Pete Rose used to set up shop during Hall of Fame induction week in Cooperstown, N.Y., a nonperson hawking his autographed products, a huckster banished to the edge of things. People flocked to the sideshow because they loved Rose, because America enjoys a spectacle and because the four-legged lady presumably was out of town.
It is just Rose’s luck that, six months after his death, another sideshow, one bent on legitimizing him, has taken over the world. It’s not hard to imagine President Donald Trump seeing himself in Rose, an outsider wanting in. You would think that with everything going on in the world – Ukraine, Gaza, immigration, climate issues, etc. – there wouldn’t be time for something as trivial in the big picture as the late Mr. Rose. But, apparently, there is.
On Friday, Trump announced that he’ll pardon Rose, who he said “shouldn’t have been gambling on baseball, but only bet on his team winning,” A day later, news broke that Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred is considering a petition from Rose’s family that would allow baseball’s all-time hits leader to be dropped from the game’s ineligible list. That would clear the way for Rose to be eligible for the Hall of Fame, something he spent much of his post-baseball life desperately seeking.
But Rose’s cause doesn’t need Trump to argue for his entrance into the Hall. It doesn’t need Manfred taking another look at removing him from the ineligible list. The ban on Rose for gambling on baseball became a joke the minute Manfred chose to let the Astros keep their 2017 World Series title despite a sign-stealing scandal.
They allegedly used a camera system to steal opposing teams’ signs in 2017 and 2018. Players or staff members would watch the live feed of a camera placed in centerfield to see a catcher’s sign, then bang on a trash can to let a hitter know what pitch was coming next. It wasn’t exactly high tech, but when news of the scandal broke in 2019, it was enough to seriously tarnish the sport.
The Astros were fined $5 million and had to give up their first- and second-round picks in the 2020 and 2021 drafts. MLB suspended general manager Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch for one year each, but the team ended up firing both men. No players were disciplined, even though players ran the sign-stealing scheme.
The slap on the wrist was outrageous but not the most outrageous part of the fallout. The Astros’ ability to forever call themselves World Series champions was. Not wresting the trophy away from cheaters was. How baseball failed to see that its integrity would permanently be called into question is still a stunner.
It rightly brought attention back to Rose’s case. For a century, gambling was the red line not to be crossed in baseball. Everybody knew it. Everybody knew the consequences. Every clubhouse had a sign warning players against the dangers of gambling. Rose saw that sign every day of his playing and managerial career. He gambled on the game anyway. It meant he had no business being in the Hall, no matter how much he apologized for lying about his wagering, no matter how many autographs he signed for a fee and no matter how many people rooted for his entry.
And then came the Astros. Whatever luster the Hall had was gone in an instant. The museum couldn’t add Houston to its list of champions and keep out Rose. It was intellectually impossible to differentiate between the two. The argument that any hint of gambling could put the game’s credibility in doubt was easily applied to stealing signs. Yet baseball chose to look away.
That doesn’t minimize what Rose did. Baseball’s strict rules against gambling stem, in part, from the 1919 Black Sox scandal, in which eight White Sox players were accused of intentionally losing the World Series. Rose was accused of gambling on the Reds while he was their manager in the mid-’80s. The lawyer who investigated him for MLB said in a 2002 interview that he believed Rose had also bet against his team.
But Rose’s family doesn’t need the Trump circus blowing into town to make its argument for him. Rose was the crazy cousin who wouldn’t go away, and more crazies jumping on board doesn’t change a thing. He gambled on baseball, the game’s biggest sin. There was no room for him in the Hall of Fame.
Then the Astros banged on a garbage can and, like someone ringing a bell, a door should have opened for the Hit King in Cooperstown. It didn’t. And now the damage is done.
The world waits for Trump’s tortured exoneration of the Astros, too.