realize that not every old-time baseball hero went on to live a life of fame and fortune. It’s also great to hear your boyhood idols reminisce about the players and managers of their era — names that you often remember.
And with Major League Baseball, the Hall of Fame inductions have never been more poignant than for the elderly Negro League players who didn’t get their due in their prime, yet are finally being honored as great ballplayers, period.
Saluting dead men just wouldn’t be the same.
I would be more agreeable with your arguments, I.C., if I didn’t think that our present-days’ saluting of the living, and the processes that lead to and culminate in that saluting, were not already so corrupted and corruptible (by the living) that the living have rendered themselves unworthy of all the fun and other benefits you allude to, by continuing to honor the best of the best while they are still among the living.
Keep in mind that I don’t actually believe Jenkins should be tossed out of the Hall, and that I’m not so set in my opinion that I’m not open to amending it.
However, I also have trouble believing that Pete Rose, the most prolific hitter in baseball history, doesn’t deserve some kind of place in the Hall of Fame. Anyone who saw him play knows he was among the most exciting players of his era, a guy who was so all-out that he injured his shoulder and risked his career scoring the winning run in a game that didn’t really matter, the 1970 All-Star Game.
And while I agree that current Major League Baseball rules deem gambling a more serious offense than drug use, I can think of several arguments for why the rules should be changed or an exception made in Rose’s case.
First, one could argue the issue from a broad moral standpoint — that every addiction should be treated equal, be it of the drug, alcohol or gambling variety, since they all represent a human compulsion that’s difficult to control.
Another argument is to go by the (policy) book and assert that while baseball and gambling are inextricably linked, thanks in part to the Black Sox scandal, the same can be said for baseball and drug abuse. While MLB’s stated penalties for drug abuse don’t include a lifetime ban from baseball, druggies can still receive a two-year ban from the game, which is no small potatoes.
And while gambling tarnishes baseball’s integrity, the same can be said for drug abuse in that it’s unlikely a major league team or the league itself would want to be associated with players with more drug convictions than home runs, no matter how otherwise talented they might be.
Still, I think the most compelling argument for admitting Rose to the Hall is that unlike the “Eight Men Out” players, who deliberately threw the games, Rose always bet on his own team to win. Thus, rather than affecting the outcome of Reds games, Rose’s gambling addiction changed nothing of consequence, since as a manager whose job depended on winning games, he presumably would have already been doing his best to lead his team to victory.
So what does it all amount to? It’s obvious that under current MLB policies, gambling is, in fact, deemed more serious than drug abuse and that Rose should be kept out of the Hall.
However, baseball rules and policies can always change: The current MLB drug policy, for example, was adopted in 2006. And Negro League players weren’t admitted to the Hall until 1971. So it’s not as if rules pertaining to Hall of Fame admission in general, and Rose’s admission in particular, were inscribed on the tablets that Moses brought down from the mountain.
But MLB is right about gambling, and right to make it a mandatory lifetime ban. The best argument for Rose is that he bet when he was a manager, after his playing career was in the books. But the, he lied about it for about a decade. He is 100% responsible for his fate.
Gambling and steroids both go to the integrity of the game and the game results. I’d say gambling has less gray areas.
The “mandatory” lifetime ban also has thr possibility of appeal so MLB does recognize that some point it is possible that a person who was banned woukd be allowed to return. I personally think Rose should be in the Hall of Fame but only after he has passed away. That way MLB does aknowledge one of the games greatest players but Rose doesn’t get to bask in the glory of being inducted, doesn’t get to think that he “won” over MLB and also doesn’t get to benefit finically.
Sure Rose lied about it, but on another thread, you had this to say about the activist group ACORN:
https://ethicsalarms.com/2012/06/19/the-news-medias-election-year-ethics-part-2-nbc-does-a-breitbart/
“I criticized ACORN when it was around. I’ll wait and see about any new version, thanks. If the management and board and organization is finally professional, they have the right to try again, just like AirTran and Lindsay Lohan.”
If ACORN — whose employees have been convicted on charges relating to voter fraud in several states — deserves the right to try again … if AirTran and Lindsay Lohan deserve the right to try again … why wouldn’t you grant Pete Rose that same right IF he comes clean, tells the whole truth and promises never to bet on baseball again in any way, shape or form?
