“Regardless of the outcome of juries, no player that throws a
ball game, no player that entertains proposals or promises to throw
a game, no player that sits in a conference with a bunch of crooked
players where the ways and means of throwing games are discussed,
and does not promptly tell his clu
b about it, will ever again play professional baseball.” —
Kenesaw Mountain Landis No matter how austere, how excessive and
how self-promoting that statement by Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw
Mountain Landis was, his denouncement of anyone who would assail
the integrity of the game
describes precisely the zero-tolerance policy baseball must take
toward gambling in its midst.
“Regardless of the outcome of juries, no player that throws a ball game, no player that entertains proposals or promises to throw a game, no player that sits in a conference with a bunch of crooked players where the ways and means of throwing games are discussed, and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever again play professional baseball.” — Kenesaw Mountain Landis
No matter how austere, how excessive and how self-promoting that statement by Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis was, his denouncement of anyone who would assail the integrity of the game describes precisely the zero-tolerance policy baseball must take toward gambling in its midst.
Gambling very nearly ruined baseball in the early 20th century, and it still has the potential to do so today.
Most baseball fans know about the Black Sox scandal of 1919, when a handful of players were banned from baseball for life after allegedly conspiring to throw the World Series. But few know that baseball was a haven for gamblers — most of them associated with organized crime — in its early days and rumors about players throwing games for money, and enticing others to do so at the behest of those gamblers, were rampant.
It’s association with gambling shook the sport to its roots in those fledgling days, spawning Landis and a baseball-wide anti-gambling edict that remains to this day, when every clubhouse at every level of professional baseball has a sign banning gambling.
Back then, even baseball’s proprietors, so blinded by fear and racism that they couldn’t allow blacks into their game, saw how devastating the threat to the game’s integrity gambling was and would always be.
And that’s why Pete Rose, Major League Baseball’s all-time hit leader, can never be allowed back on the field of play, in the dugout, in the clubhouse or in the front office ever again.
Rose admits he gambled on baseball while he was managing, and occasionally playing, for the Cincinnati Reds — whether he bet for or against his team, or even left his team completely out of his wagering, matters not at all — and that is enough to consign him to the sport’s Purgatory.
Conversely, Rose should be immediately eligible for the Hall of Fame, despite his fatal flaw. He should be recognized for his accomplishments on the playing field and have his bust in Cooperstown because, in an ironic twist of fate, the same man who can no longer be trusted in the game was one of its most determined, give-no-quarter, win-at-all-costs competitors.
Rose, no great physical specimen, willed himself to amass 4,256 hits in 14,052 at-bats in 3,562 games over 24 seasons, all records. But perhaps his greatest record of all-time is this one: Most winning games played, 1,972. This guy just hated to lose.
And yet he allowed his predilection for gambling into the stadiums, clubhouses and onto the diamonds of the grand old game.
It has been said that Rose is being treated unfairly because he denies, and there’s no evidence, that he bet on his own team to lose. But betting on his own team, or any other big league team, at all while he had a hand in the outcome is inexcusable.
Just because he didn’t bet on the Reds to lose, doesn’t mean his competitive nature wasn’t compromised. By betting on his team, or any other team, to win, Rose was in a position to influence the outcome both through actions in other games and his contacts. No one can tell me he managed exactly the same in the games that he bet the Reds would win as he did in all the other games he managed back then. Who’s to say he didn’t save his best starting pitcher or his bullpen for those games? Who’s to say he didn’t maneuver his lineup to give himself an advantage? We’ll never truly know.
At the very least, Rose used an insider’s knowledge of the game to improve his odds of winning bets and opened himself up to the potential that he may have been forced at some point to consider betting against his team and even throwing a game to pay off his debts.
Another argument says Rose is being held to a higher standard than other players in the Hall, many of whom were avowed racists, some of whom were habitually abusive and at least one of whom is a reputed murderer.
Rose wasn’t a particularly popular guy with his fellow players, with the notable exception of his teammates, but he’s a pussy cat compared to gargoyles like Ty Cobb. (Incidentally, Cobb was the previous owner of the all-time record for base hits in a career. Maybe there’s something about hitting a baseball that makes you mean.)
Some have even raised the ugly spectre of steroid and drug abuse, pointing out that those twin evils have been threatening the game’s integrity for a while now. But none of those things, not racism, not anti-social behavior, not even the use of, gasp, steroids, threaten the integrity of the game the way gambling does.
Baseball, like life, can produce great ugliness and its players are at least as fallible and human as the rest of us. But we, the fans, have to believe above all else that they are always trying to win the game and that they remain uncompromised.
Anything less would be fatal to baseball. Anything less would be professional wrestling.
Jim Johnson is the Morgan Hill Times Sports Editor. Call him at (408) 779-4106 or email him at
ji**@mo*************.com
