What were the odds?
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“…… and I was as gracious to everyone as I could be.”
lol.
RIP. What a hitter.
Yes. Also a pretty lousy human being, though he’s not the only great ballplayer to fall into that camp.
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As you noted,Pete Rose was a human being.
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Excellent piece by Hal McCoy on his long and sometimes complicated relationship with Pete Rose in the Dayton Daily today if anyone can link it.
Bench with some pretty good comments on DP’s show:
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More well thought out commentary from Miamian Chris Rose:
https://x.com/chrisrosesports/status/1841242201617285330?s=46&t=zqO8Zm6gX0InRQetE3Myew
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In my 16 seasons in the Mariners clubhouse I interacted with numerous ball players and coaches who were former teammates or opponents of Rose. I managed several Old Timers Game clubhouses there but never personally encountered Pete Rose.
I actually remember standing down the first baseline in uniform with Coaches Phil Roof and Phil Regan during BP and watching the big screen in the KingDome as Pete got his record breaking hit.
None of the guys I knew claimed to be one of Rose’s buddies. But all had great respect for his on field accomplishments.
Very few thought he should be allowed back into baseball on any level. Most who actually knew him had trouble with his sharp edge, his lack of cordial interpersonal skills and his overall judgement.
I think there might have been a concensus, though, that he should be considered for the HOF posthumously.
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Well, it was a lifetime ban, and his lifetime is over. I think having him die before entering the HoF will effectively preserve the deterrence factor that prevents players and mangers from betting on baseball. I’d put him in Cooperstown now that he is gone.
As an aside, I think Rose was actually more famous for NOT being in the HoF. It benefited him in a number of ways, although I’m sure he hated not being able to manage or work in a front office.
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Good point on how this should act as a detriment to gambling on baseball. Though with all the money in the game, it’s probably more likely a coach or manager (or interpreters) would be apt to bet on baseball, and not players.
I think Rose’s banishment in 1989 was also a benefit to the Reds team. By many accounts, Rose wasn’t a great manager, despite winning NL MOTY in 1985. Do the Reds win the 1990 World Series with Rose at the helm instead of Piniella? Glad we’ll never know.
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Letting him in now means he can’t profit off of it, which makes for a bit of poetic justice.
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Pete had a .525 winning percentage as manager of the Reds. Maybe not a great manager, but they were all good teams. And they had a lot of rookies come up from 1984-87 who took time to develop. They also didn’t acquire Jose Rijo until 1988 and I don’t think they would have won the 1990 WS without Rijo.
There is no player in the history of the game who was more enjoyable to watch than Pete. Great childhood memories. I can’t even imagine players today playing like Pete and staying off the injured list.
He was punished sufficiently for gambling. Huge mistake and he paid the price.
I was never an autograph seeker, so the stuff about interpersonal skills and profiting from his autograph never bothered me. I know a lot of people despise him for this reason. I was more in the “who cares” camp. If people are willing to pay for his autograph, more power to him. To this day, I’ll take a World Series Reds team who never sign autographs over a bunch of nice guys who lose 90 games every year.
The biggest issue with Pete was the relationship with the 16 year old.
She was 15. Pete’s defense, in a 2017 deposition, was that he thought she was 16.
It’s a permanent ban, not a lifetime ban. Something Pete agreed to in order to maintain the farce that he was innocent, possibly one of the greatest miscalculations in sports history. He thought he would sit out a year or two and be reinstated.
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NESCADAD, was there any signage in the Mariners locker room outlining the penalties for betting on baseball?
The reason I ask is that there was in the Bluejays spring training facility in Dunedin Florida. I am not prepared to state it as a fact but I believe there was simmilar signage in some of the other teams spring training facilities as well.
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Quite sure it is in every locker room used by a MLB team.
In the 80’s, we finished second so many times with him running the show. Mario Soto pitches so many two run games and we lost a lot. Then Sweet Lou shows up and gets them to the promised land pretty much right away. The idea that a gambling addict doesn’t bet on the Reds during that time feels off to me. Realistically, he might very well have bet on baseball teams as a player, but his stars are excellent and he should be in the HOF as a player.
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