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    • Should MLB reinstate Pete Rose as it turns to gambling?
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    Should MLB reinstate Pete Rose as it turns to gambling?

    Idris Bevan Posted on

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    Pete Rose is dead, and as the Hit King greets the Great One in the afterlife, the clamor for his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame may only grow louder.

    The theory is that it is pure hypocrisy that Major League Baseball would keep Rose on its permanent ineligible list – and therefore off the indoor league – because he bet on baseball while the league accepts, encourages, bets on its games and makes profits from them.

    Don’t believe them.

    Rose, who died at his home in Las Vegas on Monday at the age of 83, spent the last 35 years of his life in a state of constant mourning after an extensive report concluded that he was in his influential position as coach of the Cincinnati Reds had bet on Cincinnati Reds games.

    The accusations, the revelations and the hammer that ultimately fell were breathtaking. It was an extremely compressed punch in the gut for the game, the equivalent of its steroid era and sign-stealing cheating scandals compressed into a roughly 90-day period that saw one of the game’s icons toppled.

    And since August 1989, when Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti lifted his lifetime ban, Rose has used the tincture of time as a rehabilitating balm for his image.

    But three more commissioners and far more scandals in the game changed nothing. The game’s greats – some cheated, others chemically enhanced – greeted each other at the gates of Cooperstown’s Hall.

    Rose signed autographs at a collector’s shop less than 500 feet down Main Street.

    That 500 feet might as well have been 500 miles, although Rose always had his defenders who were happy to travel twice that distance to fall at his doorstep.

    But the past few decades haven’t been able to erase Rose’s sins – nor should they.

    While the extensive Dowd report contained no evidence that Rose was fixing games, the notebooks seized from his former employee suggest that he not only bet on games as a manager, but also when he was on the verge of taking over Ty Cobb to fall to the top of baseball’s all-time hit list.

    This is all very sad, and it doesn’t take a proprietary algorithm to assess the damage done to a game when a manager bets on games involving his team. It was bad enough as a player, but Rose controlled not only his own fate, but that of 24 other men under his care. His actions affected the careers, perhaps livelihoods, of others, and even if it wasn’t his intention, they certainly affected the outcome of games.

    Rose’s many defenders may be asking at this point, “Who cares?” And it’s a fair question.

    MLB’s embrace of gambling was inevitable, but still abhorrent at times.

    See, this arranged marriage was sown in 2018 when a Supreme Court ruling paved the way for the legalization of sports gambling on a federal basis. In 2024, you can bet on the big game – or even the smallest – in 38 states and the District of Columbia.

    It makes sense that sports leagues have a significant interest in helping regulate this new frontier. It’s understandable that they’d naturally want a small piece of the action, too, with new revenue streams that are among their most reliable and lucrative – massive national and regional sports network deals that enrich the biggest franchises in baseball and, on a large scale, the NBA – wither.

    Still, there was certainly no need to flood the stadiums with advertising for gambling. Setting up sports betting literally within the gates of their arenas and stadiums, sad places where the destitute can enjoy chicken wings while trying to beat the house’s increasingly impossible odds. Bombarding the airwaves with incessant advertising for every crazy book that offers a promo code and a gateway to addiction.

    We now live in a world where LeBron James and Kevin Hart are fighting for DraftKings, an extremely mixed message that says to every active athlete, from the cricket field to the college hardwood to the pros: You can look, but you should Better not to touch it.

    But none of this makes Rose’s transgressions disappear. Only the level of trust between athlete, league and fan was tested.

    As consumers, sports enthusiasts, and perhaps even low-stakes players, we must assume that leagues will do the right thing in enforcement. That they are truly protecting “the integrity of the game” and not the representatives of their elite athletes when they become involved in their sport.

    So far, the league’s enforcement bodies have a few small skins on the wall.

    The NFL has caught a handful of offenders, most notably wide receiver Calvin Ridley, who received a one-year suspension for gambling at football games. Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter has been handed a lifetime ban from the NBA for a particularly dastardly – and ill-conceived – scheme to influence the outcome of a prop bet involving himself was.

    And five MLB players were suspended for betting on baseball – infielder Tucupita Marcano received a lifetime ban – a discovery the league attributed in part to “significant cooperation from MLB’s legal sports betting partners.”

    The specter of a major scandal always lurks. The game seemed to dodge a bullet when the world star’s interpreter Shohei Ohtani admitted to stealing about $16 million from his boss to support his own gambling addiction. In the end, there was no “Shohei Ohtani gambling scandal,” but it was a troubling close call that saw bookmakers, partners and the game’s biggest star in the same orbit.

    It’s all quite irritating. And for those of us who lived through the Rose debacle, it’s sobering to hear athletes discussing point spreads or walking around with virtual casinos in their back pockets. Be careful, children.

    But even though Rose wanted to tell almost everything about herself, it has little to do with him. Sports betting is now the law in large parts of the country. Leagues are trying to enforce this. They punish the wrongdoers.

    Rose spit in the game’s face, lied about it, and tried to exploit his remorse. That ate him up, because it can be plausibly argued that no one loved the game anymore.

    And now he’s gone. In five years it will also be Commissioner Rob Manfred. When his successor takes the gavel, one of the first questions will almost certainly be: “Would you consider reinstating Pete Rose?”

    From Giamatti to Fay Vincent to Bud Selig and now Manfred, the answer has always been no, even if Rose managed to force an audience with the commissioner to present his case.

    The name will change in the commissioner’s office, but the answer most likely won’t. Giamatti died of a heart attack a week after Rose was banished, and the succession to the throne followed his wishes.

    Maybe there will be a change of heart. But you shouldn’t bet on it.

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    Idris Bevan
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