Forensic Narcissism
Posted: August 27th, 2009 | Filed under: Baseball, Media, New Words | 83 Comments »
Arrived in Omaha. Heading to the ballgame now. More posts later. First, a quick new phrase.
In the mounds and mounds of mostly thoughtful responses I got to the Pete Rose piece I wrote for Sports Illustrated yesterday about three or four really stood out. The theme to these responses — and believe me when I tell you that I am not in any way reducing, amplifying or oversimplifying the argument — is this:
Betting on your team to win when you’re the manager of a baseball team is WORSE than conspiring with gamblers and throwing a World Series.
That’s all. That’s the whole argument. No caveats. No explainers. No nothing. This argument is not built around the idea that the 1919 Black Sox were acquitted in a court of law. It’s not built around the argument you sometimes hear that certain players — Joe Jackson, as the prime example — may have taken the gamblers’ money but double-crossed the gamblers. The argument is not built around the not-implausible-theory that Rose is still lying and actually did bet against his team or did not bet on his team to win every single day* (as he claims) but only on certain days when he expected a sure victory.
*I really don’t want to downplay the argument why a manager betting on his team to win is bad because it IS BAD, it’s horrible, it’s totally against the rules and the spirit of the game and it deserves a ruthless punishment. I’m going to say it again. IT IS BAD. IT IS CROOKEDNESS AND DESERVES HARSH PUNISHMENTS LIKE BANISHMENT.
BUT … I keep hearing from people who say that the REASON it’s bad is because then a manager will get shortsighted and do things to win that game that day like pitch a reliever when he’s hurt or not give a young player a chance to develop or blow out the arm of a young pitcher …
Yeah. Good thing managers don’t do those sorts of things now.
This argument people threw out there — yes, more than one — seems built on a basic comparison:
A. A player took money and purposely played poorly in an effort to lose a World Series.
B. A manager bet on his team to win baseball games.
The argument they make (and voraciously) is that B is worse. Not even equally bad. Worse.
I don’t bring this up to create a strawman — I imagine almost nobody really believes this. And the arguments against Pete Rose, the ones I’ve received, are almost unanimously much more compelling and challenging. No, I bring it up only to introduce a new phrase suggested by my friend Bill James. To quote Bill:
forensic narcissism, which means “attempting to use transparently false arguments upon the apparent assumption that one’s ability to persuade can prevent other people from perceiving that the arguments are obviously untrue.”
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Who is so overly persuasive and convincing that noone would question them? The Pope? Who does this apply to? It reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where the guy made obviously wrong bets to go on dates with women. I think the bet in the episode was that Woody Allen was in Star Wars?
Circle me, Pete
If Pete is actually telling the truth (and there is no reason to believe that he is having lied multiple times about this before), than throwing the World Series is probably worse. But than Pete would deserve all of our scorn for being a fool. If you’re going to risk the punishment of baseball at least make some profit out of your terrible decision. I’m not endorsing fixing games but if you’re going to decide to break the law, you might want to receive some actual benefit for doing it.
Also I think people defend the Black Sox because we all have been told many times by good books and movies that Comiskey was an awful owner who exploited his players. Pete Rose is just that annoying kid who ran out everything, kind of like Youklis. If he’s on your team you like him, if not he just comes off like an ass.
death panels!
I do not understand why Joe Jackson, Pete Rose or any great player is banned from the Hall of Fame. The only difference between these two and dozens of others enshrined is that they got caught. Ditto for the steroid users.
Major League Baseball creates thrilling drama and fierce competition but are any of us really drawn to the game based on the belief that its players, managers, coaches and owners are moral stalwarts without human shortcomings or serious flaws? Or are we drawn by the amazing sights of Ichiro gunning down baserunners, Mauer poking outside pitches off the left field baggie or Greinke mowing down accomplished hitters with that (sick, sick) slider?
Why can’t the best players on the field just be enshrined in Cooperstown with plaques that say something like: “Pete Rose was one of the greatest hitters ever to play the game… (blah, blah, blah). As a manager, he brought great shame to himself and the game by betting on the outcome of games he managed… (blah, blah, blah)” ? Then all father taking their kids to Cooperstown could say “Son, Pete Rose was a fire plug and a tough baseball player but a really bad, bad guy… and maybe the lesson here is that winning is very, very important… but in the bigger scheme of life, it is not actually the most important thing.” Why can’t we just do it that way and so include the greatest baseball players ever in the museum, with honest representations of their contributions and detractions from the game?
It’s a nice phrase, but I’m not sure it’s necessary, as this is precisely what the sophist philosophers in ancient Greece (5th c. BC) were accused of doing, leading to the term sophism (or sophistry).
But, Joe, isn’t the argument that people really have against Pete that, while he *says* he only bet on games to win, there is no way to know for sure and that, considering his long history of blatantly lying to the public, there is no good reason to believe him? And, if we can’t believe him, then don’t we have to wonder/suspect that he bet on his team to lose at times? That changes things, right?
