Quote:
Originally Posted by Syd Thrift
Killing someone has a smaller detrimental effect on baseball than gambling on games while you are in a position to affect the outcome. And lest we pretend that this is no big deal because he only ever bet on his team to win, we also know that he did not bet on every single game that his team played and as such was heavily incentivized to cook the books by setting his team up to win those games he bet on in particular, even if (perhaps especially if, because doing so would increase the odds) he had to lose other games to get those results.
|
Two things:
- Honest question: How do we know that Pete Rose bet on his team only to win? How do we know he never once bet on his team to lose? If we're taking only his word for it, we all know how worthless that is. If it's because that's the only evidence Baseball has managed to uncover, all that means is that there's an absence of evidence that he bet on his team to lose, which is a different concept than "he bet only on his team to win". Is there any concrete evidence that 100% of the bets he placed on his own team was for the team to win? I honestly don't know and would like to learn.
- Even if he bet only on his team to win, and only in the selected games on which he did bet, that in itself is problematic, because the very act of his not betting on the other games is a tell to the bookies he's acquainted with that he doesn't believe the Reds have as much of a chance, which affects the betting, and furthermore, that could have been an actual arrangement he had with bookies that he could get a kickback on. That is an actual thing. Maybe that does not affect the competitive integrity of this particular game on this particular day, but it does sully the general integrity of the game for it to be used by players and managers inside to communicate to gamblers outside on their chances for making a bet, even if explicitly by the action of not making a bet.
Quote:
Originally Posted by canadiancreed
The only reason why anyone wants an exception for Pete Rose (and to a lesser extent, SHoeless Joe), is because he put up decent numbers and is either well known and/or still alive to give a **** about.
|
I think this is correct, but I also think there's more. I think there's a cultural thing going on, too.
Pete was a throwback player, the original "Charlie Hustle", something which greatly appeals to the kind of fan who believes there is simply no such thing as hustle in today's game. Pete was also a player of relatively slight gifts, a little guy who made the most of his talent and drive to fashion one of the better careers in baseball history. Top it off with his story as a hardscrabble kid from a modest lower middle-class background who ended up starring for his hometown team. Add all that up, and Pete comes across as a biblical David, the pure-of-heart champion of the everyday common folk who went up against the Goliaths of his day and beat them with hard work and guile, something almost everyone can identify with, instead of bludgeoning them to death with brute strength, which hardly anyone can identify with.
As a thought exercise, imagine Barry Bonds as a player who never took steroids but gambled on his team to win instead. His career still features well over 600 homers, with his 500+ steals, probably comfortably over 3,000 hits (because of the fewer walks), still one of the transcendent players of the game. But he still would have grown up the otherworldly-gifted pampered son of an All-Star major leaguer, with all the physical and training advantages that he enjoyed along the way, and still portrayed by the media as a complete unrepentant jerk with the vibrating luxury lounge chair that the other players were warned to keep their grubby asses out of.
Imagine
that Barry Bonds getting a lifetime ban for gambling on his team to win. How many people would be angry about his banishment and stumping for his reinstatement at every opportunity? Precious few, I would bet. YMMV.