Pete Rose to Idiots: Get Off My Side, You're Not Helping

Earlier today, Craig kicked at some embers and turned it into a brushfire over at Circling the Bases, arguing that Pete Rose's 20 year exile from Major League Baseball and the Hall of Fame is not enough for an unapologetic serial liar who has worked tirelessly to promote himself and undermine the game he supposedly loves since at least 1989. As you can probably tell, The Common Man tends to agree with Craig on this issue. Over on CTB, The Common Man was not in the majority, however, as dozens of angry idiots with poor sentence structure and historical recall threatened to kill the Internetz with their innanity. Beneath their bile and foolishness, The Common Man left the following extended comment, and reprints it here under the general heading of "how not to argue in favor of Pete Rose's reinstatement":

I wish I had time to write a response to all you idiots, but alas there is not time and most of you can't read at a high enough level for it to make any difference. Let's clear up a few things:

1) If you are tempted to play the "even rapists and murderers get out of jail card," remember that Rose was never put in jail for gambling on baseball (though he was for tax fraud). Going to jail is vastly different from not being allowed to work somewhere. Major League Baseball has never restricted his freedom to make a living anywhere outside of the context of Major League Baseball, which he agreed to in 1989. But just as someone who sells corporate secrets to a rival may get out of jail one day, it's highly unlikely that his original company will want to hire him back. Same situation here.

2) Baseball has had a rule against betting on baseball since 1920. Since 1920, the consequences of breaking that rule have been drilled into its players, coaches, managers, owners, trainers, groundskeepers, batboys, and beer vendors. Rose knew what he was doing and what the consequences of getting caught would be. He made his bed, and has constantly whined about how uncomfortable it is.

3) Rose's stunning lack of honesty and remorse undermine his case significantly. He seems to be a habitual liar, such that nothing he says today, about the nature of his bets or his conversations with Bart Giammatti, cannot be taken at face value.

4) As Craig has noted, his exclusion from the Hall of Fame is the Hall of Fame's decision, not Major League Baseball's. Baseball has no leverage over the HOF. While you might think that Bud Selig, Fay Vincent, and the MLB have had some kind of stick they can hold over the HOF's head, there's no evidence of it. Baseball is at least as beholden to the Hall of Fame (since the MLB isn't going to start a new museum now for itself to funnel players and memorabilia away from Cooperstown).

5) Please get your historical facts straight. Ken Cochran, no one has ever accused Stan Musial of deliberately spiking Jackie Robinson. Quite the opposite; players have raved about Stan's class and kindness to everyone, including his African-American and Latino teammates. VGREISS, Darryl Strawberry is not in the Hall of Fame. And Michael Seibert, Pete Rose quit managing in 1989. Robbie Alomar starting playing in 1988, and the "Spitting Incident" didn't happen until he was playing with the Orioles in 1996. There is no way your version of events is remotely possible.

6) Can we please separate the debate about steroids and the Hall of Fame from the issue of Pete Rose/gamblers and the Hall of Fame? They are two completely different situations, completely different arguments. As far as we know, Rose was acting alone in the game, taking actions that may have compromised the integrity of the game on the field. Steroid users (while morally and ethically wrong) were part of a culture of cheating in which they were universally trying to perform better. We have no such assurance with Rose, aside from his word, which as I've already pointed out, is crap. Have a nice day.

As you can tell, I have nothing but disdain for Pete Rose, and everything he has done since 1989 to stoke the fires of this debate. He is, by all accounts, a first-class jerk. His body of work as a player is astounding, and his achievements will not soon be forgotten, whether he gets into the Hall of Fame, is reinstated into the MLB, or not. But I do not think he has earned himself any leeway in the debate, nor has he tried to. Perhaps a few years out of the limelight and some good works will go a long way toward changing my mind. Pete needs to work on himself in order to change my mind.

