January 13, 2004

ROSE HAS HIS THORN: I

ROSE HAS HIS THORN: I feel bad that I wasn't able to blog during Pete Rose Week, at least before it gave way to Paul O'Neill Week. As I said before, I was able to watch TV and read newspapers and therefore caught much of the media coverage, but I'm yet to read any of the blogosphere's reactions, so if I'm repeating things people have already written, I apologize.
It's long been my position, as readers of this blog know, to have very little sympathy of Pete Rose, simply for the reasons that a) he bet on baseball, and b) he continuously lied about it for more than a decade. Rose has had much support from fans in the 14 years since his banishment, mostly people who either thought c) Rose was innocent of the charges, or d) he may be guilty, but so what, because what's so bad about gambling?.
Now that Rose has admitted that both "a" and "b" are true, much of his support, surprisingly, has evaporated. Part of the problem is that he comes off as such an unsympathetic character, both not completely apologetic and, according to most of the evidence, not completely truthful. It also hasn't helped that Rose has refused to apologize personally to Fay Vincent, John Dowd, and others whose integrity he has spent more than a decade questioning. Not to mention Roger Kahn, the respected baseball writer who co-wrote his previous, Milli Vannilli-like autobiography. And most of all Jim Gray, the then-NBC reporter who questioned Rose's innocence before the announcement of the All-Century Team in 1999, for which he was slammed repeatedly and even had to deliver an on-air apology the following night.
There are other questions too- Rose now says he admitted to Commissioner Bud Selig in 2002 that he was in fact guilty. Why did Selig keep this to himself for the last 14 months? Just to allow Rose to write a book for which he's being paid $1 million? Baseball Prospectus reported last year that a deal had been reached already for Rose's reinstatement; Rose and Selig now both deny it, but there's plenty of precedent for dishonesty from both men.
I maintain my position that Rose should eventually be allowed in the Hall of Fame, but not under any circumstances should he be allowed to manage again. But the argument has always been that Rose should be back in baseball because "the fans want it." What if, now that Rose has so thoroughly embarrassed himself, they don't want it?

Posted by Stephen Silver at January 13, 2004 02:54 PM
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