Why can’t Pete unveil his own “new version”?
He can. He just can’t do it in Major League Baseball.
Actually he could have, he had plenty of time to do so and he chose not to do it. If he had come clean right away, admitted he did it Im sure he would have been back in MLB.
We’ll never know for sure, but you are probably right, Bill. Baseball didn’t want to ban Rose permanently. If he hadn’t been such a complete jerk about it, lying for years and then coming clean in his tell-all book, he might have gotten back in. (The prison time for tax evasion didn’t help, though.)
That’s funny — you didn’t demand that Lindsay Lohan abandon acting or that ACORN abandon activism.
What’s funny is your shockingly weak grasp of the concept of analogy.
JUMP BALL! Is someone willing to take the time to explain to IC why Linsay Lohan/acting and (even worse) ACORN/activism are wretched comparisons for keeping Steroid cheats out of baseball’s Hall of Fame?
Jack wrote: “What’s funny is your shockingly weak grasp of the concept of analogy.”
What’s funnier is your shockingly strong hypocrisy regarding the concept of second chances. A sleazy organization like ACORN, whose members have been convicted of voter fraud (or variations on the theme) — in several states, nonetheless — earns instant absolution in your book, but you throw the same book at a baseball guy with a gambling problem? Maybe you should ask someone to take the time to explain the concept of inconsistency.
Besides, you haven’t even been paying attention. You snarkily ask for someone to explain to me why Lindsay Lohan and ACORN are “wretched comparisons for keeping Steroid cheats out of baseball’s Hall of Fame,” yet I’ve never once addressed the issue of Steroid cheats in the Hall of Fame; I’ve been pondering the merits of admitting Pete Rose.
If you’re going to take a shot at me, at least have a clue what you’re shooting it.
No difference, except that the case for banning Rose is even stronger, since there was a pre-existing rule requiring a lifetime ban for beeting on baseball, and Rose intentionally and knowingly violated it.
Since my question was too easy for anyone else to bother with, here is why your comparisons are—I’m sorry, but the truth hurts—ridiculous.
1. Lohan. A. “Acting” is not like playing Major League Baseball in any way. Baseball is a SCOTUS sanctioned monopoly—the profession can set its own standards, including barring anyone for conduct it doesn’t want associated with the sport. B. Acting and the arts generally have no conduct requirements, and never have (and shouldn’t.) Acting has no moral or ethical component whatsoever. C. There is a formal rule in the Hall of Fame about character. D. Being in the Hall of Fame has nothing to do with playing baseball—it has no financial compensation, and isn’t even run by MLB. E. A better comparison would be the Hollywood “Walk of Fame” Will Lindsay ever get her footprints there? Don’t bet on it. The Walk tends not to honor the infamous…but there’s still no rule.
2. ACORN. ACORN is a corporation. It is dissolved, which means it is dead, in legal terms, and compared to an individual. The fact that the same individuals may form another, ACORN-like corporation is irrelevant legally and in fact—it’s as distinct from the original ACORN, legally and in fact, as it is from GM. There is no “second chance” for ACORN. There is always a second chance for individuals whose legal entity goes bust, because the law doesn’t limit how many times you can start a business or non profit. None of which has the slightest thing to do with Pete Rose, baseball, or the post.
Jack Marshall wrote: “Since my question was too easy for anyone else to bother with, here is why your comparisons are—I’m sorry, but the truth hurts—ridiculous.”
*** No, actually, “the truth” doesn’t hurt at all, because it’s only your truth — which, last time I checked, didn’t come with a Vatican stamp of papal infallibility. I find a markedly different truth in the arguments at hand, including the following:
With your “JUMP BALL!” post, you made a big show out of trying to mock my position and spur the faithful into piling on. Unfortunately, the only thing you incited was a chorus of crickets, so you quickly assumed the fallback position of “my question was too easy for anyone else to bother with.”
Look, if that’s what you want to believe, far be it from me to trespass in your happy valley of rainbows and unicorns. But this sort of declaration reminds me of the traveling evangelist who set up his tent on the edge of town, spent the next week touting his upcoming revival and, when he stepped to the microphone on the first night and saw only empty chairs, congratulated himself for saving so many souls that there were no longer any local residents in need of salvation.
