Ah interesting. Do you know how many games Rose bet on?
How do you feel about steroid fiends like Bonds and McGwire being let into the Hall?
I’ve read a lot about the Rose case over the years and all accounts are that MLB and the feds had all kinds of info about his bets (hence the tax fraud convictions).
I think betting and cheating are very, very different things. Baseball has a long history of guys looking for an edge on the field - spitballs, trying to disguise a balk pickoff move, greenies in every clubhouse in the 60s & 70s, PEDs, corked bats, pitchers using Emory boards, thumbtacks, “sticky stuff” and using tech to steal signs plus stuff I’m probably not even thinking about. I’m not going to defend it, but baseball has never been consistent about those things. There are PED users already in the HOF because they were popular, but others that weren’t as liked are still on the outside looking in. So….personally, I’d probably put them in given the overall level of indifference given to cheating over the years. Either way, I’d prefer consistency, not we loved David Ortiz so he’s in, but Barry Bonds was a dick and he’s out.
The betting rules were set after the 1919 White Sox threw the World Series after being paid off by bookies. In the 1800s and early 1900s, the sport was rife with gambling scandals and there were definitely a lot of the public that was starting to have doubts about the overall competitive integrity of the game. Commissioner Landis (a man with an entire world of his own issues in and out of baseball) laid down the law - bet on the game and you’re done forever. He banned all the “Black Sox”, he banned others. Over the years, some others had been caught and banned in the years after. The rule was known, publicized, posted on every clubhouse in baseball for decades. Pete knew the rule and he knew the punishment and he still took the action.
Pete might have actually been able to soften MLB’s stance in the early 1990s if he had come clean, talked about his issues and had been contrite. Instead he liked for years and years and years.