Do you think Pete Rose should be made eligible for the Hall of Fame?

Question

He was an amazing hitter, a good fielder, and a decent manager. Yeah, so he gambled on his own team. I don't think he ever bet against them, which means he wouldn't have been fixing games, right? He's apologized multiple times, and knows he did wrong. Why not give him a shot at the vote?

Answer 1

I dont like Pete Rose AT ALL. I think he is a reprehensible excuse for a human being. That said, there are Murderers, Womanizers, Adulterers, Gamblers, Alcoholics, HARDCORE Bigots, and all around misenthropes littering the HOF... What Rose did off the field should not keep him out of HOF... for the love of god! Ty Cobb is in there and that son of a Bi*ch was a borderline sociopath.

Answer 2

No.

It doesn't matter if he bet against his own team or not.

He bet on baseball.

And not only did he repeatedly lie about betting on baseball, he also acted like he was bigger than the game.

Keith Olberman made a great point on the Pete Rose interview on the Dan Patrick show. By not betting on the Reds on every game (as Rose said he did and was later proven to be, another, lie) he said that Rose was basically fixing games (ie not using his closer on the night he didn't bet on the Reds).

This is the third time this question had been asked in the last couple of weeks, and I know the best answer will be one of the following:

1) The HOF has drunks, womanizers, racists, and other bad people in it - why shouldn't they let in someone who bet on baseball?

2) There are other players who have done much worse (and boy if McGwire or Bonds makes it into the HOF and Rose isn't there then there is something wrong).

If you believe either of the above then do some research into the history of baseball. "Google" 1919 Black Sox scandle (or just watch/read "8 Men Out") to learn why what Rose did was not only reprehensible but just plain wrong.

Answer 3

Bob, you're really asking TWO questions: 1) If the voters could vote him in, would they? No, I doubt it., Rule #1 in baseball is no gambling. And keep in mind the writers LOVED Rose before all this. He broke their hearts (I know--sob, sob), lied to them, and lied about the lies. I don't think they as the group who votes people in would ever forgive him. Veteran's Committee? Pretty much the same, especially since Rose came out with a book which admitted that when he said he didn't bet he had been lying. In some cases, he was lying to the faces of the former players who make up the VC. Question 2) Should the people who vote on the HoF be the ones to vote on the HoF? On the one hand, no. Bill James had a really good proposal for more open voting in his book "Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?" But on the other hand, yes, of course. WHOEVER does the voting for the Hall will be the final judge of if people get in or not.

Answer 4

For the 10th time in two days -
NO NO NO NO no no No nO NO!!
He lied, and lied, and lied. He bet on baseball. That is the cardinal sin. How could you believe that he only bet on his team? His teams were bad back then. No way did he not bet against them from time to time.
He was given a second chance. But he lied about his betting. Then he lied again. Then when given the chance to come clean (which would probably have gotten him in the Hall), he lied AGAIN!
Then when he wanted to sell books, he finally tells the truth. Kind of. Because now the amount of gambling he did has changed.
This man is a liar and the answer is NO NO NO!
And once again I say this - If you say that Bonds does not belong in the HOF because he is a cheat and liar, than you cannot say Rose belongs. You cannot pick and chose. Rose is no victim here.

Answer 5

No way, Ros-ay. He bet on his own sport and his own team, which was a direct attack on the integrity of the sport. No place of honor for such scum.

The problem is two-fold:

First, Rose might take actions in certain games to be sure he would win a game he bet on, thereby jeopardizing his team overall, maybe even hurting his team with injuries that might have a long-range effect on his team and, indirectly, on the season as a whole, since a damaged Reds team affects the quality of the team's performance and its ability to play its best against other teams. (Is it fair that one team plays the Reds when Rose is trying, and another plays the Reds when he is resting his ace reliever for the next game Rose is going to bet on?) I affected how he mangaged, or at least might have. That goes to integrity. Teams should try to win every game, without reference to whether the manager has a bet riding on it.

Second, since he did not bet on his team EVERY game, it created an inference regarding the games he did NOT bet on -- an inference related to how hard he would try to win, and an inference related to how other gamblers might act. ("Psst, Pete's not betting on the Reds tonight; load up on the Mets.") It all undermines the pure motive -- to try to win each game because that is what you are paid to do.

I know a lot of slimeballs are in a lot of halls of fame. But there is a difference between personal bad behavior -- boorishness, drug abuse unrelated to performance, racism, etc. -- and illegal behavior that strikes at the integrity of the game.

Pete in the Hall --never!!

Answer 6

He should be banned for life, with no possibility of reinstatement ever. What Pete Rose did hurt the integrity of baseball and questioned the legitimacy of games he managed. I loved him as a player, but he is a lowlife as a man.

You mean to tell me that you think that he never bet against the Reds with all of the inside information that he got? You think that he never sat a relief pitcher, or pulled starter early, maybe put in a bad pinch hitter, or sat out an everyday player to cover bets? Gamblers live for inside information and he not only had it, but he could actually determine the outcome of a game.

Answer 7

Pete Rose has no integrity; that he has proven on many occasions. He lied to all of America for fourteen years before telling us a truth we already knew. Now he wants us to forgive and forget because we have with other heroes in other circumstances, other heroes whose personal integrity was perhaps equally questionable. But it is a different kind of integrity at stake here – that of the basic fairness of competition – and that is what makes Rose’s “mistake” fundamentally different than those of others before him and since. “Drugs or drinking or all those other things that a player can do to destroy his own body does nothing to destroy the integrity and credibility of baseball the way gambling on a game does,” former Major League pitcher Rich “Goose” Gossage told Denver Post sportswriter Mike Klis. “That’s the first thing you learn when you become a ballplayer: ‘Don’t bet on baseball.’ It’s hanging on every clubhouse wall. The FBI and law enforcement talks to every team every single year about gambling.” For Pete Rose the writing was literally on the wall, and yet time and again he bet on his own team. Hall of Fame behavior it is not.

Precedent. Nineteen players have been ruled ineligible from Major League Baseball permanently, many of them in relation to the 1919 Black Sox scandal to throw the World Series. No player banned from baseball for life has ever been reinstated. One of them, Shoeless Joe Jackson, probably belongs in the Hall of Fame. What makes Rose more special than those players? Nothing. They were not above the law and neither is he. Perhaps more important, however, is the dangerous precedent reinstating Rose would set. Instead of “bet on baseball, you’re out of baseball” the policy would read “bet on baseball, admit it, and life goes on.” In that situation the “integrity and credibility” Gossage spoke of would always be in question. No one player’s accomplishments are worth taking that chance.

(Cut & Paste) See more at the website below

Answer 8

I want him in the Hall of Fame, But MLB Officials Kick him out of Betting and they haven't Apologized, until they do he's Banned from any Baseball Activities which I think is Cork of ****.

Answer 9

I would say that he doesn't deserve another chance. I watch a movie called 8 Men Out years ago about the Chicago "Black" Sox fixed World Series games and it gave me a new prespective on this. That scandle allmost destroyed baseball. MLB is just trying to keep that from happening again by not allowing him back.

Answer 10

No matter how many times this question gets asked the answer will always be a profound NO!

Rose isn't getting in period. Not even with visitor guest pass.