What I don’t understand is how people are calling for Pete’s reinstatement after only 20 years while people have largely been ignoring the plight of Joe Jackson and Buck Weaver 90 years later. I understand that throwing a World Series game is worse than what Rose did, but I don’t think it’s 4.5x times worse. And I don’t believe in forgiving all the members of the Black Sox, not Chick Gandil (the supposed ringleader) and certainly not Lefty Williams (the 23-game winner who went 0-3 with a 6.61 ERA in the World Series), but certainly Shoeless Joe and Buck Weaver. We’ll never know what was going through the minds of those two during the World Series, but just looking at the stats it sure seems like they played their hearts out.
James, the bet you were talking about from Seinfeld was that Dustin Hoffman was in Star Wars. The guy made another bet that the M in Richard M. Nixon stood for “Mo”.
Joe, it is worse. And your accusation of arrogance or narcissism is so bizarre and over the top for this situation it makes me think the SI gig has already gone to your head.
The players are the grunts, the infantrymen, the worker bees. The field manager is part of, well, management. Management is held, and should be held, to a higher standard than the workers.
You are making the mistake thinking that this is an argument between the relative importance of World Series and regular season games. It is not.
The issue of gambling is not about any one game, but about the integrity of The Game itself.
If Comiskey had conspired with the players to throw the 1919 World Series, who would history hold more accountable? The ballplayers or the owner?
I don’t understand your tone in this post or on this issue. Have you never once considered that your relationship with the members of the 1975 Reds may have reduced your ability to think objectively about Pete Rose?
Joe, this is the worst post I’ve read here and hope it isn’t a sign of whats to come.
I have no dog in this fight, as I really don’t care about Pete Rose any longer. Let him in, don’t let him in — I won’t lose sleep either way.
But it’s ludicrous to propose that what Rose did was worse than throwing the World Series, for the simple reason that the manager has only a fraction of the control over the course of a game as do the players.
And (he claims) he was betting on the Reds to win. Which means, to the extent he was affecting the outcome at all, he was doing so by having all his best players in the game as often as possible — which, as a managerial gambit, exerts FAR less influence over the course of a single game than keeping his best players OFF the field would have.
I’ve decided that the primary reason the Pete Rose remains banned from baseball to this day is because he provides so many people with the chance to be holier than thou pricks. I thought perhaps Barry Bonds might have helped fill the role of holier than thou prick enabler, thus allowing Pete to sneak into the Hall of Fame whilst everybody’s holier than thou wagging finger was wagging the other way. No such luck, as it turns out the ranks of holier than thou pricks are endless.
So – should Kid Gleason be banned?
I mean if we hold managers to a higher standard – then Kid Gleason should probably have known about his players throwing the Series or at least about their involvement with gamblers.
Should Dick Howser have been suspended for the drug scandal in 1983? Jerry Martin, Willie Aikens, Vida Blue and Willie Wilson were using – did he know? Should he have been punished?
I remember a piece that Bill James wrote about how Chuck Tanner must have known about Dave Parker because as he put it “it is anatomically impossible to place your head that far up your rectum.” Should Chuck Tanner have been suspended?
Just wondering how far this manager is more responsible thing goes.
I made some absurd comparisons to be sure… but just wondering.
Joe is right of course. The arguments people are making against Pete Rose are all basically nonsense. The reason people want to keep Rose banned is that people believe he is an a**-hole, whereas Joe Jackson has been drawn as a sympathetic figure who screwed up.
Rose’s punishment, while once completely justified, has become absurd at this point. Had he just shut his mouth, he would have been back within five years.
I don’t disagree with your basic premise here that fixing World Series games is worse. However, in your SI article, you write:
“Now, rotisserie baseball is most definitely gambling. The definition is playing games of chance for money. There’s really no way around it … fantasy baseball is gambling.”
Several courts have thus far ruled that fantasy/rotisserie sports leagues are a “game of skill,” not a “game of chance” and thus not illegal gambling. So I wonder if your claim that fantasy baseball is gambling might perhaps be an example of forensic narcissism?
Joe–I love your Pozterisk*…
I think everyone who reads your blog and is a Royals (or heck, baseball) fan would back you up when you use your Pozterisk* to argue that Trey Hillman should be banned for life from baseball…
I’m sure you’ve had arguments (maybe even some that have been persuasive) that managing as horribly as Hillman does on a daily basis is worse than a manager betting on his own team…
While I think that is a little strong, I’m all for banning him for life…
“*I really don’t want to downplay the argument why a manager betting on his team to win is bad because it IS BAD, it’s horrible, it’s totally against the rules and the spirit of the game and it deserves a ruthless punishment. I’m going to say it again. IT IS BAD. IT IS CROOKEDNESS AND DESERVES HARSH PUNISHMENTS LIKE BANISHMENT.
