Pete Rose's Self-Made Prison
Several weeks ago, in response to some comment I made on Facebook, my friend Wes hollered at me about Pete Rose. Many of my friends holler at me about Pete Rose. (I grew up near and lived in Cincinnati for a while.) Then, when Manny got busted, my friend Timmy sent me this text message:
Manny. What a bum. Pete Rose forever!
And I thought to myself then, “I have to blog about Pete Rose.” Then, Dan Patrick randomly had Charlie Hustle on his radio show, and I was reminded again. So here we go.
There is so much to consider when it comes to Rose’s candidacy for the Hall of Fame. As baseball has always been known as a haven for statisticians, let’s look at his statistical merits. In the most traditional sense, most baseball fans look at things like Batting Average, Home Runs, and Runs Batted In when assessing someone statistically. On the list of all-time players, Rose ranks 172nd, 392nd, and 88th in those categories, respectively. Other categories considered by traditional fans are Base Hits, Runs Scored, and Stolen Bases. Rose is the all-time leader in Hits and places 6th in Runs Scored and 336th in Stolen Bases. In considering these statistical categories, a fair case could be made to put Rose in the Hall of Fame.
People who study baseball carefully, however, have learned that these traditional categories don’t always tell the whole story. Sabermetricians use less traditional categories to determine a player’s true value, statistics like OPS (On-Base Percentage Plus Slugging Percentage) and Runs Created. Rose ranks highly in the Runs Created category (9th all time) but quite poorly in OPS (525th).
Pete Rose was what I like to call a “Compiler:” a player who looks good statistically at the end of his career mostly because he had the good fortune of staying healthy and playing for many years. (Nolan Ryan and Cal Ripken both fall into the category, as well.) When you look at statistics that compile (Hits, Runs, Walks, etc.), Rose looks like one of the greatest players in history. But when you weigh the categories which are measured by percentages (On-Base Percentage, Slugging Percentage, Batting Average), it’s certainly debatable whether he is HOF material. (Incidentally, it’s not like he should apologize for being healthy and playing a long time…more power to him.)
Considering the intangibles is another story. Baseball has a tendency to allow players into the Hall of Fame who may not “measure up” statistically but who brought some intangible factor to the table. My favorite player of all time, Ozzie Smith, is a superb example of this. While Ozzie’s offensive numbers are nowhere near HOF material, he was the “greatest defensive player of all time.” Obviously, this is a rather subjective title. There are numbers to bear it out, but mostly he made the HOF on the merits of his Gold Glove awards, All-Star appearances, and general defensive dominance. The case for Rose is made much more easily using “intangibles:” Rose was on 17 All-Star teams, won an MVP, batted over .300 nearly every season, had a reputation for being a hustler, and is the game’s all-time leader in Hits, for Pete’s sake (pun intended). Using this argument, Rose probably belongs in the Hall of Fame.
Which brings us to Pete Rose’s X Factor: His propensity to gamble on baseball, and worse, on his own team.
[Let me be clear about one thing up front: Anything I say which may come across as soft on those caught using PEDs is anything but. I hate that three of the greatest players I ever saw in my life cheated and lied (are still lying) about it. I am not attempting to be light on PED users, only to relate their crime to that of Rose.]
One of the biggest arguments I keep hearing in favor of Rose being reinstated and placed on the HOF ballot is that, now that steroids have had their era, we have to let Pete in. After all, surely Bonds, Clemens, A-Rod, etc., will be allowed in, right? I don’t know how the HOF voters will deal with all the alleged steroid users, but I know how they’ve dealt with them to this point, and it hasn’t been pretty. I’d say it’s no guarantee the PED guys are going into the Hall.
There’s another, more troubling aspect of this argument though, and that is the idea that those using PEDs are worse than those gambling on the game. I think this is ludicrous.
“But wait!” you say. “Pete always bet on his own team!” I’m not sure how that really makes things any better. Pete Rose was betting a minimum of $10,000 daily on baseball games involving a team he was managing. This is unconscionable. Imagine the reasoning which may have gone on in his head: “Well, we’re down three going into the 9th. I’d love to win that 10 grand, but I’m gonna bet another 10 tomorrow night. I’ll save (fill in team’s best relief pitcher’s name here) until tomorrow so he’s fresh.” Rose always knew he would be betting big money on tomorrow’s game, and the one after that, and the one after that. This knowledge certainly impacted the way he managed, and it wasn’t always to win that night’s game, to be sure.
There are so many other issues here. Of course Rose said he only bet for his team to win, but why in the world should we believe him? He lied for years and years about the gambling, so why wouldn’t he lie about that? And his confession was….well…self-serving (I’m being kind.) Many sports figures have been smart enough to figure this out: If you get caught having screwed up, admit it, at least act like you’re sorry, and move on with your life. Sports fans, as a whole, are a forgiving bunch. Rose couldn’t handle this, though. Ten years after his banishment, he was chastising Jim Gray on national television, saying he wouldn’t admit to something that never happened. Then, in 2004, days after the Hall of Fame class was announced, Rose did an about-face. He admitted everything, agreed to interviews, wanted to come clean and get back into the game he loved so much. Oh…and he wrote a book about it, which was conveniently released at the same time. Was it an apology tour or a book tour? I can’t remember. Not only did his confession lack even the slightest sense of authenticity, but, as Rose was so often known to do, he had to make a buck with it.
I imagine there will be a day Pete Rose is allowed onto the ballot for baseball’s Hall of Fame. I’m not sure the voters will elect him, but that wouldn’t really shock me, either. If this happens in my lifetime, I’ll be a bit surprised. Whenever that day comes, I believe the Baseball Hall of Fame will be worse for it.
