Rose / Shoeless Joe Reinstated

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: Well, serious-ness is a matter of judgment ....

Yes. That's why I qualified my post by writing "as I see it". My bet is that the voters cave in to President Hitler. If he can cow a news organization as established and as influential as CBS News to fork over $20M to "settle" a lawsuit so meritless and frivolous that is should've gotten laughed out of court; if he can do the same to some of the most powerful law firms in this country, and by extension, the whole wide world; if he can get Jeff Bezos to kill a Kamala endorsement and to kill a feature that would link price increases on Amazon.com to the madman's insane and corrupt tariffs, then getting Rose inducted is like a fart in the wind. Johnny Bench or Mike Schmidt or whoever is gonna be on that voting committee are like wet twigs compared to Amazon and CBS News and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind.

[Edgy MD]

I am betting the same way.



I amn't sure that the committee will cave to the president directly, but certainly the shift in the cultural winds that the president both represents and fans.



There is, of course, a nuanced racial subtext to it all, and Rose was a childhood hero to a ton of white people of a certain age.

[metirish]

Yeah I would think many of the voting class are Republicans anyway

[Frayed Knot]

I've lost track (not sure I ever knew) of exactly who is on these veterans committees these days (even though they're not called Veterans Committees anymore).

The thing about them is that they're much smaller than the BBWAA roster of hundreds so a like-minded bloc* has a much better chance of swinging the vote their

way. But that fact cuts both ways so it could work either for or against Rose and there is, or at least was, a lot of ex-player sentiment against his HoF inclusion.









* Longtime teammate Yogi, longtime broadcast partner Bill White, and NYC SS contemporary Pee Wee Reese were installed temporarily -- Reese may have already

been on the committee already but Yogi and White I believe were 'One and Done' -- and seemingly (more like blatantly) for the sole purpose of voting Phil Rizzuto

into the HoF. And it obviously worked. Yogi's post-vote phone call to Phil was, "We got you in!"

Yes, Yogi, you and your/his buddies certainly did.

[Edgy MD]

If you are a Hall-of-Famer on the Will Rose Be Inducted? committee — let us say you are Jim Palmer, a relative contemporary, but one who came into the league later and retired earlier than Rose. As a Hall-of-Famer, you've always had a high profile, but certainly not as high as Rose's.



You knew the rule, and you know everybody knew the rule, and in your heart, you are disgusted with the way Rose thought he was above that rule and he denied it long after everybody pretty much knew he was guilty. He hurt the game and it is your game.



But now, you are 79 years old, and while you never got big bucks in the game, you got enough for a comfortable retirement in Arizona, and get a pretty nice supplemental income from autograph shows and golf outings. But the fans turning over the money for such things are old and white. Hustlin' Pete has always been an ideal for them. Also, they have a flaky and dubious sense of justice. When the subject of Rose comes up, they all want to talk about that one time in Pittsburgh where he did something gritty and me and my brother could not BELIEVE it. If Barry Bonds comes up, the word "punk" and "phony" quickly follow, but if Rose comes up, the words are "hustle" and "grit" and "Ray Fosse."



If there was a way some of these folks could absolve Roger Clemens and Mark McGwire without also absolving Bonds, they probably would, but them's the breaks, guys.



Apart from being a white ideal who played for dudes who are now old, vs. a black scapegoat who played for dudes who are now middle-aged, Rose also has the advantage of being dead, and grace for the dead is a lot cheaper than for the living, as Rob Manfred has demonstrated.



So, you are Jim Palmer. If one of your grandkids pins you down, yeah, you know those old folks who want to shake your hands are pretty hypocritical and a little more obviously racist than you are comfortable with, but you also know these guys pay for your mortgage. You sit at the $40 table at the autograph shows, and you kind of feel sorry for Bobby Grich who sits at the $20 table. Grich was a heckuva player but he doesn't have the Hall-of-Fame pedigree to go along with the good citizenship merit badge.



You really don't even like to make eye contact with Glenn Hubbard and Johnny Ray at the $10 table.



So, say it is a ten-man committee voting on Rose, and you know he has six votes. Do you really have the guts to be the vote that keeps Rose out of the Hall? I would like to think I would, but if I am Jim Palmer, living the good life, with the Hall of Fame pin on my lapel and the good citizenship merit badge — beloved beyond Baltimore and not really wanting to fly out to Maryland (where I can do no wrong) more than once a year if I don't have to, I may not want to make waves and have all the money-spending old coots mad at me. Baseball reinstated the guy, and I can reason with every bit of my self-interest hidden behind my back that this means it isn't on me to consider his sins at all.

[Centerfield]

If Rose never gambled on baseball, he would've been a first ballot inductee. The "rape" or "pedophilia" would've then occurred while Rose was already in the Hall. Then what? Then nothing. The crime was discovered after the induction. It sucks that there's a rapist in the HOF, but you can't really undo something that was already been done. That's a completely different story than honoring a guy after you're aware of the crime. Kevin Spacey has an Academy Award. You can't take away the award, even though we found out later he's a pedophile. But you don't learn that he preyed on minor boys, then advocate that he should be further honored. And I don't understand "rape" and "pedophilia" being in quotes. Having sex with 14 year old girls is rape. In fact, statutory rape. And if your only defense is "I thought she was 16", then that's about as clear cut as it gets. You think Rose will get inducted? The voters have still kept Bonds and Clemens out of the Hall. And, as I see it, both Bonds and Clemens had better careers than Rose. And their "transgressions" were not as serious as Rose's.

I don't think Rose will get inducted. But with the crazy state of the world, I have no idea what will happen anymore.



My issue is not whether or not he gets inducted. It's fucking batshit crazy that there's even a discussion. Pete Rose was a married man in his 30's who preyed on teenage girls. His best defense. The scenario where he looks the best as he possibly can, is one where he legitimately thought the girls were 16 and not 14. He's a fucking scumbag among scumbags.



The fact that anyone talks about his gambling as his crime is crazy to me. This fucked up world where claims of pedophilia fly left and right, and actual pedophiles get large groups of people advocating that they be exalted.

[Frayed Knot]

=Centerfield post_id=193176 time=1747696629 user_id=65]
The fact that anyone talks about his gambling as his crime is crazy to me.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: Well, serious-ness is a matter of judgment, but Rose will be facing a very different jury — with a different motivation, a different reading of the qualifications, and a different standard of serious-ness than Bonds et al.

The nature or seriousness of Rose's transgressions will be the whole ball of wax on whether or not he's eventually inducted. There's no question but that solely on the merits of his on the field accomplishments, he's obviously a Hall-of-Famer.