The specter of former professional baseball player Pete Rose continues to haunt Major League Baseball.
The controversy surrounding Rose is whether he should be eligible for consideration to the National Hall of Fame. The discussion lay dormant for decades but surfaced with great public interest a few weeks ago when Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said that he may consider removing Rose from the permanently ineligible list.
Manfred made his surprise announcement after meeting with Rose’s daughter, Fawn, who presented Manfred with a family petition asking for her father’s reinstatement. Manfred’s public statement again raises the back-and-forth debate that has lingered for 35 years. Should one of baseball’s greats be in the Hall of Fame? Rose, who died last September at age 83, predicted he would be inducted into the Hall after he died.
Rose was permanently banned from eligibility in 1989 after an investigation found that he has bet on baseball games while playing for and managing the Cincinnati Reds. Rose vehemently denied the allegations at first but later admitted to placing bets, but never, he said, against his team.
According to professional rules, any person employed by Major League baseball and found guilty of betting on the game, is “permanently ineligible” from consideration to the Hall of Fame. A year later Rose pleaded guilty to two felony charges for failing to report $354,000 in income he received from autograph signings and personal appearances. He ended up serving five months in federal prison.
The dichotomy surrounding Rose is that he is one of baseball’s all-time-great players and would be a shoo-in based on his lifetime statistics. He made the All-Star team 17 times and his record of 4,256 hits still stands 40 years later. No one played the game with more intensity earning him the nickname “Charlie Hustle.” Rose lived and breathed the game and was held up by countless high school and college coaches as to how the game should be played.
The Cincinnati native’s accomplishments haven’t been forgotten by baseball either. Ironically, 10 years after his banishment, Rose was selected to baseball’s All-Century team in 1999, an honor bestowed to the game’s Top 100 players.
Although admired, Charlie Hustle was also often criticized for his overzealous play. The most memorable moment came during the 1970 All-Star game as Rose rounded third base and headed home while catcher Ray Fosse awaited a throw from the outfield. Without hesitation, Rose barreled violently into the defenseless catcher as he scored the winning run, fracturing and separating Fosse’s shoulder.
Rose took a lot of heat for the collision but showed little remorse when he said, “Nobody told me they changed it (game) to girls’ softball between third and home.”
Certainly, Rose was far from an angel but there are plenty of others in the Hall of Fame that have dubious backgrounds. Pitcher Gaylord Perry was inducted in 1991 despite gaining notoriety for throwing spitballs, an illegal pitch in which saliva or petroleum jelly is used to doctor a baseball so it moves in an atypical manner.
Perry was kicked out of one game for doing just that. In fact, catcher Gene Tenace, on a couple of occasions, said he couldn’t throw the ball back to Perry because the ball kept slipping out of his hand.
Whitey Ford, the Yankees extremely popular pitcher, inducted in 1974, openly bragged that he routinely “cut” the ball with his wedding ring or belt buckle while on the mound to get “a better grip on the ball to make it dance more.”
Like Rose, he was named to baseball’s All-Century team. Hall of Famer Rogers Hornsby was fired as manager/player for the St. Louis Browns in 1937 for betting on horse races in the dugout during games, but was inducted just five years later. He is also a member of baseball’s All-Century team.
Baseball has bypassed others whose statistics would easily qualify them for induction into Cooperstown. Sluggers Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa put up video game-like numbers for home runs but all three were central figures in baseball’s steroid scandal for their alleged use of anabolic steroids undetectable by drug testing at the time. All three remained eligible for the Hall of Fame but have fallen woefully short of the 75 percent of votes needed for induction from members of the Baseball Writers Association of America.
Rose’s transgression, as far as baseball is concerned, was gambling. Is gambling worse than doctoring a baseball or taking performance-enhancing drugs? In light of baseball’s uneven history of who has received the nod for baseball immortality or who is even eligible, it’s time to induct Pete Rose into the National Hall of Fame.
Dave Dunleavy was a longtime reporter and columnist for The News-Times in Danbury. He lives in Kent.
