Should Pete Rose be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame?

[Deja Q]

No!

Sheesh. Only in America are crooks and wrongdoers celebrated. :eyes:

[lcordero]

1. He can't be any worse than Ty Cobb and Cap Anson

Hell, he should feel at home with them

[Serial Mom]

2. He can be worse for the game of baseball,

not necessarily worse as a person.

See this thread for great discussion of why you can't compare Rose to these guys!


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=610312#610479

[Deja Q]

5. And unlike Mark McGuire, at least Rose et al never used steroids...

that we know of...

[Serial Mom]

6. less you forget

Charlie HUSTLE admitted to doing amphetamines during many of the years he played ("to keep his weight down??) and admitted to taking them just before and a few times, during a game. Wonder if he got them same way rush did?

Maybe Alex or Jeter could be even better and faster too if they took uppers?

[lazarus]

11. uppers?

as opposed to steroids, you mean?

[Serial Mom]

14. not as opposed to anything . . . .

just that is probably why he hustled.

Besides, the steroid users haven't been eligible for induction yet and as far as most of us know at this point, most steroid users didn't gamble on their game.

I don't think he belongs in baseball and OK if you want in the HOF - it would not change my opinion of him as being a liar and egomaniac.

[trogdor]

37. He hustled because he LOVED the game.

Unlike a few players nowadays who are in it for the money (cough)A-Rod(cough). Farking prima donna. I'd have given up on the Bosox if they picked him up; somebody told me they could buy the best bullpen in baseball for what A-Rod makes in a year.

[HuckleB]

38. He hustled because that's what he had to do to make the money.

Sorry, but Rose and A-Rod are two peas in a pod.

[lazarus]

3. we would not be celebrating him

for being a crook and a wrongdoer.

Induct him as a player.

Not as a manager.

Heck, make sure his plaque mentions his later gambling, etc.

But as a player, he was more than worthy of the Hall.

[blondeatlast]

40. You said it. As a player, he deserves it.

[MrSlayer]

4. Yes he should.

He should be in for his accomplishments on the field but he should never be allowed to manage or be involved in the game in any capacity again. This from a man who hates Pete Rose.

[SmileyBoy]

7. Ty Cobb was a card-carrying Klan member. Rose GAMBLED.

I think it's a crying shame that a POS like Cobb can be in the Hall while Rose is not. If the Hall did not elect any unsavoury characters in, and Cobb (racist puke), Billy Martin (Mr. Asshole) et al. were kept out due to respect of that policy, then I would say that Rose should not be in.

But look at the amount of pitiful excuses for human beings that are ALREADY IN THERE!!!!!! Rose gambled against his team. BIG WHOOP. There's RACISTS AND RAPISTS in the Hall!!!!

If I had to pick just one person to hang around with out of Billy Martin (even though he's dead) and Pete Rose, I would pick Rose in a heartbeat, because Billy Martin was a putrid, poor excuse of a human being who frightened people.

[SiobhanClancy]

8. Did anyone ever hear this?

Something about Cobb and others(maybe Tris Speaker)being involved in some gambling scandal in the early 20s and baseball commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis basically swept it under the table because he felt that baseball couldn't survive another scandal?(Sorry for the awkward sentence!)
Even without that,Cobb's behavior was so horrendous that it's positively chilling...certainly,he brought no honor to he game.

[MrSlayer]

9. Cobb may have been a terrible person

but he was one hell of a player. They didn't put in the morals clause for Hall of Famers until much later. Even The Babe had a ton of dirt on him.

[HuckleB]

10. Unless MLB reinstates Joe Jackson, Pete's got no argument.

Jackson wasn't even involved in the fix, for Pete's sake. (Sorry, had to do it.)

[Bake]

12. And don't forget Sammy's corked bat

How many of those home runs would've been long fly ball OUTS without the cork? You gonna tell me CHEATING is somehow more honorable than gambling?

Pete should be in the Hall as a player. Baseball is full of hypocrites.

Bake

[ringmastery]

13. Rose speaks

Rose wrote that if he "had been an alcoholic or a drug addict, baseball would have suspended me for six weeks and paid for my rehabilitation."

