Pete Rose

[Stone]

I understand what you're saying, but the people who were playing were still playing for something, and the game was legitimate. I can go watch a AAA game and enjoy it even though it doesn't have the best players, but i can't enjoy a game when the players are not playing by the fundamental rules. Baseball was still baseball regardless of racism, but it's not baseball anymore when corrupt people are affecting the outcome.

Yes, but we're not talking about the validity of baseball as a game, we're talking about the validity of Baseball's Hall of Fame.

If the Hall of Fame purported to contain the greatest baseball players ever, but happened to only select players from AAA, could you go to the Hall of Fame and enjoy it, enjoy and respect the choices they made?

[stormy]

Yes, but we're not talking about the validity of baseball as a game, we're talking about the validity of Baseball's Hall of Fame.

If the Hall of Fame purported to contain the greatest baseball players ever, but happened to only select players from AAA, could you go to the Hall of Fame and enjoy it, enjoy and respect the choices they made?

But the Hall derives all validity from the game in the first place. A person like Rose may have all the stats to get in, but he has done more to undermine the game than help it. A few more people like him and the game means absolutly nothing, then what will people think of the Hof? That it's all BS. Rose has to pay the stiff penalty to maintain the integrity of the game (and HoF), something that racists aren't burdoned with.

Letting players in the Hall from the Negro leagues is another issue entirely. Although i don't know much about it, i know there are many initiatives to right this wrong in baseball's past. I think there are negro league players in the hall right now, but am not certain.

As for the HoF, its standards are already pretty low. There are tons of players in there that don't deserve it, and quite a few who aren't in there that do deserve it (Burt Blyleven, i think Goose Gosage is not in there either). But you can't use that as an excuse to let the next guy who doesn't really deserve it in, even Rose. Any claims of housing "the greatest baseball players ever" are already suspect, and it's thier own doing.

[Diff-chan]

There are a few players from the NL in the hall, like Josh Gibson I believe.

As for the HOF, yes, the standards are hella low and its as politicized as anything else in this world. There's no reason for Phil Rizzuto to be there, for example, he got in because of pussy veteran voting policies and the New York media machine.

[Cheebs]

Put him back in. He's Pete frickin' Rose. I'm guessing a good number of you are too young to remember anything of his playing, but if you ever saw him.....

Just put the guy back in.

[Diff-chan]

See, I dont know about that. What about Shoeless Joe Jackson? He was banned from baseball and he didnt even throw the games in 1919 - he knew about it, but he didnt take any money and played his damndest (the numbers speak for themselves). Yet he was banned forever and became a pariah and is not in the HOF. And he was a far better player than Rose.

I just dont see why Rose can do all this bullshit, be banned, spend 10 years wasting everyone's time by denying it and setting up shop where he sells signed baseballs outside of the HOF ceremony every year, say he deserves to be in, act like a big dick, then finally admit what he did and then everything's hunky dory. I just dont see it.

[burgundy]

The Hall of Fame should contain the best baseball players that ever lived. Not the nicest, not the most principled - he bet on baseball as a manager. Not as a player. Pete Rose, the player, is one of the best baseball players ever to play the game, and he belongs in the Hall of Fame.

What he said.

Ty Cobb was one of the nastiest bastards to ever pick up a bat, but no sane baseball fan will argue that he doesn't belong in the Hall.

If the Baseball Hall of Fame has enough room for Ty Cobb, who was racist by 1920's standards, and Roberto "All I Ever Did Was Die In A Plane Crash" Clemente, then it also has room for Pete Rose.

My bad...I see my point's been made already. Ironic that Cobb held the record that Rose broke.

As for Shoeless Joe, even if you can say he was better than Rose (and I'm not sure you can), he never won a championship while Rose was part of a dynasty, and his scandal very nearly destroyed the very sport. I'm not so sure he was innocent, either. But personally, I'd let them both in the Hall.

If Rose never bet against his own team, I fail to see how his actions undermined the integrity of the game.

And it's rich that Pete Rose isn't allowed in his sport's HoF while O.J. Simpson is in his.

[RedCoKid]

How old are you Stormy?

Still bitter that Fisk hit the homerun but your team STILL lost the series to Rose's Reds?

Or were you too young to follow the excitement in Sept 1985?

Your opinions are clearly biased if Rose is somehow bad in comparison to the unchecked andro- and steroid-pumped hitters of today.

[stormy]

i'm 24. It has nothing to do with grudges, just my love of the game. Rose is a great player, but he knew the rules and the punishment, which is spelled out in the rule book. So why should he get special treatment? Especially after lying for 14 years only to come clean so he can sell books and get into the hall? Now that he's admitted it, he should DEFINATLY not be reinstated. I had all the sympathy in the world for Rose back in the day until i read all the evidence and really thought about it and what a crime it was against the game.

I already went over why drugs aren't as bad as gambling (with respect to baseball, not in general). But say all the estimates are true and 20% of players today take steriods. It doesn't matter, the games are still competitive, I enjoy watching them. I don't see how you can hold a higher level of play against them, as opposed to Rose who hurt the game and compromised the play. If 20% of todays players were gambling on baseball, instead of taking steriods, the sport would be bankrupt and no one would care about it.

[Yoshi]

If the Baseball Hall of Fame has enough room for Ty Cobb, who was racist by 1920's standards, and Roberto "All I Ever Did Was Die In A Plane Crash" Clemente, then it also has room for Pete Rose.

Last time I checked, 3,000 hits was an automatic pass into the HoF. It got Clemente in, and it should get Rose in as well. It's just like 500 HRs (Dave Kingman excluded) or 300 wins.

[Yoshi]

And it's rich that Pete Rose isn't allowed in his sport's HoF while O.J. Simpson is in his.

O.J. was already in the HoF when the murders occurred. In addition, it's tough to keep someone out of the HoF for something from which a court of law exonerated him.