Say it ain’t so, Rob
The baseball commissioner has cleared the way for Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson to be enshrined in the Hall of Fame, and why I am unhappy about it.
"As Jackson departed from the Grand Jury room, a small boy clutched at his sleeve and
tagged along after him.
"'Say it ain't so, Joe,' he pleaded. 'Say it ain't so.'"
—Chicago Herald and Examiner, September 30, 1920
During what I call My Failure to Launch Years, I worked for a month cleaning hotel rooms at the Grand Canyon National Park.
I was homesick, hated the job, and forfeited a $100 deposit for not staying a 90-day minimum. But I came home with more than $100 in my pocket, memories of one the most scenic spots on Earth, and a good story about smoking dope with a future Congressional candidate.
This was in 1977. I had visited once with my family in 1969, and while the Canyon is known for its timeless beauty, there had been one noticeable change during that interval. The powers that be put up guard rails along popular viewing spots.
The National Park Service decided that letting the public right to the very edge was a bad idea. So the NPS keeps you a couple of feet back. Or tries to.
Plenty of people hop over the guard rails.
And two or three fall to their deaths every year.
Staying away from the edge
For the past 100 years or so, MLB has operated with a similar good idea — a guard rail, if you will — keeping players from getting to the very edge when it comes to gambling on baseball.
That’s why players, managers, club personnel, and umpires can’t bet on baseball and are not supposed to associate with gamblers or share inside information about the team.
It is Rule 21, and it is posted in every clubhouse. It enforces this ban and outlines severe penalties, including permanent ineligibility for violations
That is why Shoeless Joe Jackson and Pete Rose were on the permanent ineligible list and why, from 1991 on, they were barred from the Hall of Fame.
There is no evidence that Pete Rose, then manager of the Reds, bet against his team in the 1980s. But he broke Rule 21.
It is still in doubt whether Joe Jackson did anything but play his best in 1919 World Series, an eight-game affair in which he hit .375 with three doubles, a homer, and six runs batted in. But he signed a confession that he took $5,000 from gamblers to assure the White Sox didn’t win the Series. He knew his teammates were conspiring to fix the outcome.
Baseball doesn’t want to say it’s all OK up until we can prove that you bet against your team or until we can prove you intentionally tried to lose.
Now, Commissioner Rob Manfred has decided that if you are dead, you are no real threat to gamble or give away information. Which is true.
So he says there’s no point in keeping Rose, Jackson, or 15 others on that list. Which is debatable. I mean, if it is a permanent ban, shouldn’t it be... well, permanent?
The upshot is: If the Hall wants them, Shoeless Joe Jackson and Pete Rose will be inducted.
What happens next
Will the baseball writers let them in? Well, contrary to what some commentators have spewed forth, the BBWAA won’t have a darned thing to do with it. The writers only vote for players who have retired within the past 15 years.
One of the Hall’s special committees will decide in the next couple of years.
My guess is that at least 12 of the 16 committee members needed for induction will want Rose and Jackson.
Rose holds the record for the most hits in a career (4,256). Jackson hit .356 over 13 seasons in the American League.
Baseball’s cozy relationship with gambling
MLB is up to its elbows in legalized gambling. Baseball was an early investor in DraftKings, the daily fantasy sports company, and MLB has formed strategic partnerships with major betting companies like DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, and others.
Baseball’s partnership with DraftKings alone has been estimated to bring in more than $1 billion annually.
There are numerous advertisements for sports betting services on baseball broadcasts, and we often see lines for various bets pop up during games.
Even before the widespread legalization of sports gambling, casinos have been major sponsors of individual teams for more than 20 years.
Media scolds — put me in that category — don’t like it. We are worried that the guard rails are getting a little too close to the edge of the canyon.
In the interest of fairness, I must point out that in baseball’s best-remembered gambling scandals, the 1919 World Series, Rose’s betting that led to his suspension, and the embezzlement/gambling committed by Shohei Ohtani’s translator, Ippei Mizuhara, occurred in jurisdictions where sports betting was illegal.
Confessions of a Pete Rose fan
Back in his playing days, Pete Rose was a hard-nosed player who gave it his all, and that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.
In the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, cool was the vibe. And Rose was not cool.
