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Saturday, November 26, 2011
NYBD: Silva: Selig’s Final Act Should Be Reinstating Pete Rose
Some shouted “R. Budd Selig, don’t do this!” He asked people to “please leave the chat room if this will offend you.”
If Bud Selig is true to his word and retires at the end of 2012, he should end his commissionership with the reinstatement of Pete Rose. It would be a fitting final chapter to a period where the game transformed for the better. It would also dispel the label that he’s a cowardly commissioner that rules by consensus and has yet to make a controversial decision, even if it were for the better. Remember, steroid testing was more a result of political pressure than Selig’s courage and vision. Personally, I would gain a ton of respect for a man whom I believe has been in the right place at the right time in the games history. A lot of his success has been due to him standing on an oil field. Dealing with the Pete Rose issue might be his toughest and most controversial decision yet.
...The clock is ticking Bud. Is the new CBA going to be the cherry on top of your legacy? Not a bad encore, but you could do better. Do you want to go down as the guy that benefitted from the inevitable growth of the game? Is your stewardship only about committees and politics or are you ready to make a real decision? One that could potentially spark debate around the game like only steroids has in the past. Reinstate Pete Rose. Show us that you have at least one fastball in you after nearly 20 years of throwing us nothing but proverbial junk balls.
Repoz
Posted: November 26, 2011 at 10:24 PM | 162 comment(s)
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Tags: business, hall of fame, history, media, phillies, reds
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Although I would be in favor to lifting any ban against the 'Black Sox.' I think they're dead already.
Note that this had nothing to do with HOF eligibility initially. Devlin for instance was long dead before the HOF was around. Precisely why he had to stay banned after he was dead is unclear (though there is no formal rule against undead players or coaches so maybe they're just being cautious) but it may be as simple as baseball saying -- you're still not forgiven.
Or the first act of Henry V?
I think I just figured out what all this 2012 end of world stuff is about.
Harold Camping has been predicting Selig's retirement for years now.
hell no.
Camping lives a couple blocks from me, and if the deferred maintenance of his house is an indicator, he really did/does believe his his predictions.
But on topic, Pete's only reinstatement should be posthumous. If that.
Or the standards used to measure Armond White...
Is this a complete straw man, or are there people who actually have this view of Seligula?
I mean, first of all, he's clearly the most powerful commissioner since the Judge. Yes, he looks to some extent like he rules by consensus, but that's because he's worked and manipulated the ranks of ownership to the point where he pretty much owns the votes of most of them.
Then there's the list of what he's done:
Interleague Play
Wild Card
Gotten rid of the league presidents
Cancelled the 1994 World Series
Declared the All Star Game tie and instituted "Now it Counts" for home field in the World Series
Broken the old Umpires' Union and created one umpire pool for both leagues
Switched the Brewers and now the Astros between leagues
Added a this new wild-card play in idea
Mandatory drug testing
Yeah, none of those things were at all controversial. Right.
Oh, and I almost forgot: NO!
Nyet.
NEIN!!!
Überhaupt nicht.
?????
?????.
No to this, too.
This board? When has this board ever been hugely pro-Pete Rose? Given the thousands of Pete Rose threads, I suppose you might find one or two dominated by the minority in favor of his reinstatement - but by and large BBTF has consistently had an overwhelming majority against his reinstatement. Probably because of the tremendous amount of evidence against him, even after he admitted to most of the betting on baseball claims.
Nein.
This board? When has this board ever been hugely pro-Pete Rose? Given the thousands of Pete Rose threads, I suppose you might find one or two dominated by the minority in favor of his reinstatement - but by and large BBTF has consistently had an overwhelming majority against his reinstatement.
My memory of those early Rose threads is that it was pretty much Pete DuBois against everyone else, with an occasional drop-in ally who never stuck around for more than a few posts. The general sentiment had to be close to 90% anti-Rose.
I'm not sure what will happen as I keep getting older. 10 years from now, I'll want his grandchidren taken away. 20 years from now, when time travel is invented, I'll suggest he be a warm up on the way back to killing Hitler. Maybe on my deathbed, I'll be wishing the Cracks In The Universe on him.
If there was any doubt in your mind about the Troll credentials of Lion, this should resolve them.
I must admit to having a rather selfish reason for seeing Pete Rose re-instated. I have a standing bet that within twelve months of MLB dropping his suspension, Rose will claim that he only admitted to betting on baseball in order to be re-instated. Once the ban is dropped, I have no doubt that Rose will go back to denying that he ever bet on MLB games.
A denial, by the way, which will come in the form of yet another autobiography.
DB
But he'd have to make it through whatever the Veterans Committee process is.
