Pete Rose to be Inducted into Baseball Hall of Fame
It has to happen. John (on this blog) pointed it out. Pete Rose was banned for life from baseball because of gambling. It is alleged by some that Bart Giamatti had a side deal with Pete that he would let him back in within a year, but a few weeks later, Bart died. Faye Vincent…
It has to happen. John (on this blog) pointed it out. Pete Rose was banned for life from baseball because of gambling. It is alleged by some that Bart Giamatti had a side deal with Pete that he would let him back in within a year, but a few weeks later, Bart died. Faye Vincent, who took over after Giamatti’s death, was a literal person who would have none of that, so Pete Rose was never reinstated. But now.. things have changed: Pete Rose has died! His lifetime ban is over, and he should now be inducted into the Cooperstown Baseball Hall of Fame. I think I will call my friend, the president of the HOF, Josh Rawitch. In the past, he was the Dodgers Communication Director. This photo (with Pete in a wheelchair) was taken the day before he died.
Included in the photo were Dave Conception, George Foster, Tony Perez, and Ken Griffey, Sr. Pete died the next day. I grew up near Cincinnati, Ohio. My father was a Reds and Bengals fan, and we usually went to six to ten baseball games a year. Pete Rose was the embodiment of what a baseball player was all about. I was not a fan of the man, but I had to admire how he played the game.
I live in a small community on the south side of Indianapolis, Indiana, in a little town called Mooresville (population 9,997). Actually, I live a half mile outside the city limits. Mooresville High School has a great baseball program, and Dave Rose, Pete’s brother, used to be an Assistant Coach. Let’s make it clear that I do not know the man. I have seen him, but we run in different circles. He was in the hospitality business as a chef at Pete’s Restaurants until they failed, as a Chef at the Brick Yard Crossing, and finally, as a cook at Pit Stop BBQ in Brownsburg. There isn’t much information as to whether Dave Rose is still alive. He would be almost 80 years old and does not coach anymore. He lived in Indianapolis (in the hood).
Greg Doyle, a local sportswriter, wrote about Dave Rose back in 2015. In part, he said:
He’s standing just inside the door of Pit Stop BBQ & Grill in Brownsburg, like he’s waiting for me. Only, he’s not. He has no idea that I’m coming, or even who I am. But he’s standing there, and this is opportunity knocking, so I decide to test David Rose.
— GREG DOYLE
It starts like this, one stranger to another. I ask: How are you?
Rose: “If I was any better, I’d have a twin.”
There it is. My opening. Instead of nodding and moving past to go eat, I pretend to give him the once-over.
You know, I tell David Rose, you look like somebody. Do you have a twin? You look familiar.
“Nope,” he says. “Maybe you’ve been here before.”
Nah. But you sure do look … ah, I tell him. I know who you look like.
There it is. Just tested David Rose, threw out the bait. Time for him to gobble it up and tell me who he is. Or at least, who somebody else is. Time for him to bask in the glow of his older brother, one of the most famous athletes of the 20th century.
David Rose doesn’t nibble. He just stares at me. He’s wondering why I’m here, what’s my angle, and too late I realize what just happened. I wasn’t testing Pete Rose’s younger brother.
Pete Rose’s brother was testing me.
David Rose tells me how it is, right up front. We slide into a booth after the lunch rush at the Pit Stop, where he’s been a cook since it opened a few years ago, and he volunteers that “people use me to get to Pete.”
He says it with no hard feelings. After 66 years David Rose knows what he knows. And what he knows, what he has learned about human nature, is that people will take until someone tells them no. Over the years David Rose learned how to say no.
Just a few minutes of Pete’s time. That’s all they want. Just one autograph or better yet, one autograph show. Or maybe he can speak at my golf event. He’s your brother. Ask him for me, huh?
David Rose can’t escape his brother, not that he wants to. He admires the guy. Loves him. Wishes Pete wouldn’t come to Indy just for an autograph show or to see LeBron James visit the Pacers. Wishes his brother would come to Indy to see him. But that’s life, and life has been good to David Rose.