He had been given the nickname “Charlie Hustle” by Yankees star Whitey Ford when Ford and Mickey Mantle were making fun of Rose for trying too hard in a spring training game.
Rose embraced it. He ran to first base on walks. He slid headfirst.
Now everyone slides headfirst.
Make no mistake, Rose didn’t popularize the headfirst slide. He resurrected it.
No one was doing it in 1964. It was a leftover, a vestige from the age of Enos Slaughter and Pepper Martin of the Gashouse Gang Cardinals.
The headfirst slide exemplified what Rose was about.
Obviously, you can’t have the success Rose had without some ability. But by major league standards, Rose wasn’t gifted. He was going to squeeze every drop of out of his limited ability.
As a Pete Rose fan, I spent a lot of time defending him. But I did. And I still do. I defended him over his collision with Ray Fosse in the 1970 All-Star Game and Rose’s complaints about Gene Garber pitching around him to end Rose’s 44-game hitting streak.
But the gambling? It was and is a bridge too far.
I felt almost personally betrayed.
One final point about Rose: He could have gotten off the ineligible list by admitting his mistake and apologizing for it. But he wouldn’t. Or couldn’t.
Confessions of a Joe Jackson fan
Ray Schalk, the catcher for the White Sox in 1919, died in August 1970. Schalk was not involved in the conspiracy to throw the World Series and was still angry about it until the day he died.
The Sporting News ran a long obituary on him. My curiosity was piqued. I gathered $1.50 or so from the piñata where I kept my life savings, went to Lucky’s Supermarket, and bought a paperback version of “Eight Men Out.”
The book was written in 1963 by Eliot Asinof, a former Phillies farmhand, and was originally conceived of as a based-on-a-true-story “teleplay.” When the TV project fell through, Asinof turned his research into a non-fiction book that included fiction. He made up much of the dialogue.
I was 13 and this was the first book I read that was aimed at an adult audience, and I loved it. Asinof sprinkled in excerpts and quotes from Damon Runyon, Ring Lardner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Nelson Algren. This served as my introduction to some fine writers.
“Eight Men Out” is a fascinating tale of miscommunication, mistrust, and betrayal. None of the gamblers or the players involved seemed to know what the others were doing. The powers that be in baseball were suspicious at the time, but they mostly looked the other way. The scandal didn’t break until a year later.
Asinof makes the case that the White Sox players were woefully underpaid when compared with their peers.
At the center of the tale is the tragic figure of Shoeless Joe Jackson, a gifted hitter and right fielder, the second-best position player in the American League of his era, behind only Ty Cobb.
Like many before and after who read the book or saw the 1989 movie, I fell hard for Joe Jackson, this great talent whose accomplishments are shrouded in the past, his career cut short by a misjudgment.
I talked to my father about this. He had been born in the Chicago area a decade after the 1919 Series, and I wanted to pick his brain for how the events were perceived. He wanted to know why I was so sympathetic to Jackson and the other players.
I explained the players were underpaid and were practically driven to it.
My father was generally favorable toward labor and was a member of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees.
“You know, if I don’t think Maricopa County is paying me enough as a social worker,” he said gently, “that doesn’t give me the right to embezzle from the county or to mistreat clients.”
Why am I against Rose and Jackson getting into the Hall?
I am not for enshrining Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens in Cooperstown, either. But their sins are much less. I believe they broke the rules with PEDs. But they broke the rules trying to win.
I would find their inductions more palatable than Jackson's or Rose's.
A Hall of Fame induction isn’t going to make any difference to Rose or Jackson. Depending on your belief system, they are either in a better place, a worse place, no place, or have been or will be recycled into another life form.
The Hall is for those of us alive and for future fans.
The Hall of Fame is not just about recording baseball’s past but about honoring excellent players.
Rose and Jackson are certainly excellent by statistical standards, but they should not be honored by the sport they dishonored.
Correction: An earlier version incorrectly stated that I smoked dope with a future Congressman. He lost in the general election.
I agree that gambling is worse than PEDs, but I think there’s a place in the HoF for Rose, Joe Jackson and the PED guys who admit use. The HoF is a museum and as such these players should at least be highlighted for their on field achievements along with a discussion about why they are not enshrined as they likely would have been without cheating or gambling. I think this distinction is fair to those who are enshrined rightfully and gives fans the full story of baseball without hiding from the dark side of things.