I get the fact that you were bent on embarrassing me with statements like this:
“What’s funny is your shockingly weak grasp of the concept of analogy.”
And this:
“Acting” is not like playing Major League Baseball in any way. Baseball is a SCOTUS sanctioned monopoly—the profession can set its own standards, including barring anyone for conduct it doesn’t want associated with the sport … Acting has no moral or ethical component whatsoever.”
And this:
“There is no “second chance” for ACORN. There is always a second chance for individuals whose legal entity goes bust, because the law doesn’t limit how many times you can start a business or non profit. None of which has the slightest thing to do with Pete Rose, baseball, or the post.”
But I never asked you to explain the difference between the moral components of acting vs. baseball, or the legal difference between resurrecting a dissolved corporation and admitting a banned baseball player to the Hall of Fame.
I simply asked you to explain why YOU oppose giving Rose a second chance at the Hall of Fame, given your stated willingness to grant certain individuals and entities the kind of bountiful forgiveness expressed in a statement like this:
“If the management and board and organization [of any new version of ACORN] is finally professional, they have the right to try again, just like AirTran and Lindsay Lohan.”
And now we see the flaw in your attempt to discredit my position with your “That’s ridiculous” and “None of which has the slightest thing to do with Pete Rose” shots. Y’know, AirTran doesn’t have a whole lot in common with Lindsay Lohan either, aside from the fact that they both spend a portion of their time flying high, but that didn’t stop you from linking the two of them, along with ACORN.
Moreover, your only stated criterion for having the right to try again was being “finally professional.” Unless you mistook me for a mind reader, what in your sparse declaration of absolution should have told me why you would grant Lohan the right to try again in her chosen profession, but would deny Rose the right to try again in his?
Your latest arguments include the following:
“C. There is a formal rule in the Hall of Fame about character. D. Being in the Hall of Fame has nothing to do with playing baseball—it has no financial compensation, and isn’t even run by MLB.”
To which I say:
C. Any “formal rule” in the Hall of Fame can be changed, and over the years, a great many have been. There used to be a “formal rule” prohibiting Negro League players from being admitted to the Hall, but that restriction was lifted in 1971, and I think we can all agree that baseball is better off for it.
As for (D): Conversely, it wan’t until 1991 that the Hall of Fame voted to bar banned players from induction. Before that, it was only a matter of informal agreement — much like the Walk of Fame, where, in your words, “there’s still no rule” — so why would Rose have believed, with any certainty, that gambling on baseball would lead to an unappealable exclusion from the Hall?
But forget Hall of Fame rules — even MLB’s “death penalty” hasn’t lived up to its name since World War II. Consider that of the eight MLB personnel who have received a so-called “lifetime ban” from baseball since 1944, seven of them have been reinstated.
You claim that “gambling on baseball gets the ‘death penalty’ because the game must send an unequivocal message,” but the reality is that every other “unequivocal message” sent by the game has proved very equivocal indeed, at least in most of our lifetimes, including Rose’s.
Considering that before Bart Giamatti stuck it to Rose, no one had truly received a lifetime ban from baseball since Rose was in his “Terrible Twos,” it’s a stretch to accept the premise that baseball has steadfastly maintained its credibility by establishing a longstanding record of getting tough with rule breakers. Fact is, for more than four decades, the vast majority of MLB “death penalties” have looked more like the second chance sweepstakes.
You keep wanting to change the subject to “rules”, when Rose’s banishment involves THE rule, the one rule that Major League Baseball has not wavered on, the one rule that Rose knew would not be waived in his case. The matter of other enforcement of other rules in MLB are irrelevant to Rose’s case, except for the slippery slope-based “if you waive those rules, why not waive this one?” Why not? The answer is that an absolute prohibition that is not backed up by absolute penalties isn’t a prohibition at all. I have no ethical objections to second chances in many instances. I don’t think Marion Barry should have gotten a second chance to be Mayor of DC after ending his first time with an arrest for crack. I don’t think I would trust Alberto Gonzalez to be Attorney General again. I wouldn’t hire Jayson Blair to write for my newspaper, or Jerry Sanduskey to run my kids’ foundation.