The entire interview is HERE.
Reds principal owner and managing partner Bob Castellini said in a statement that Rose was “one of the fiercest competitors the game has ever seen” and added: “We must never forget what he accomplished.” It’s time for Pete Rose to enter the Hall of Fame now that his lifetime ban has been completed.
Longtime Reds teammate and Hall of Famer Johnny Bench posted his reaction to Rose’s death saying, “My heart is sad. I loved you Peter Edward. You made all of us better. No matter the life we led. No one can replace you.”
A 17-time All-Star, the switch-hitting Rose played on three World Series winners. He was the National League MVP in 1973 and World Series MVP two years later. He holds the major league record for games played (3,562) and plate appearances (15,890). He was the leadoff man for one of baseball’s most formidable lineups with the Reds’ championship teams of 1975 and 1976, featuring Hall of Famers Perez, Bench and Joe Morgan.
But no milestone approached his 4,256 hits, breaking his hero Ty Cobb’s 4,191 and signifying his excellence no matter the notoriety that followed. It was a total so extraordinary that you could average 200 hits for 20 years and still come up short. Rose’s secret was consistency and longevity. Over 24 seasons, all but six played entirely with the Reds, Rose had 200 hits or more 10 times, and more than 180 four other times. He batted .303 overall, even while switching from second base to outfield to third to first, and he led the league in hits seven times.
“Every summer, three things are going to happen,” Rose liked to say, “the grass is going to get green, the weather is going to get hot, and Pete Rose is going to get 200 hits and bat .300.” Rose didn’t drink or smoke but indulged himself in other ways. He cared openly about money, vowing to become the first singles hitter to make $100,000 a year and leaving the Reds for the Phillies after declaring free agency at the end of the 1978 season (Rose returned in 1984). He was a longtime womanizer whose two marriages ended in divorce and who acknowledged fathering a child out of wedlock. In 1990, he pleaded guilty to two charges of filing false income tax returns and served five months in prison, the prosecutor calling his sentencing ″a sad day for those young Americans to whom Pete Rose was an idol.″
I will never forget how Pete Rose played the game:
Johnny Bench spoke of him yesterday:
Pete Rose is gone. The ban has been lifted. He belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame, the lovable scoundrel that he is! In the Wall Street Journal today, Jason Gay wrote this:
Pete Rose predicted his own bittersweet ending.
“Would it be horrible if I died next week and they put me in the Hall of Fame next year?” he asked in the recent, rollicking documentary, “Charlie Hustle and the Matter of Pete Rose.”
“That’s happened to a lot of people,” Rose continued. “They forgive them when they die.”
Will they?
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Discussion (130)
Disagree, not disagreeable
Pete should have been in the hall prior to his passing.
If you look at other sports like MMA, if they can bet and get away with it, why not Pete?
Especially if it wasn’t intentionally. It’s not like Shoeless Joe betted on a game with shoes/ without shoes. For shits and giggles!
Pete deserved this prior, kind of like Adam ”
what’s his name” in the NBA allows all these players to wear spandex!
Bunch of men in tights but no nostalgia!…..
A day late and a dollar short for the HOF. Pete should have been inducted while he was alive. He paid his debt to baseball but they maintained a disdain for him regardless. His record speaks for itself. Someone needs to apologize to Pete’s family!!!
Giamatti died “a few weeks later?” You sure? I thought he died a few DAYS later, after banning Pete.
(Justifiably so, by the way.)
You will be to afraid to post it. Gutless wonder.
This is BULLSHIT
Reward the cheater. Why not just let all of the steroid users in. What a great example that you are setting for kids. How about a participation trophy too.
