Quote:
Originally Posted by CONN CHRIS
I don't much care if he did or didn't. I am not hoping to hire him as a financial adviser or ask him to be a character witness for me.
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Me, neither. But people whose opinion of Pete Rose's guilt or innocence turns on his verbal claim that he never bet on games he participated in should be reminded of his admission to lying about gambling on baseball games he was involved in.
But however people might want to parse what he said or didn't say, or what he claimed to do or not do, the fact is that Pete Rose broke Rule 21(d), which is the most important subsection of the most important rule in baseball: don't gamble on games you're involved in. If a player does and he is caught, he is declared permanently ineligible. (Note that this is not a "lifetime ban". It is permanent ineligibility, which survives the guilty party.)
Rule 21 is so important, so integral, to the game that subsection (g) of the Rule stipulates that the entire Rule must be posted in every clubhouse of every team in the game, so a player or manager can't feign ignorance of the rule as a defense.
Bottom line: Pete Rose is out of baseball for good.