Rehabilitating Pete Rose is an Insult to Baseball and to America
When I scrolled through The Athletic’s featured posts for the last month, I was not expecting to read a headline that would make me mad. Gobsmacked? Sure—after the Luka Dončić trade, one expects the unexpected, you know? But not physically angry. There is apparently a debate going on about whether Pete Rose should have his “permanently ineligible” status for Major League Baseball’s (MLB) Hall of Fame revoked. Pete Rose, the guy who bet on his own games, is supposed to be eligible for enshrinement beside actual greats?
This is an outrage of the highest order. There is a little something called rationality in the fundamental principles of law about consistency: adherence to precedent. I can hear the devil’s advocates already, “Oh, no, but Alex, sometimes the law has to change with the times!” I agree absolutely—when there is an amoral law being overturned, I say hell yes to clearing the names of people convicted under that unjust law. But letting this Black Sox-wannabe who has besmirched the game of baseball get such honourable distinction—even posthumously—is not justice. It would be an absolute travesty, and it speaks to the unfathomable levels of influence that sports betting companies have over our major sports leagues.
Sports betting has become an unbelievable, undeniable, unfathomable, and unavoidable part of the games we love. It has been this way ever since legislation on sports betting changed in 2021 in Ontario (2018 in the U.S.), and I do not think it is a hot take to say that no one has truly benefited except the gambling corporations. From digitally projected ads for whatever new gambling app is on the boards of every televised National Hockey League game to the betting odds displayed ahead of the game stats during National Basketball Association (NBA) broadcasts, the stench of sports gambling objectively detracts from the fan’s experience. And this is to say nothing of the impact on gambling addiction, especially among youth. In a time when we know that a majority of households are saving every dollar they can, our legislatures have decided that what would really benefit society is an explosion of sports gambling ads to normalize the activity? What a laugh.
Do not even get me started on the players’ experiences with disappointed bettors. The New York Times ran a story about how NBA players and their families are being accosted when people do not make their parlays. Dejounte Murray and Monte Morris put up solid stats every game, and now they are supposed to put up with this sort of chicanery? And it’s not even like I can say I don’t sympathize with fans, dopey as they might seem—the league officially endorses the app they are playing on! Given what we know about gambling addiction, can we really expect the little disclaimers to override the power of that level of legitimation? How about youth, who are disproportionately susceptible to advertising, watching those same broadcasts?
This brings me back to Pete Rose. This guy bet on games he was playing in! Games he managed! He agreed to the lifetime ban from the Hall in exchange for the MLB dropping their investigation. And now we are talking about letting him (potentially) into the Hall? What sort of message does that send? There was nothing moral about what Pete did—he scammed the fans out of a legit game, he scammed his teammates, players, and management out of a legit effort, and he scammed his opponents out of a legit competition. But you do not need to agree with me that those are actionable offences, because fraud is an actionable offence, and betting
on yourself to perform at less than your best is fraud. Just ask Jontay Porter, who was banned from the NBA for betting on games and criminally convicted of wire fraud.
So here we are, a year after Rose died, and we are talking about whether or not a guy who profaned the game should be inducted into the Hall of Fame? What is the world coming to? Has America really fallen this far? I am serious, does this go further than just baseball? Think about it. Illegitimate foreign wars, presidents of questionable loyalty, and international dick-swinging are nothing new for the U.S. You know what is? Not caring about baseball.
The Roman Empire declined for centuries, but it was only once the chariot races lost popularity that it collapsed. And that is what the sports betting lobbyists have finally done: they have broken America. Just like the American people have been broken politically, they have now been broken in a deeper way: athletically. It is happening for the same reasons, too.
Once again, the power brokers have sold out. Parliament, Congress, the various Commissioners’ Offices, and other places where money has always been the most important constituent. What reason could any of these institutions give for their normalization of sports betting in the face of so many statistics about its harmful impacts? Putting Pete Rose in the Hall of Fame? What a sham. The lobbyists have gone too far.
