LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Nobody does a better job of undermining baseball’s popularity than baseball.
As a nearly 30-year customer of Major League Baseball’s Extra-Innings TV package and as a fan who watched almost all of my favorite team’s 121 losses last season, I speak as somebody who loves baseball more than any sport.
But from player strikes to work stoppages to performance-enhancing drug fiascos to free-agent collusion to an inability to balance the financial playing field, baseball has whiffed on nearly every important issue for years. Baseball’s place in the nation’s sports’ popularity menu has suffered because of it.
Baseball whiffed again Tuesday.
It whiffed with commissioner Rob Manfred’s decision to lift the lifetime ban imposed on Pete Rose, Shoeless Joe Jackson and 14 other deceased players and one owner.
But let’s be real: This decision is about one man — Peter Edward Rose, the game’s all-time hits leader who gambled away his chance to make the Baseball Hall of Fame by gambling on baseball while managing the Cincinnati Reds.
This is a decision unlikely to please anybody. It tastes petty, vindictive and like one final shot at Rose. After years of standing on its anti-gambling principle, baseball now stands on ... what? Nothing of value.
Now that baseball has embraced gambling, and Rose is no longer alive to call out the Major Leagues for its hypocrisy, baseball will embrace Rose. Convenient.
This certainly will not please the people who never wanted Rose in the Hall of Fame because he violated the most important rule in the game — and then repeatedly lied about it.
What Rose did was more than corking a bat or taking an injection. He treated the integrity of the game as if it was as disposable as a pack of sunflower seeds. The Lifetime Ban crowd will never flinch or welcome him to join Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan and Sparky Anderson.
But the decision is also unlikely to please the Rose fans, the ones who argued that The Hit King belonged in Cooperstown seconds after he took off his No. 14 Cincinnati Reds jersey for the final time. For some, the Hall is merely a baseball achievement that does not come with a character or morality test.
This decision certainly would not have pleased Rose. He repeatedly asked for reinstatement to the game. Repeatedly, he was denied.
No way. That was baseball’s position — under commissioners Fay Vincent, Bud Selig and Rob Manfred. Betting on baseball as a manager or as a player was a rule that Rose knew but ignored. All three commissioners stood on the same principle.
But Rose frequently made another request: Don’t lift the ban to clear his path to Cooperstown, N.Y., home of the Hall of Fame, after he passed.
Rose was 83 when he died in Las Vegas last September 30.
Now, 225 days after his death and one day before the Reds will celebrate Pete Rose Night at Great American Ball Park, baseball lifted the barrier to the one honor Rose wanted more than any other.
Baseball could have made this decision 10, 15 or 20 years ago. It could have cleared Rose for the Hall of Fame with the caveat that his Cooperstown plaque had to include a sentence that he was banished from the game for betting on baseball.
That was the reasonable compromise many baseball people agreed on.
As a player, there was never any reason to keep Rose on the sidelines. If you grew up watching the game in the '60s and '70s, Rose was one of the guys you always had to watch.
There was Roberto Clemente’ arm, the grace of Willie Mays, the quiet power of Hank Aaron, the ferocious Sandy Koufax curveball, the multiple tools of Mickey Mantle, the fearless intensity of Bob Gibson and then there was Pete Rose.
Running, not walking to first base, whether he hit a baseball into the gap or took four pitches out of the strike zone. Diving headfirst into third base and on to the cover of Sports Illustrated. Doing things that somebody 5 feet 11 inches tall without incredible speed or power should not be able to do.
Playing first base, second base, third base, left field and right field over a 24-season career that saw Rose claim the most memorable record in the game — 4,256 career hits. He took out Ty Cobb, another legendary Hall of Famer whose character was questionable.
Rose was a Hall of Fame player who fell short of being a Hall of Fame person, beyond simply gambling on baseball. Make a note that a number of Rose’s peers and former teammates did not want him in the Hall. They were unhappy with the selfishness of his decisions.
But now Rose is gone, unable to celebrate an honor that could come as early as 2028. Baseball has embraced gambling the way it embraces hot dogs, peanuts and Draft Kings.
On Tuesday, baseball made a decision it could have made when Rose was alive, striking out with its fan base and the game's all-time hits leader one more time.
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