And I sure as hell wouldn’t let Pete Rose into Major League Baseball. he has done nothing to indicate that he is any more trustworthy or honest now than he was 30 years ago. He’s a convicted tax felon, and a proven liar. From a distance, he appears to be a sociopath. In short, he has all the character traits that would lead an player to violate a rule like baseball’s anti-gambling rule, knowing the risk, knowing how it would embarrass the game and put his sport into a difficult and long-lasting bind. None of your arguments apply to such an individual, some less than others.
Finally, I don’t argue with people who resort to the “your truth/my truth” doubletalk, which is just a dodge for not having valid or persuasive support for a point of view.
Pete Rose can’t be in the Hall of Fame. As someone who still has a 1976 World Series T-shirt and a 1976 Pete Rose baseball card somewhere, I would dearly like to see him there. He can’t be. He gambled. He gambled on baseball. He gambled on the Reds. He was one of the greatest of all time, he did a lot of good in the community, but he can’t be in the Hall of Fame. He disgraced the game and tarnished his reputation. Did other people gamble and get away with it? Probably. Are some of them in the Hall of Fame?. Possibly. It doesn’t matter. We know he did it, so he can’t be in the Hall. Now, if I can’t have Pete Rose in the Hall, these other cheaters and scoundrels definitely don’t get in. I don’t see how it can be any other way.
Yes, he gambled on the Reds, but I still think it makes a difference that he gambled on his team to WIN, as opposed to mimicking the Black Sox scandal and betting on his team to LOSE (and secretly working toward that outcome).
Also, I’m not convinced that Rose did any lasting damage to the reputation of baseball, although he certainly tarnished his own. Really, though, do you know of any baseball fan who stopped watching the sport because of Pete Rose’s gambling problems?
I think more baseball fans would tell you they spent more time watching the sport during Pete’s playing days — especially when he was pursuing Ty Cobb’s record for career hits — because of the excitement Rose generated on the field.
Its not the betting or what team he bet would win or lose that is the problem. Its that by betting and consorting with known bookies he could have become indebted to them to the point where they may have asked him to throw a game. And once the public starts to think a baseball game can be thrown MLB has a huge problem. Like they did with the Black Sox scandal which is why they came up with the lifetime ban.
Bingo!
Bill,
Rose COULD HAVE done a lot of things under a lot of different circumstances, but we can only judge him on what he actually did. Anything else is just baseless speculation, no pun intended.
Besides, Bill, if that’s the way you actually feel, why did you post the following: “I personally think Rose should be in the Hall of Fame but only after he has passed away.”
So let me get this straight: You think that consorting with known bookies could have led Rose to throw a game, and that MLB would have had a huge problem if the public had come to believe a baseball game could be thrown … BUT he deserves a place in the Hall of Fame anyway, provided he dies first?
O-kayyyyyy …
Thanks I.C., I was reading Bill’s comments somewhat like you did – thinking, as I read and re-read them, and pondered, “That is certainly reasonable…relevant, admissible…but is it (or must it be, necessarily) applicable, in Rose’s case?” Then I shrugged and thought, “Confirms my bias against inducting anyone while they are living.” I am in favor of allowing enough time for opportunity for history to be looked back upon more dispassionately, and then dealt with in all its lumps and warts.
Its not a matter of how I feel or not. I’m just restating MLB’s reasoning for the lifetime ban. My statement about the possibility of throwing games is why they came about with it.
And to him being in the hall after he dies I think my reason in tha same post were obvious.
And one other thing. Rose knew that a life time ban was the punishment. Its not like he could have thought “well they are bluffing.” becuase they havent bluffed before. Shoe Less Joe Jackson isnt in the hall and never will be. Rose KNEW this was the penalty for betting on baseball. So I say keep him out until after he is dead then allow people to vote for him.
But that’s just it — Major League Baseball HAS bluffed before, at least when it comes to so-called “lifetime bans.”
Since 1944, a total of eight MLB players, owners, etc., have been banned for life — yet seven of them have been reinstated. Not exactly the most fearsome track record for misbehavior, is it?