"I should have had the opportunity to get help, but baseball had no fancy rehab for gamblers like they do for drug addicts," Rose wrote. "If I had admitted my guilt, it would have been the same as putting my head on the chopping block -- lifetime ban. Death penalty. I spent my entire life on the baseball fields of America, and I was not going to give up my profession without first seeing some hard evidence. ... Right or wrong, the punishment didn't fit the crime -- so I denied the crime."

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/sfl-roseap010504%2c0%2c6785708.story?coll=sfla-sports-front

[HPLeft]

15. I'd say yes

He's a heel, but he was one helluva baseball player - which is all fans really care about.

[rocktivity]

16. Why should he be rewarded for 14 years of lying?

If he'd admitted to betting on baseball right off the bat :P, he could have completed a comissioner-induced penance by now. Even worse, this seems to be coinciding with a book he has coming out--is his true goal PR hype and sales?


rocknation

[Dookus]

19. No...

he should be inducted for his accomplishments in baseball. Nothing else.

[Forkboy]

17. Yes--if we booted all the assholes from the HoF

the damn place would be near empty.

It's a statement on how someone played the game,nothing more nothing less.

[Terwilliger]

18. fuck no!

damn, I can't believe people are discussing this

[Dookus]

20. Fuck yeah

On the merits of his accomplishments on the field, he deserves it. Even jerks can be highly-accomplished. He's one of them.

It's not the Nice-Guy Hall of Fame. It's the Baseball Hall of Fame.

[maveric]

21. Hall of Fame is for the "greatest" of ballplayers, for their performance

on the field. Pete Rose was one of the greatest palyers of all time. Look at his numbers and the the teams that he made better by being on them. Sure the guy is a fucking moron a liar and has a problem with gambling, but he is one of the top 10 all time.

YES! If a rapist and murderer and klansman like Ty Cobb is in Rose should be.
No argument here!

[The_Counsel]

42. The Hall of Fame Is For The Greatest of the Ballplayers...

...who are NOT on the Inelgible List. Rose is at the top of that list because he broke Rule 21, which reads:

"Any player, umpire or club or league official or employee who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball games in connection with which the bettor has a duty to perform shall be declared permanently ineligible."

Once you break that rule, and are banned from the sport, it doesn't, and shouldn't, matter how good said person was when they played. Rose broke the rule, there was a set punishment for said rule, and the commissioner imposed it. End of story.

When we see actual proof that Ty Cobb was the hellion you say he was (you were a first-hand witness, perhaps?), then I'd advocate bouncing his ass out of the Hall, too. The flaw in that argument, though, is that there are no rules against rape, murder and racism in baseball. That there SHOULD be one is obvious, but there isn't one NOW...

[democracyindanger]

22. Two words

Black Sox.

Gambling almost destroyed baseball. Sure, it was a loooong time ago, but there's good reason for baseball's hardline stance on players gambling.

I'd be more open to it if Rose showed some remorse, but the way he acts, he thinks he's bigger than the game. Woe to the athlete of any sport who believes that.

[Bertha Venation]

26. "the way he acts, he thinks he's bigger than the game"

Like innumerable contemporary players -- Barry Bonds comes to mind -- who are undoubtedly headed for Cooperstown.

[VermontDem2004]

23. Hell fucking yeah

We have racists in the hall of fame so why not someone who freakin gambled on a baseball game.

[PVnRT]

24. Yes

Plenty of crooks and wrongdoers :eyes: are celebrated in the Hall of Fame. Many are much worse human beings than Rose. Why apply arbitrary moral standards?

[Bertha Venation]

25. If everyone who mucked up as badly as Rose

were denied entry into the HOF, it would be a very small shrine.

Entry should be based on a player's contributions to the game. Period. His betting on baseball, while stupid, arrogant, evil, whatever you want to call it, didn't hurt the game itself.

[bif]

27. Quote: "It's been 14 years...

...heck, we forgave Japan sooner than that."