Rose Rant

First of all, The Common Man begs your forgiveness for not posting in the last couple of days. When the weather broke on Saturday, The Common Man was able to get out of town with The Boy and return to the homeland. As a cold forced The Uncommon Wife to stay behind, and the grandparents are less inclined to ditch their walkers and chase a small child (though they really enjoy watching him run, and run, and run). So, The Common Man was on constant kid duty that wasn't alleviated at night or at naptime, as The Common Man was forced to keep close watch over The Boy so that he would stay in bed at night, and "encouraged" to go through his old room and clean out stuff during the day. Anyway, just know that his absence hurt The Common Man as much as it hurt you.

The Common Man was all set to start fresh in the morning, but since it's morning now, he might as well get a jump on things, since he's back home and all now. And look, here's a comment waiting for him from friend of the blog, BikeMonkey, who wonders what The Common Man thinks of Pete Rose being critical of A-Rod. For those who are unfamiliar, every time there is a sordid story in baseball, some reporter digs up Pete Rose's phone number, gets him to crawl out from under his rock and asks the disgraced hit-king who gambled on baseball even though the only unforgivable rule in baseball is that you don't bet on baseball what he has to say. Rose, in responding to A-Rod's press conference, told MLB.com that he doesn't believe A-Rod's explanation that he felt pressured and that he didn't know what substances he was taking. Also, MLB's Ed Eagle reports, "he's upset by what he perceives as a double-standard between himself and those who have used performance-enhancing drugs."

First, here's The Common Man's reaction to anything Pete Rose says: The Common Man does not care. Not in the least. Not one iota. The Common Man acknowledges that Pete Rose was a great player who always gave everything he had to the game he was playing. But by all accounts, Rose is a scumbag who lied for decades about gambling on baseball, and only 'fessed up when he thought a) baseball might let him back in and b) he could make a few million from a book deal.

Anything Rose has said in the past or will say in the future serves only to glorify Pete Rose. For instance, when he disputes A-Rod's claim that he felt enormous pressue to justify the $252 million contract he signed with the Rangers, Rose points out, "When I became a Philadelphia Phillie for the '79 season, I signed a contract that made me the highest paid player in any team sport. I didn't go to Philly with the pressure to hit .360 or .370. The only pressure you have is an obligation to the fans to play hard and bust your chops." First, there is no available salary data from Baseballreference.com to support Rose's claim that he was the highest paid athlete in any sport, but The Common Man will assume that this one fact from a serial liar is true. The rest of the statement simply serves to remind the people of how wonderful Rose believes he is, how he gave his all and bustedhis chops, and positions Rose as the central representative of a time when baseball was better, purer, than it is now. What Rose doesn't mention, of course, is baseball's growing drug problem and the rampant use of amphetamines. Also, he doesn't mention the different media climate today and the vast difference between the few hundred-thousand he probably made and the $25.2 million A-Rod made. Indeed, it's Rose's selective memory and constant self-promotion that make him so unreliable, and so uninteresting, to The Common Man. Because he's so transparent and shameless, The Common Man always knows exactly what card The Hit King is going to play.

For instance, this double standard he talks about. Rose argues, "I got caught, and I made a terrible mistake. Guys that are caught [using performance enhancing drugs], nothing happens to them [In terms of punishment by the game unless they did so after 2003]." But here's the big difference, the first rule every player learns about, the rule that is posted in every major league clubhouse, and the rule that has always carried with it baseball's version of the death penalty is the rule that Rose knowlingly, shamelessly, and repeatedly broke. Meanwhile, prior to 2003, there were no consequences for testing positive for steroids, and no testing procedures to catch them. Steroids were tacitly approved by baseball, and were considered a minor offense, whereas gambling on the game has been the worst crime a player could commit since 1919. But Rose knows it's in his best interest to conflate his offenses with those of Bonds, A-Rod, Clemens, Palmeiro, and McGwire, because if they can be forgiven then he can too (which is why he argues they should be elected to the Hall of Fame as well).

Rose isn't necessarily a broken record. But he's that band that keeps putting out one song after another that sounds almost alike. He's Nickelback or Daughtry. And rather than listen to another crappy rock song, The Common Man mentally changes the channel when Rose starts talking. The A-Rod scandal is seedy enough without Rose and his Dorothy Hamill hair crawling out from his rock to piss in baseball's Cheerios further. That's what The Common Man thinks.