Writings on baseball by Matt Barnard and Dan Stein.

 
Pete Rose: more of this?

Dan pointed out an article to me tonight that appears on the New York Times website written by Jeff Neuman, the former editorial director of the Baseball Encyclopedia, on the issue of Pete Rose's potential enshrinement into the Hall of Fame. Really, this is one of my least favorite notionally baseball-related topics, as it has little to do with anything that occurred on the field. That said, it's an issue, and one that we may well see resolved this offseason (at least according to Baseball Prospectus).

The article is worth a read, and advocates Rose's enshrinement posthumously. I don't have a problem with that. The idea is to punish Rose for his indiscretions, not to deny his accomplishments, which were certainly significant. Many people (I hesitate to say most, as I unfortunately don't think it's true) want to see Rose held accountable for his actions, something that no admission of guilt would have any effect on.

I really don't want to rehash my thoughts on the issue, so here's some of what I wrote back on December 11th of last year:

That said, I couldn't care less if he's allowed into the Hall of Fame. At the time, there was nothing to prohibit banned players from entering the Hall, and he does deserve to be in on merit. While I believe things can and should be done to punish him going forward, his career speaks for itself. The Hall of Fame, in my opinion, is not there to honor great men, it's there to honor great players. It's pretty clear that Rose stuck around far too long in baseball and did so to the detriment of his teams. But it's also clear that he had a superlative career and is the all-time leader in hits. He's a player that deserves a plaque in Cooperstown, regardless of his future in the sport. So I'd be in support of suspending the Hall of Fame rule that no banned player is eligible on the grounds that it was not in place when Rose agreed to a lifetime ban. There's a huge difference between this and his being reinstated, which would be totally reprehensible in light of the facts available to us.

Posthumous induction would really be fine. But in the interests of being a bit more diplomatic and perhaps just, I would advocate putting the issue in the hands of the BBWAA and seeing what happens. If Rose is indeed inducted (as one would certainly suspect), a plaque honoring him gets hung on the wall. And that's it. No ceremony, nothing. And most importantly, the ban from any kind of participation in baseball activities remains unchanged.

Beyond that (commenting more on the article than the issue now), comparing Rose with guys like Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth (who are accused of being "vicious" and "gluttonous" respectively in the column) is ridiculous. There's a pretty big difference between the explicit breaking of rules that uphold the integrity of the entire enterprise and having some character flaws. (There's also a pretty clear difference between Rose and those two guys in terms of qualifications, but that's another matter.) Pete Rose really doesn't deserve to be in the Hall of Fame based on his actions, despite having had a great career. More than that though, he really doesn't ever deserve to be involved with the game whose integrity he worked to destroy.
posted by VZW Watcher at 1:12 AM -