[ProfessorGAC]

28. I Say No

Sorry to the Rose supporters, but i think less of his baseball accomplishments than most, and think the impropriety of betting on his own team outweighs all else.

He says he never bet on his own team to lose. Right? So, we believe that, but he said for 14 years that he didn't bet on baseball, and now he says he did.

Didn't believe the first lie, and i don't believe the new one.

Also, as a manager in pursuit of his precious record, he often inserted himself into games where the pitcher was a junkballer, even though his average was under .240, while guys sitting the pines had higher averages and were better fielders. That diminishes his team's chances to win. This is inexcusable.

So, i think no, he should not be in the hall.

The Professor

[underpants]

29. Yes

[HuckleB]

30. "Let's not fall for Charlie Hustle's latest hustle"

http://www.oregonlive.com/sports/oregonian/brian_meehan/index.ssf?/base/sports/1073394260156660.xml

"Rose's confession turns me back to a man who embodied the grace and integrity that Rose so recklessly abandoned: Bart Giamatti, scholar, president of Yale and the National League, seventh baseball commissioner.

Giamatti was a poet with his feet on the ground. He loved this silly game and understood its grip on the American imagination. He thought baseball must be bulletproof from betting, which nearly ruined the game in 1919 when the Chicago White Sox were accused of throwing the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds.

...

And for the next 14 years, Rose waged war against Giamatti and John Dowd, the Washington attorney who built the case against Rose. Dowd's 225-page report detailed 412 instances in the first three months of the 1987 season in which Rose, then manager of the Reds, bet on baseball -- including 52 games when he bet on the Reds.

Now the vapid, self-centered Rose is clearing away the last perceived roadblock to his redemption.

Before we carry him on shoulders into the Hall of Fame, let's remember a few things."

http://www.oregonlive.com/sports/oregonian/brian_meehan/index.ssf?/base/sports/1073394260156660.xml

[ScreamingMeemie]

31. Unless they give Shoeless Joe Jackson the honor he DESERVES

there is no way Mr. Rose should be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Do I appreciate what the man contributed to baseball? Sure. But every player knows there's a big old sign on every clubhouse wall prohibiting them from betting on the games.

If an illiterate man who played his heart out during the World Series is punished, than so shall be Pete Rose.

[HuckleB]

32. Indeed.

Played his heart out, wasn't in on the fix, and didn't lie about it for 14 years! Rose has no argument as long as Joe J. remains on the outside.

[joeybee12]

33. Tough choice--I had to go with no because Rose denied it for so long

I mean, if he had come clean when we all knew he did it, his contrition would have seemed more sincere.

Ask me again in 10 years, maybe I'll relent.

[beawr]

34. No

The rules are clear, if you bet on Baseball, you're out.

I quote from the Big Lebowski:




WALTER
HAS THE WHOLE WORLD GONE CRAZY? AM
I THE ONLY ONE HERE WHO GIVES A SHIT
ABOUT THE RULES? MARK IT ZERO!

The Pomeranian is excitedly yapping at Walter's knee, making high body-twisting tail-wagging leaps.

DUDE
They're calling the cops, man,
put the piece away.

Walter points it at Smokey's head.

WALTER
MARK IT ZERO!

DUDE
Walter put the piece away.

SMOKEY
Walter--

WALTER
YOU THINK I'M FUCKING AROUND HERE?

Walter primes the gun.

MARK IT ZERO!!

SMOKEY
All right!! It's fucking zero!
You happy, you crazy fuck?

WALTER
It's a league game, Smokey!

[jimbo fett]

35. Who cares? I stopped watching baseball when they went on strike.

(the first time they went on strike).

[ScreamingMeemie]

39. I stopped watching it too, but I still appreciate people who played

the game. Pete Rose...I appreciate his career, but don't think he should be in the hall of fame.

:hi:

[bearfan454]

36. No way ! He bet on baseball.

That is wrong.

[mvd]

41. I say yes

Since he admitted wrongdoing and others who gambled on baseball are in the Hall.

Also, the Hall didn't add a clause to its eligibility rules to disallow banned players until 1990.