Pete Rose Is, So To Speak, Back at Bat

Somewhere on the baseball diamond in the sky Shoeless Joe Jackson and Pete Rose have been given another turn at bat, courtesy of the commissioner of Major League Baseball, Rob Manfred — and President Trump. On Tuesday the commissioner announced that he removed Rose, Jackson, and 15 other deceased players from the “permanently ineligible list.” That means they are eligible to be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown.Admission to the Hall, though, hangs not on Mr. Manfred’s say-so but on baseball’s scribes, some of whom could reckon that the sins of Rose and Jackson cannot be so easily forgiven. Plus, too, Mr. Manfred last month disclosed that he met with Mr. Trump, and “one of the topics was Pete Rose.” The 47th president vowed in March to sign a “complete pardon of Pete Rose, who shouldn’t have been gambling on baseball, but only bet on his team winning.”Rose, who died in September at 83 and was lauded as “Charlie Hustle” for his aggressive play, is baseball’s all-time leader in career hits, games played, and plate appearances. No man has ever been on base more. He was chosen as an All-Star 17 times in his 23 big league seasons. In 1989, though, the star was rendered ineligible from baseball amid accusations that he bet on the national game — including wagering on his own team to win.Rose denied the allegations for years, but in 1997 told ABC News, “I bet on baseball in 1987 and 1988.” In his 2004 book, “My Prison Without Bars,” Rose confessed to betting on his own team. In 2007, he told ESPN, “I bet on my team every night. I didn’t bet on my team four nights a week. I bet on my team to win every night because I loved my team, I believed in my team.” In a separate matter Rose pleaded guilty to criminal tax evasion. Jackson, a son of a sharecropper who broke into big league ball in 1908, was one of the sweetest left-handed swingers who ever gripped a bat. His rookie average of .408 has never been bettered by a first-year player, though Ty Cobb’s .418 mark that year made Jackson a runner-up in the batting race. His White Sox won the World Series in 1917 and returned in 1919 as heavy favorites against the Cincinnati Reds. That’s when scandal struck.The Reds won in five games, and Jackson and seven other White Sox — known as the “Black Sox” forever after — were accused of pocketing something like $91,000 each in today’s money to throw the series from Arnold “The Brain” Rothstein, a prominent gangster. A jury brought in indictments after which a Chicago newspaperman, Charley Owens, wrote a tribute titled, “Say it ain’t so, Joe.”The Black Sox were acquitted at trial, a verdict that could have something to do with Jackson’s sterling play in the Series — his 12 base hits set a mark that was not equalled until 1964, and he hit at a healthy .375 clip. His guilt has been the subject of debate worthy of the Talmud, but Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis — himself a former federal judge — ruled that “no player that throws a ballgame … will ever play professional baseball.”The pardon for Rose and Jackson comes as baseball — and sports — are awash in gambling, which, while still taboo among players for their own sports, is now embraced by fans. Alex Rodriguez and Barry Bonds have been blocked from the Hall despite their resumes because of their use of performance-enhancing drugs. When it comes to Rose and Jackson, Mr. Manfred appears to have borrowed Pope Francis’s line — “Who am I to judge?”

Pete Rose Is, So To Speak, Back at Bat

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