Sorry, Tribune, you missed the point in your Sept. 28 editorial about Pete Rose. Two times you state he has been banned from Cooperstown for what he did off the field. You are mistaken in this assumption.
Pete Rose bet on baseball games he managed on the field. Those bets he placed may have influenced decisions he made on the field. Even if he only bet on his own team, if he did not bet every day and bet the same amount, how can we ever be sure that he may not have sacrificed one game to win another on which he had money riding? And you claim these actions were off the field. I miss your logic here.
You also mention Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb as not being model citizens but still being in the Hall. No disagreement here. But their transgressions were truly done off the field.
If you want to make an argument for a player wrongly banned from the Hall of Fame, why not take up the banner for Chicago’s own “Shoeless” Joe Jackson?
Jackson was acquitted by a jury of his peers for the action that banned him from the game. And his transgressions on the field that led to his ban? A .375 batting average, three doubles, five runs scored, six RBIs, no errors, and the only home run hit in the 1919 World Series that he supposedly threw.
