[uruguru]

If Pete Rose consistently didn't bet on Mario Soto's games, that tells me that Soto was having a bad year and, despite being a compulsive gambler, Rose wasn't stupid.

I have zero confidence that if Pete had indeed bet on Soto's games that any of his critics would suddenly turn around and say, "oh, he bet indiscriminately so now I think it's ok".

It's really just thrown out as a bad-faith canard to suggest that Rose was tipping off to other people which doesn't make any sense. If he was going to do that, he wouldn't do that with the same mediocre pitcher every time because then that pattern would be indistinguishable from Pete just not wanting to make a bad bet. Which is almost certainly what it was.

Rose didn't throw games like the Black Sox, or Ty Cobb or Tris Speaker. Rose didn't cheat like the multitude of players who secretly took steroids (Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, etc) and basically took a massive dump on the game's statistical record. Or like the 2017 Astros. He bet on his team to win, which is unsurprising given his competitiveness.

It's not right, but it's not surprising. And it's certainly worthy of a suspension.

But the animosity towards Rose was baked in because, for about 10 years, what he did was the worst sin in baseball. So when all of the far greater sins started occurring, people were just too emotionally invested in the "Rose is terrible" mantra to step back and recalibrate their opinion in the context of what happened in the 90s which was far, far worse. There are people who honestly believe that Rose betting to win is worse than the rampant cheating that happened in the 90s. It boggles the mind