Pete Rose played in 3,562 major league baseball games and managed 786. That adds up to more than 4,000 times that he encountered the sign posted in every clubhouse stating that betting on games is prohibited and that anyone who bets on his own games will be banned for life.
But the warning never sunk in. In a new autobiography, Rose finally acknowledges what baseball commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti concluded in 1989, and what Rose had long denied–that he placed bets on baseball games several times a week while managing the Cincinnati Reds. At that time, Rose agreed to permanent exile from the game that made him famous.
The confession is his latest attempt to win reinstatement. Commissioner Bud Selig reportedly has made any consideration of that request contingent on Rose’s willingness to take responsibility for his actions. Now that he has, there will certainly be new calls for Selig to grant clemency.
But Rose’s turnabout, though welcome, really shouldn’t change anything. The warning doesn’t say violators will be banned from baseball until they admit what they did and apologize. It says they’ll be banned for life, and they ought to be.
As the all-time leader in career hits, Rose would be a lock for the Hall of Fame had he followed this basic rule. He says he denied his guilt because “the punishment didn’t fit the crime,” and complains that had he “been an alcoholic or a drug addict, baseball would have suspended me for six months and paid for my rehabilitation.” Besides, Rose says, “I never bet more or less based on injuries or inside information. I never allowed my wagers to influence my baseball decisions.”
All this suggests that Rose still doesn’t understand the gravity of what he did. This is not a matter of personal character, as he seems to think. A player who drinks too much or uses illicit drugs is a problem, but not a serious threat to the integrity of the sport. Betting on baseball by insiders is–which is why it is so clearly banned and sternly punished.
It’s obvious that someone who bets against his own team has an interest in throwing the game. But even a manager who bets on his own team to win may face a conflict between what is good for his team tomorrow, and the next day, and what is needed to win his bet today. Gambling by baseball principals inevitably raises doubts among fans about whether the game is an honest competition. And once those doubts take hold, the future of baseball is in jeopardy.
The value of keeping the ban on Rose is that it will steel others against temptation. Lifting it, on the other hand, would say plainly that you can commit the worst crime against baseball and still be accorded its highest honor, if you’re willing to make a perfunctory show of contrition.
Despite coming clean, Rose still acts as though he’s been unfairly singled out. That makes a reinstatement particularly worrisome, since it would allow him not only to appear on the Hall of Fame ballot but also to coach or manage again.
It’s easy to see why he wants to be pardoned. But as former commissioner Fay Vincent has said, the issue is not what’s best for Pete Rose. It’s what’s best for baseball.