He'd never have stood a chance while Bob Feller was alive, and there are still some oldstgers who are in the "Hell no" camp.
The Hall of Fame would first have to decide whether the writer's even get a shot at him (he's technically ineligible to be voted on by the BBWAA, and thus would require a change in the rules) or if it's straight to the Veteran's Committee. Now that Feller's not around to threaten any VC member with an ass-whipping if they dare elect the scoundrel, he'd have a slightly better chance with that electorate (but I still doubt he ever gets in, at least while alive).
The only tangible result for MLB is the Reds would be able to officially trot him out on occasion for an attendance bump. Who knows, maybe they even give him some ceremonial title and he can make a little coin, perhaps enough to pay off future gambling debts.
And while I'd keep the permanent ban on the rest of the Black Sox, I'd make Weaver's a lifetime ban (and thus, lifted upon his death). I think there should be something that differentiates between fixing a game and knowing about a fix and not reporting.
Edit: That might be worth a six-pack of Cokes to Ron.
As it stands now, no, he wouldn't be on the writer's ballot.
dislikes the wild card
dislikes teams changing leagues
dislikes interleague play
dislikes losing the 94 series
dislikes "this time it counts"
dislikes requiring people to pee in a cup to be employed (not solely Selig's doing)
dislikes successful (in the case of the umpires) and attempted (in the case of the players) union busting
I think reinstating Rose would be the perfect final act of Selig's career.
yes it's a complete strawman. As your post pointed out, Bud is arguably the greatest/most powerful commissioner in baseball history.
What the heck board are you talking about? I think there has been about three people on this board pro Pete Rose... Pete Rose is arguably one of the consensus picks on a subject that is going to result in everyone agreeing with MLB.
So we can all stop talking about this.
Yeah, that worked so well with Jim Rice.
(Actually, he backed out of that one, declaring himself a "traditionalist.")
guh? ridiculous. the majority on BTF has always been anti rose. the problem was with those who were pro-rose being extremely vocal. and all the nuanced positions. some were pro hall of fame only, others tried to equivocate over the fact that 'he only bet to win,' stuff like that. which IMHO is ridiculous. sure, give the lying gambling jerk the game's greatest honor. way to enforce a ban on gambling.
may he never be considered for reinstatement. ever.
The HoF and MLB are separate entities. The ban on gambling is MLB's rule. The HoF has decided it will not allow players who are permanently banned by MLB to be eligible but the HoF does not, as far as I know, have a ban on gambling (during or after their career). And there are BBWAA members who do not think that Rose should be ineligible for the ballot -- they wanted to reject him all on their own.
Anyway, it is not in MLB's power to bestow or not bestow "the game's greatest honor" on Rose. And, technically speaking, a reinstatement of Rose by MLB (which won't happen) does not mean that the HoF has to make him eligible.
MLB is the board at the Hall and the Hall relies heavily on the largesse of MLB. They will do what MLB wants.
I agree with this. I'd put Rose in the HOF a thousand times before I'd revoke his permanent ban.
I don't think I'd ever let him back into baseball even if he had been completely remorseful from the moment the issue became public, mind you. Although I'd probably feel sorry for him.
Reinstating Pete Rose would undo all of that, however.
His explanation of the power surge of the nineties, without ever even mentioning steroids in passing, was a third example.
Agree.
Agreed. And I doubt the HoF is going to want to reconsider him given how many times he had his own event at Cooperstown to protest his innocence.
If you think of Selig's job to be increasing revenues and attention paid to baseball, he's been marvelously successful. Too many people here think that his job should be to protect their version of integrity and tradition, and view his tenure through that scope.
What is crazy about this? The war probably cost him 90 HR's, his home park probably cost him about 50 HRs' over his career and if you put him in a park not just neutral but favorable to righties he probably adds a few more. That gets you pretty close to 600.
Even if you give Dimaggio the benefit of the doubt that he would have hit 90 homers in those 3 years,and give him another 50 for playing in a different park, that only gets him to 501 HRs. 501 isn't anywhere close to 600.
(Emphasis added)
What kind of rationale is this to reinstate Rose? Is Rose genuinely contrite? What kind of message would it send to others in MLB to rescind Rose's lifetime ban for gambling on baseball because Rose is "passionate"?
Even if you give Dimaggio the benefit of the doubt that he would have hit 90 homers in those 3 years,and give him another 50 for playing in a different park, that only gets him to 501 HRs. 501 isn't anywhere close to 600.
If you start out by simply doubling Dimaggio's career road HR totals, that gets you to 426. Add your 90 for the war years and it's 516. To go beyond that, it's going to depend which new "home park" you'd assign him to, which in turn would have to be further adjusted by substituting the Yankees' pitching staff for the staff of the home team in his "new" park.
