Now that Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred has removed Pete Rose, “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and other deceased players from the game’s “permanently ineligible list,” whatever former stars deemed deserving based on their on-field accomplishments should, at first opportunity, be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
In a bombshell, if long overdue, reversal of policy, first reported by ESPN’s Don Van Natta Jr. on Tuesday, Manfred removed bans for Rose (who bet on games while managing the Cincinnati Reds) and members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox (who fixed the World Series), among others.
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After all, banishment was meaningless once they all had died — a life sentence, if you will, for whatever their transgression. Most died decades ago and were on the list for gambling-related offenses.
“Obviously, a person no longer with us cannot represent a threat to the integrity of the game,” Manfred wrote in a letter to the attorney who petitioned for Rose.
The only remaining purpose of the ban was to keep them from the immortality of being inducted into Cooperstown, which bills itself officially as the “National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.”
The last word is the most important.
Museums exist to tell about history, and history is always messy — including in sports. They shouldn’t be solely designed for the sanitized, establishment-approved version of events, or allow outside considerations to overshadow actual accomplishments. They certainly shouldn’t serve as part of some carrot-and-stick approach to desired behavior.
Should Rose and the others have done what they did? Of course not. Should they have been subject to any potential criminal or civil recourse for their actions? Absolutely. Was MLB within its rights to suspend or punish them in other ways? Definitely.
Rose, for example, should never have been allowed to work in baseball again after it was determined he bet on the Reds to win games while he was the manager.
But that doesn’t mean his record 4,256 hits, his three World Series titles, his MVP award (1973), his 17 All-Star appearances (including when he barreled over catcher Ray Fosse in the 1970 game), his “Charlie Hustle” nickname, or that epic head-first slide — shown so many times on “This Week in Baseball” that a generation of kids either crushed their chests or chipped their teeth trying to emulate it — didn’t occur.
So did his gambling scandal, a 1990 guilty plea for filing false tax returns that cost him five months in a federal prison and a 2017 sworn statement from a woman that he had committed statutory rape back in the 1970s, an allegation for which he was never criminally charged. Throughout his life, he could be indefensibly crude, difficult and confrontational.
It’s all part of the story of Pete Rose.
So let him in, then tell the good, the bad and the ugly so the public can decide what to think. This is the Baseball Hall of Fame, not the pearly gates. It’s about a nice day in central New York State with your family, complete with a gift shop.
If the museum is there to tell the history of the sport, well, how do you do it without Pete Rose? If Hall of Fame induction is reserved for the greatest players, then how could Rose not be among them? His foolishness as a manager shouldn’t have eclipsed his impact as a player.
This is where baseball’s policy was always wrong. It used the prospect of barred entry to the Hall as a deterrence. That isn’t what a museum should be about. The risk of criminal charges, lost wages from suspension and general shame should be enough. If it isn’t, so be it.
Manfred isn’t ready to release those still living from the ineligible list. He’s clinging to the concept of scaring current players straight. “It is hard to conceive of a penalty that has more deterrent effect than one that lasts a lifetime with no reprieve,” he wrote in the letter.
Perhaps, but should that be the point?
The Hall is already filled with assorted louts, drunks and racists who just happened to be able to either hit or throw a baseball really well. So what? Their personal disgrace is part of their history.
In fairness, their personal failings didn’t affect baseball the way Rose might have as a managerial gambler, and certainly not as the Black Sox did back in the day.
Still, there are owners and commissioners in the Hall who worked for decades to stop baseball from racial integration. That’s a far more widespread impact on the integrity of the game than betting on your team to beat the Dodgers.
Yes, sports wagering is always a concern and was once a major taboo. But public opinion and business realities changed. There are sportsbooks inside MLB stadiums these days, including, for a stretch, with Rose’s old team in Cincinnati.
History is history. The game is the game. The museum is the museum. Tell the story, the whole story, with all the best players and best teams and best tales, no matter how colorful, criminal or regrettable.
America can handle it. Our real national pastime is scandal, after all.
