Gambling is baseball’s death sentence. For nearly a century, people in the game who place money on it have been condemned to the lower realms of purgatory.
doesn’t think he belongs in the infernal region. He is wrong.
Pete Rose (AP Photo)
SPECTOR: |
Rose was banned from baseball for life on Aug. 23, 1989. More than a half a century before him, baseball decided to purge itself of the disgrace of gambling after the Chicago White Sox threw the 1919 World Series. A. J. Pollock Jersey
The team that won in ’19? The Cincinnati Reds, Rose’s team for most of his career.
The “eight men out” under orders of commi sioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis included “Shoele s Joe” Jackson, who many supporters believed was among the game’s greatest hitters. Endle s appeals for Jackson’s reinstatement withered. Critics contend Jackson didn’t throw games despite being tied to the other Sox who did.
MORE: | |
Critics also contend that Rose shouldn’t be punished because as Reds manager he bet on his team to win.
Chuck that argument in the incinerator. Why? It begins and ends with “Rose bet.”
Rose is 73, aging and watching hope fade of both his reinstatement and . His supporters are many. And they are as mistaken as they are pa sionate.
Take a look at the David Peralta Jersey piece on The Atlantic.com, headlined “Pete Rose’s Reckle s Gamble.” , a teacher of sports law course, presents arguments why the sinner remains damned and without salvation. There’s mention of the Dowd Report, the bill of particulars against Rose.
Also presented is the source of Rose’s banishment: his violation of Major League Baseball Rule 21(d). Here Eduardo Escobar Jersey ‘s the pertinent section:
“Any player, umpire, or club or league official or employee, who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has a duty to perform shall be declared permanently ineligible.”
, ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick points out:
In January, former commi sioner Fay Vincent opined in a Treasure Coast Newspapers editorial that Rose should be forever excluded from Cooperstown because he committed the “one capital crime” that is “well absorbed into the baseball DNA.”
MORE: | |
Despite all this, Rose keeps wailing for a second chance.
“I’ve been led to believe America is a forgiving country,” Rose told , “and if you do the right things keep your nose clean, be a good citizen, pay your taxes, do all the things you’re supposed to do eventually you’ll get a second chance.”
Yes, America does lean to the forgiving side. But baseball doesn’t forgive its ultimate transgre sors.
Nor should it forgive Rose. If Bud Selig doesn’t do it, and he has been sitting on Rose’s appeal for a decade, it will never happen. No baseball commi sioner wants to be the man to open baseball to gambling, any more than Roger Goodell would to the NFL or Adam Silver would to the NBA. Their Bryce Jarvis Jersey contemporaries in American sports wouldn’t dare do it. Nor would or should any leader of college sports condone or accept gambling as a part of its athletics atmosphere.
Rose made his deal with the devil when he decided to bet on the game. He will sleep on brimstone for it.