You can see the effects of both of these factors when you note that Dimaggio hit home runs at almost an identical rate in cozy Fenway Park as he did in cavernous Griffith Stadium. Unless you adjust for the relative strength of the Boston and Washington pitching staffs, you'd be scratching your head in wonder. The only outlier among Dimaggio's road parks was in St. Louis, where his HR rate projected over 880 games (which is the number of games he played in Yankee Stadium) would have given him 312 "home park" home runs instead of the 146 he actually logged. Obviously both the short LF HR distances in Sportsman's Park and the Browns' pitching staff had a lot to do with that.
But then if you simply double Dimaggio's actual road totals of 213 to get 426, and project that onto 20 seasons rather than 13, you come up with 655. Of course that assumes a player in much better late career condition than the real Joe Dimaggio, but if you assign three of those extra years to 1943-45, when he was 28 to 30 years old, he'd be retiring after 20 years at 40 rather than 43.
Putting all this together into a foolproof formula is impossible. But I think it's fair to state that there were three big factors in reducing Dimaggio's home run total: Death Valley; World War II; and his generally poor health in the last years of his career. Remove all those limiting factors, and I think it's safe to say he would have surpassed 600 with ease.
Of course that's all purely conjectural, and those home runs are purely "what ifs". But looking at it from that perspective does (IMO) give you a better idea of Dimaggio's real power than simply looking at those 361 home runs and leaving it at that.
Since Rose never bet on his team, and has already served 22 years, it would show that MLB doesn't have its head up its ass.
EDIT: Against his team.
I think it's unreasonable to assume that. He retired at 36. He was also a chain-smoker. And age was clearly showing near the end. You would have to have given him a personality transplant to get him to take better care of himself and last longer.
Never bet on his team? Really?
From http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2798498
Not betting on his team consistently, e.g. in 1987, implies that Rose had an incentive to try to win some games at the expense of others.
Belated Coke to [70]
jeezus, it doesn't matter. it's the betting that's the problem. it's surprising that some don't see this, still. does it have to be diagrammed? keep betting for your team to win, and sooner or later, you'll miscalculate and fall behind. then you might start using players in a game as if its the 7th game of the world series, overusing the good players just to win a game and make good. even then you might lose, not to mention some people wondering what the hell is going on. then the question becomes when does one lay off, attempt to right the ship by maybe betting against or just letting the guys you owe money to know you won't try so hard on a given night? it's a tar baby, it's unsustainable.
ALL the gambling has to be banned so there won't be this salami slicing of ethics and resulting hard questions. just because he SAID he didn't bet against his team, you believe him? pete rose? the man's entire career is tainted. how do we know he didn't bet when he was a player? how do we know it was 'only' when he was managing? how do we believe a word he says?
the nuclear solution to gambling is not only meant to be a deterrent, it also puts the league on the high road. they won't tolerate even the appearance of wrong doing. they have to do that to keep the public trust so that people will come to see the games.
walt, i see what you are saying and yes i am a little off on my technicalities but what mccoy said subsequently would be more or less my reply.
and i see i also wasn't categorical enough. the man should never ever be in the hall of fame, back in MLB, etc. ... i wish there was a way to get the sheriff to kick him out of the town of cooperstown when he goes there.
I don't think James "supported" Rose. He felt that the Dowd Report was a prosecutor's brief (and a bad one at that), when it should (in James' opinion) have acknowledged contradictory evidence. James was supporting Rose's due process, not his innocence.
Speaking of the Kansas mafia, Neyer:
I'd say the opposite. It makes the statement that the integrity of the game trumps any individual player's achievements.
I'm very rarely a zero-tolerance sort of person, but gambling on baseball is one of those places. I think it's good for the sport to have a rule that simply leaves nothing open for interpretation here.
It went beyond that. James interpreted some of the timelines in the Dowd report to support the notion Rose couldn't have bet on baseball. When I read that, I thought he had lost his mind. But it was just him being contrarian again.
I disagree that he should be let in the Hall. He's well-known enough for his accomplishments, and having him spit in the face of rule number one and then allowed to have a plaque does not sit right with me at all.
I agree wholeheartedly. He was entirely out of his element there, and it showed. However, we all do it, and I bet he learned from all the flak he got.
I think it's unreasonable to assume that. He retired at 36. He was also a chain-smoker. And age was clearly showing near the end. You would have to have given him a personality transplant to get him to take better care of himself and last longer.
True, and there's no chance in the real world that this personality transplant ever would have happened, since Dimaggio had a casual approach to conditioning in his later years, to say the least. The main point I was trying to make was expressed in the last sentence of my last paragraph in #68:
Of course that isn't a defense that Pete could use, because he did know the rule and should expect the full penalty as a potential scenario.