Now, about Roger Maris…
I know his name should be in the hall of fame. I don’t need to see that this late. The hall has excepted to many that don’t belong. Baseball is just not the same game. Who makes the $$$$ is how it’s promoted. Small market teams have no chance. No 5 tool players
The Baseball Hall of Fame could theoretically induct Pete Rose posthumously, but it would require a policy change. The Hall of Fame itself has rules that currently prevent Rose from being on the ballot due to his lifetime ban from Major League Baseball. In 1991, two years after Rose’s ban, the Hall of Fame’s Board of Directors passed a rule making any player on MLB’s ineligible list also ineligible for Hall of Fame induction.
However, this rule is not set in stone and could be changed if the Hall of Fame’s Board of Directors decides to revisit it. If the Hall were to change its policy or if a future MLB Commissioner were to lift Rose’s ban, it would open the door for his potential induction posthumously.
Will it happen?
It wasn’t a lifetime ban, The word lifetime wasn’t used anywhere but in the press.
The word in the agreement is he was banned permanently.
They have already come out and said that they are not lifting the band now that he is dead which they shouldn’t he had a chance to have them lift it when he was alive all he had to do was 1 stop gambling 2 stay away from casinos 3 he had to come clean of what he did 4 stop showing up on HOF weekend and stop selling those baseballs that said I’m sorry I bet on baseball and if he could do that he would have been reinstated but he couldn’t even do that he acted like he wanted to go into the hof but deep down he didn’t want it cause it kept his name relevant and made him to much money
That is BS what they did to him there are player done worse things than him with drugs and much worse and they eligible . He should have been in the HOF along time ago with all his records he is the the face of baseball don’t care what people say he was the best player of all time he played for the love of the sport not the money and that’s the way it should be . Mr rose RIP thank you for the memories you will never be forgotten
He should NEVER be allowed in the HOF. Knowing the rules, he willing cheated. A lifetime ban means exactly that.
Otherwise, take away all the rules.
Pete should already be in the HOF and it’s a shame that we’re still debating it upon his passing. He paid his penalty and debt to the game he loved so much and now the penalty doesn’t fit the crime.
The most recent betting scandal had a brief investigation and it was gone. There was hardly any due diligence with the investigation and many stones were left unturned. If there was more to it, MLB didn’t want to risk finding it so it was closed awfully quick. A real joke!
He’s a pedophile.
Ban was permanent not lifetime.
For most of us baseball is all about hero’s and numbers and how the players you saw played the game. It didn’t matter if they played for a team not your own. The true fan would appreciate the entire body of a players work. With other questionable entry’s into the Hall I think it is a travesty that Pete wasn’t in and now with his passing we see and hear pros and cons. If you are a true fan, Pete should be in the Hall
Pete deserved to be in HOF many years ago. Banned for gambling when much worse offenses are being ignored?
I’m a Red Sox fan and know little of Pete except that he was one of the greatest players! That’s how I’ll remember him!
Love Charlie Hustle
The man should have been put in years ago
Pete Rose should be in HOF no doubt . The cheaters from the Houston astros are all eligible and that’s a shame they are eligible and Pete is not. They changed the outcome of games and even the World Series. They should all be banned even the managers and coaches.
You either hated him or loved him. Pete Rose was a baseball icon. He deserves to be in the HOF!!!
Pete Rose spent every once of his ability on every move he made as a player. It’d be imposable to get any more out of him. He delivered his all. There is no better example. The HOF was important to him. It’s just not so important to me as there is many things unacknowedged that would be ugly if brought into focus. The commision is even less meaningful to me. I love rock n roll but almost nothing that charted in the top 40. Pete’s gambling I have no issue with but altering history shouldn’t go unnoticed, which the HOF is also guilty of. It should be said, but say it like it is.
If the ban on Pete Rose’s HOF induction should be lifted because he has died, then what about Shoeless Joe Jackson? It seems to me there is just as good a case for Jackson as there is Rose.
Pete had an addiction, it was gambling. People seek help when they admit they have a problem. It’s moot to put him in now as it would be a slap in his and his family’s face.