The Paradox of Pete Rose

This week brought the news that Pete Rose, baseball’s all time hits leader, passed away.

Legacies, particularly about our heroes, are never more complicated than when they contain multiple truths:  O.J. Simpson was the NFL’s biggest name in the 1970’s and a popular actor/ announcer in the 1980’s.  He was also widely suspected of brutally murdering his wife and her friend.  Ty Cobb, Rose’s predecessor as the all time hits leader, was by all accounts a virulent racist and widely considered one of the dirtiest players in his era.  Mickey Mantle was the hero of young children everywhere in the 1950’s and was an alcoholic who regularly abandoned his family.  Like them, Rose was a paradox.  No player loved the game more and, simultaneously, no athlete bit the hand that fed him so fiercely. 

There will be great debate now that Rose is gone about whether or not it is now proper to admit him into the Hall of Fame.  On one hand, few can dispute his on the field accomplishments.  Seventeen times an All Star, MVP in 1973, more hits and more games played than anyone, and his importance as a key cog in the 1970’s “Big Red Machine.”  

Early in his career, while he was beginning to make his mark on the game, Mantle and pitcher Whitey Ford watched Rose run to first after a walk in a spring training game and mockingly referred to him as “Charlie Hustle.”   Not only did the name stick, Rose embraced it for the rest of his life.  During the 1970 All Star Game, Rose barreled over catcher Ray Fosse on a play at home plate.  Fosse was never the same player afterwards.  In the 1973 World Series, Rose and New York Mets shortstop Bud Harrelson were involved in a fistfight near second base after Harrelson took umbrage with Rose’s hard slide into the bag.  His uniform was always dirty and he played with ferocity.  Fans adored his joy on the field. 

However, there was a darker side to Rose that began to emerge.  In 1988, he was presented with a mountain of evidence that, not only had he bet on baseball during the mid 80’s, he also had bet on his own team as manager of the Reds.  To understand this grievous sin one must go back nearly a hundred years. 

In 1919, the “Black Sox” scandal nearly destroyed the national pastime.  Eight members of the Chicago White Sox were accused of losing the World Series, ironically played against the Cincinnati Reds, in exchange for payment from organized crime.  The eight were eventually acquitted but they were each permanently banned from the game and their reputations forever sullied.  The most famous of the Black Sox, “Shoeless” Joe Jackson became legendary when a young boy reportedly confronted Jackson outside the courthouse where the players were being tried exclaiming, “Say it ain’t so Joe.”  Though the story was later proven to be false, when the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

When baseball commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti met with Rose to discuss the evidence of betting on games, he didn’t originally have the most severe punishment in mind.  In fact, Giammati was prepared to hand down a much lighter sentence with one condition:  Pete Rose had to admit gambling in baseball and to say he was sorry.

Apologies were not built into the character of Pete Rose.

Instead, Rose denied involvement but accepted the punishment of a lifetime ban from baseball, believing that it would be overturned or even forgotten over time.  He lashed out at Giamatti and Major League Baseball, repeating the lie that he had not bet on games.  

Eight days after the ruling on Rose was handed down, Giamatti was dead, felled by a heart attack.  Many believe the stress and the toll of the Rose saga contributed to his death.  His replacement and close friend, Fay Vincent, was not about to hear appeals from Rose and his supporters to lift the ban.

America loves a comeback story and second acts.  Pete Rose might have had the opportunity to serve as one of baseball’s elder statesman had he been capable of humility and contrition.  As the remaining years unfolded, Rose had his reputation damaged further by conviction of tax evasion and served time in jail.  There were also sordid accounts of Rose having affairs with underage girls during the 1970’s while playing for the Reds.  Not exactly the stuff for the back of bubblegum cards.

Time will tell what history makes of Pete Rose.  His induction into Cooperstown is more likely now that he is gone and that’s probably the correct decision.  A lifetime ban doesn't disqualify a person posthumously.  His accomplishments on the field likely would have made him a first ballot hall of famer.  It is the Baseball Hall of Fame, not the “Hall of Nice People You’d Like As Your Neighbor.”  There would be far fewer plaques in Cooperstown if morals were part of the selection criteria. He will never see his place in the hallowed halls with other baseball immortals and, perhaps, that is a fitting final coda to a complex legacy.

Say it ain’t so, Pete.