No

He knew the rule and he broke it

Nope. His death doesn't change what he did. He knew the rules.

I say yes. The real importance of his ban (to me) was that he could never again be in a position to affect the outcome of a MLB game. He died banned from baseball and never having been inducted into the HoF. I think he deserved that. Now that he's dead, I think it's time to add baseball's hit leader to the Hall.

Gambling has nothing to do with his career... records stop and will forever stand put him in

Clemens and bonds to substances that impacted their career... save be the it was never proven bull****

Hell no. He knew exactly what he was doing and what the punishment would be, as there was long-established precedence (The Black Sox Scandal). He thumbed his nose at it because he thought he was above it all.

At least Shoeless Joe could claim ignorance, as he was barely literate and easily manipulated, not to mention there was no real precedence at the time for the punishments that were handed down to him and the rest of the Black Sox.

Nitro Power said:

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Gambling has nothing to do with his career... records stop and will forever stand put him in

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Records have nothing to do with it. Pete Rose agreed to his punishment of a lifetime ban.

His deal was take a lifetime ban in exchange for no criminal charges stemming form MLB's investigation.

Guess what he chose? He accepted it and he later wanted to reneg on it. That's not how it works.

Now if someone wanted to make the argument that his ban was for his lifetime and his lifetime is now up then I could hear that out.

But people forget Pete agreed to his punishment and his punishment was a lifetime ban. Records, stats, voters, writers, fans, etc have absolutely nothing to do with it. The only reason he's not in is his own decisions and actions.

He was betting on games where he was the manger. People who were part of the Reds organization when he was the manager said sometimes he'd do odd things with the lineup or pitching during games that made no sense. He was 100% fixing games.

Hate to burst you guys' bubble, but nowhere in his agreement does it say "lifetime ban"

According to The Washington Post

Although he has long been described as being given a "lifetime ban," those words do not appear in the official agreement banning Rose. After an investigation led by then-deputy commissioner Fay Vincent and attorney John Dowd, Rose and Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti signed an agreement stating that the former Cincinnati Reds star and manager was "permanently ineligible in accordance with Major League Rule 21 and placed on the Ineligible List."

PERMANENT = FOREVER

Baseball writers are the biggest dorks on the planet. It's crazy they choose the least athletic people to determine which athletes are worthy of the hall of fame.

Aggie Therapist said:

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Pete Rose can burn in hell

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What did he do that's worthy of eternal damnation?

His stats though aren't gone.

It's hard to see anyone ever supplanting him as the all time hit leader with the nature of the game today (load management, focus on slugging and walks, etc.).

Ichiro would have had him if his overseas stats would have been in MLB, but it's pretty rare for players to accumulate 200+ hit seasons for any length of time anymore. Altuve had a stretch and he'll be hard pressed to hit 3,000, much less over 4,000 hits.

Anyone who follows baseball knows who the all time hit leader is. I probably couldn't name half the players in the HOF. That's probably going to have to suffice for Rose's legacy.

I say yes it is not the Hall of Nice guys who did baseball good, he was one of the best to play and by all accounts is a hall of famer.

Add him to the new wing of the Hall of *

Mathguy64 said:

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Nope. His death doesn't change what he did. He knew the rules.

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So did Ohtani.

I guess Rose should have been born in Japan and not in the rust belt

Bag said:

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Mathguy64 said:

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Nope. His death doesn't change what he did. He knew the rules.

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So did Ohtani.

I guess Rose should have been born in Japan and not in the rust belt

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As Pete said before he died, I guess I should have used an interpreter.

The hypocrisy of MLB (all pro sports) around gambling has reached an all time high.

nope.


He'll always have those stats, but he knew the rules and broke them. He accepted the permanent ineligibility suspension to make it all go away

He also lied about the whole thing. He said he never bet on the Reds. Denied it up and down and even filed a lawsuit against Commissioner Giamatti. Then in 2004 he writes a book and admits that yes he did in fact bet on the Reds, but only when he was managing them and only to win.

In 2015 copies of a notebook from one of Rose's bookies surfaced (Michael Bertolini). The bookie was being investigated for mail fraud and the USPS inspectors seized a bunch of stuff from his place including a book of betting slips. It listed several times Rose bet on the Reds while playing for them, not as a manager. This was discovered back in 89 but had been kept sealed. That backed up Bertolini's claims (from the Dowd Report) Rose was betting on all sorts of sports (basketball, baseball, pro college) and heavily in debt. It's important to note that Bertolini was placing bets for Rose with Mob connected bookies. Bertolini also claimed that Rose owed $500K to a NY loan shark.

It's not like he was having someone head down to Atlantic City to place a bet a sportsbook window. Rose was pretty heavily invested in the illegal betting circuit, most likely with the Mob. When that happens, there is no telling what control you give up to those you own money to. Maybe he doesn't hustle out a base hit and gets called out. Or he takes an extra pitch to go down on strikes. Maybe it had no affect on him. The point is, the integrity of that game is now in question.

Had he not agreed to the suspension, I wouldn't have been surprised if he got into criminal trouble if all of this came out. I think he got lucky the USPS transferred the notebook into the national archives and sealed it when they did. Had that come out back when this was all going down, it would have been a lot worse for him.

Only altuve and Verlander are going to make the HOF. Unless Jose has some catastrophic injury that ends his career short, his numbers will make it impossible to leave out. Verlander is a lead cinch first ballot.