Isn't that how most athletes are raised in the U.S. ??
Bang! Bang!
"So Pete, do wanna go to the track?"
rob neyer has lost his mind. either that or it's his new job and he wants page hits. pretty much nobody thinks about pete rose any more
as for the museum, well, it's their museum and they make their own rules and if they want pete rose to not be elected, all they have to do is make anotherr rule that says that anyone who gambled on baseball is ineligible
That both Weaver and Rose deserved serious punishment for their actions (Rose especially) is a given, but to give them the same punishment as someone like Chick Gandil or Hal Chase could be argued to be too severe. Doing something which could eventually lead to increases in the worst kind of infractions is bad, but it can't possibly be as bad as actually skipping straight to the end and committing those infractions.
I don't agree that Rose's absence from the HOF has any effect on that institution's standing though. I don't really feel sorry for Rose, but that doesn't mean there isn't a decent intellectual argument for at least a partial re-instatement (e.g. keeping him from taking an active part in the running of any MLB team, but allowing him to be voted on for the HOF and otherwise making MLB related appearances and so forth).
And Walt, the fact that Cap Anson is still in the Hall is the clearest indication that the Hall has no "No Gambling" rule. Few things are easier to document than Anson's betting on his team (to win)
Chase got far more votes than Jackson even though few would dispute:
a) Jackson was by far the greater player
b) Chase was a remarkably corrupt player even by the standards of a corrupt game. Even if Chase was cleared in his only formal hearing. (After that hearing the NL President came up with some pretty clear evidence against Chase. He was also formally banned from all PCL parks within a year of being blackballed by Landis)
The Hall's FAQs (they had two) on Rose and Jackson are no longer online and haven't been for some time.
a) he expected to be reinstated in relatively short order in any case (Why? Don't know. But that is consistent with all of his actions.)
b) he felt that a guilty plea would queer his HOF chances. (He was right. His support pretty much vanished when he came clean, whereas it was unclear how he'd have done had the BBWAA been given the chance to vote in the 90s. I've discussed the matter with a BBWAA voter who took a straw poll at the time. He felt it unlikely that Rose would have made it in spite of the number of "Here's why I'll vote for Rose" articles that were coming out)
Literally thousands of college and pro sporting matches in the major sports have been managed with something other than the overall success of the team as a goal.
Ever heard of "Let's play the young guys and give them some experience"?
There are several other common permutations of this template that have been covered at length herein. One is "Billy Martin 1980-81 A's Syndrome" wherein young pitchers are systematically burned 'til they drop all for the greater glory of the maximum leader manager -- an abuse of the future in favor of the present far worse than Rose ever dreamed of.
It's obvious to the unbiased that the anti-Rose case is an ignoble admixture of punishment for crimes he didn't commit (**); his amp use; his lack of couth; Rule 21, Judge Landis, and baseball poetry; and a naive romanticism that posits an entirely Platonic balance between balancing today's game and the "future."
(**) Dowd Report, Footnote 3: "No evidence was discovered that Rose bet against the Cincinnati Reds."
Of course he did.
Baseball pulled a bait-and-switch on him.
And McCoy I think it's an overstatement that MLB knew about his gambling. Yes I've heard the stories about how some people were worried about it but they never reached the press (at large -- it's possible it reached beat reporters who decided not to go public) or anybody in the NL or commissioner's office.
People in MLB knew about it, but can you imagine that Bowie Kuhn wouldn't have acted if he knew about it? I can't. Remember, Giamatti hired an investigator as soon as it came to his attention (via the FBI)
Would it shock you if he did?
I wouldn't bet my life that Pete Rose never bet against his own team. It wouldn't shock me if he actively threw games as a manager and/or player.
The man's a degenerate gambler and liar. I think there are very few lows to which he wouldn't stoop.
He should never even sniff readmission or the HoF. If you bet on a game where you have a duty to perform, you're done. Period.
Yes. It would shock me if Pete Rose intentionally threw a sporting event.(**)
Not that it matters, since I don't back punishing people for crimes they aren't proven to have committed.
Dowd obviously investigated whether Rose bet against the Reds.
Hard.
He should never even sniff readmission or the HoF. If you bet on a game where you have a duty to perform, you're done. Period.
This, it is true, is consistent with the moral exactitude and certainty frequently found in your writings.
(**) And, let's be clear, there isn't a single, solitary stitch of evidence that he ever did any such thing -- only warmed-over pop psychology, in whatever strand, led to your "suggestions."
(**) Dowd Report, Footnote 3: "No evidence was discovered that Rose bet against the Cincinnati Reds."
That's seriously Primeyworthy, in a Newmanish kind of way.
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