Just Put Pete Rose in the Hall of Fame
c'mon what are we doing here?
Let’s talk about the idea of a “lifetime ban.” For as long as I’ve known the name “Pete Rose,” I’ve associated him with that phrase. That was supposedly the punishment he received for betting on baseball, and it’s the reason Rose, Major League Baseball’s all-time leader in hits, is not in the Hall of Fame.
But here’s the first thing: It wasn’t actually a lifetime ban. There’s nothing in the original announcement of the penalty about a “lifetime ban.” Instead, Rose was declared “permanently ineligible.” That is kind of the same thing — headlines at the time referred to it as a lifetime ban — but there is a small but meaningful difference.
Before Rose’s punishment, many players, managers, and owners had been placed on the Ineligible List, only to be reinstated shortly after. Indeed, in the very next clause after the agreement says Rose is “permanently ineligible” it says, “Nothing in this Agreement shall deprive Peter Edward Rose of the rights under Major League Rule 15(c) to apply for reinstatement.” And Rose was pretty consistent, in the years afterwards, that he only signed the agreement because he believed he could eventually apply for, and be granted, that reinstatement.
In the press conference announcing the agreement, then-Commissioner Bart Giamatti1 sort of gave both answers, referring to the punishment as “banishment for life” but also leaving the door open for eventual reinstatement. Giamatti died just eight days later, so we cannot know for sure how he meant to resolve that apparent contradiction. In the years since, though, every subsequent MLB Commissioner has considered it a lifetime ban, refusing to even consider Rose’s requests for reinstatement.
Which raises the second point about a lifetime ban: What does that even mean, in this context? Rose’s playing career was already over when was banned. The punishment obviously put an end to his managerial career, but it seems unlikely that would have lasted much longer anyway. The list of great players who had long managerial careers is quite short, and Rose only really took the job so he could keep putting himself in the lineup while he chased the hit record.
Theoretically the ban prevented him from appearing at ballpark ceremonies and official MLB promotional events — except that Rose was granted many exceptions in the decades after the ban, and was, in fact, a major fixture at MLB stadiums and events. When a reporter once challenged him at one of these events to come clean about his gambling, it was the reporter who was vilified. Rose was even hired for a while by one of baseball’s broadcasting partners, FOX, to be a regular studio analyst — a job he was pretty good at!
In other words, during Pete Rose’s “lifetime ban” he was more directly involved with pro baseball than most retired players. What the “lifetime ban” really came down to was the Hall of Fame — which is very weird, because that wasn’t originally part of it.
When Giamatti announced the punishment, he didn’t say anything about the Hall of Fame, because at the time there was no formal rule keeping players on the ineligible list out of Cooperstown. That only came in 1991, at the prodding of Giamatti’s successor, Fay Vincent. Still, MLB’s position is that they don’t control the Hall of Fame, which sets its own rules, and so the Commissioner can’t unilaterally put Pete Rose in the Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame, on the other hand, says that their rule is simply that nobody ineligible list can be eligible for induction, and they can’t make an exception for Pete Rose. The whole thing is a perfect recipe for passing the buck.
It’s also worth saying that it’s totally hypocritical. There ARE people in the Hall of Fame who are or have been on the ineligible list. Bowie Kuhn put both Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays on the ineligible list in the 1970s and ‘80s, shortly after both had been inducted into the Hall of Fame (they were both eventually removed from the list, obviously). Roberto Alomar is STILL on the ineligible list (for sexual harassment), and yet the Hall of Fame is not considering removing him. These three just had the good fortune of getting banned AFTER they were already in the Hall of Fame.
All of this is to say that while “lifetime ban” seems like a serious and official punishment, it is really nothing of the sort. It is just an expression of the whims of a Commissioner, who wants to exert power while simultaneously pretending he’s not doing anything. When it’s convenient for Rose to be part of a baseball celebration, his “ban” is lifted. When FOX wants to hire him as an analyst, it doesn’t apply. But when it’s time to honor Rose personally, suddenly everyone’s hands are tied.
I don’t say this out of any affection for Pete Rose, who always struck me as a real scumbag. I never saw him play, so my exposure to him was as a liar and a self-promoter and a sexual predator who was, for some reason, idolized by older fans who just loved head-first slides too much. The crusade to get him into the Hall of Fame always seemed silly to me: He DID gamble and gambling on games you’re a participant in IS very bad for the sport.2 Rose DID deserve some punishment…
…but it’s time to admit that his punishment never made much sense. The idea of a “ban” for a retired player who was still able to work as a broadcaster and appear in promo events for the league was incoherent. And punishing gambling by keeping someone out of the Hall of Fame is silly. It doesn’t make any sense, since gambling has nothing to do with your performance as a player.3 Nor is it an effective way to deter gambling, since most players who might be tempted to bet on games won’t make the Hall of Fame anyway.
And, frankly, it makes baseball and the Hall of Fame look stupid to keep this charade ongoing. I get not wanting to honor Rose while he was still lying about his gambling habit; I can see a HoF voter who takes the character clause seriously refusing to vote for Rose, who seemed to lack character; and I get wanting Rose to face some kind of serious punishment for violating one of the oldest rules in the game. But a succession of commissioners have backed themselves into a weird corner, where now we have to pretend there’s some moral valence to being good at baseball, like making the Hall of Fame is some kind of knighthood to be bestowed at the discretion of the baseball gods. It’s dumb, and we ought to use the occasion of Rose’s death to rectify it.
Father of Paul!
Many people have pointed out the irony of MLB punishing people for gambling as it gets more and more in bed with sports betting. But, if anything, the prevalence of gambling in a post-Ippei Mizuhara/post-Jontay Porter world means leagues have to be MORE vigilant about punishing those who break the rules.
I don’t support keeping steroid users out of the Hall of Fame, but at least there’s some logic there: If you (incorrectly) believe that steroids enhance performance, then it makes sense not to reward performances that were unfairly aided by steroids. But gambling doesn’t make you hit any better…