BUT … I keep hearing from people who say that the REASON it’s bad is because then a manager will get shortsighted and do things to win that game that day like pitch a reliever when he’s hurt or not give a young player a chance to develop or blow out the arm of a young pitcher …
Yeah. Good thing managers don’t do those sorts of things now.”
Brilliant point…
the question of what’s worse–a player who actively throws a series or a manager who bets on his team to win? the former. i mean, the latter is, on some level, showing serious (albeit brazenly unethical) team loyalty. were i the justice doler-outer, i could let that guy in.
but that would imply perfect information, which we’ll never have, which is why were i a betting man (like, say, pete rose), I would bet that pete rose bet on his team to lose. i wonder if he would even know objective truth anymore. adapting goebbels — tell yourself a big enough lie long enough and you’ll believe it’s true. in fact, i think that if pete rose were given a polygraph, the machine would whimper, and then melt into a T-2 type puddle. which is all to say that we’ll never know what really happened.
but if a manager bets on his own team to lose, regardless if he never lifted one single finger one single time to cause it to come about, he has no business being associated with that league ever again. and to me, the point is that he can’t prove he didn’t bet on his team to lose, and in a situation like this (previous lies by the truckload) you’re absolutely guilty until you prove yourself innocent, and you can’t prove you’re innocent, because you already lied about a lesser degree of guilt. so you’re screwed…or more accurately, you’ve screwed yourself.
go watch youtube–pete rose in 2007: “as far as I’m concerned, I made fosse famous.” joe, you’d know better than any of us, but he kinda seems like a giant a-hole. which probably shouldn’t, but does, add to the reason I’m not losing sleep over the ban.
am looking forward to the book, though, and it will be a nice christmas present for my dad…and that breaks about a 20-gift streak of golf shirts, so that’s saying something.
It seems to me that Pete denied betting on baseball. then hedenied betting on the Reds. Now he has said that he only bet on them to win. It may be true but it seems akin to an alcoholic on a binge turning down a gallon of gin because he only drinks vodka.
A junkie is a junkie is a junkie. Whether he buys his drug of choice himself or he sends his best friend to do it. Pete easily could have had someone he trusted to place his bets against the Reds.
The truth is you just don’t know and he shouldn’t be eligible before he passes on. You can bring up all the dumb arguments people make and ignore the good ones, but it does not prove you are right.
Few things are more enjoyable than starting an argument with someone, convincing them they are completely wrong… and then suddenly switching sides and arguing them back to their original viewpoint.
What gets me about Pete Rose is the big argument we heard throughout the nineties was “if he only admits it, he would be forgiven and then he could get elected to the hall”. So he admits it but not in an approved way. He does it in a book so no deal, sorry thanks for playing.
That being said the commish never said that if Pete admitted it so it makes complete sense that he’s not reinstated at all.
There both sides of the argument. I feel weird.
I wish people would stop prefacing everything by pointing out that Pete might be lying when he says he only bet on his team to win. We all know he might be lying. This is not about whether Pete Rose should be in the HoF. It’s about whether what the Black Sox are known to have done is worse than what Pete is known to have done. That Pete might have done more is a different question than the one Joe is presenting.
And the point is, OF COURSE players purposely trying to lose is worse than a manager betting on his team to win. It’s not a matter of opinion, and there is no other way to see it. If you feel the manager betting on his team to win is worse, you don’t have a different opinion, you are just incorrect.
Nobody is saying the manager betting on his team to win isn’t bad. Just that players losing on purpose is worse. The players might be 100 out of 100 on the bad scale, and the manager is maybe at 96. So they’re both really, really bad. But losing on purpose is worse.
To JohnA @ 10: It has nothing to do with it being the World Series vs. the regular season. It is, as you said, about the integrity of the game. And players losing on purpose calls that into question more than a manager betting on his team to win.
A manager betting on his team to win ultimately calls the integrity of the game into question at well. But not as much as losing on purpose.
I was gonna guess that “forensic narcissism” was investigating stuff about yourself. For example, how high your book is ranked on Amazon.com. ; )
How cool is it that you get to say the phrase “my friend Bill James.” Call me a stat geek, but I think that’s just awesome. I’m jealous.
I was pleased to see Texas win today, on top of Boston’s loss. I took the Rangers at $30 to win the WS, $15 to win the AL — current prices $20/$10.
The Phillies are wobbling a bit but my $6.50 and $3.25 WS/NL prices are still looking OK.
Or am I an evil bastard?
That “forensic narcissism”. Isn’t that a trial lawyer’s stock-in-trade?
Joe Jackson should not be in the Hall of Fame because his stats are not good enough. In order to make a case that Joe Jackson belongs in the Hall of Fame you have to give him credit for quite a few good years that he did not have. Sometimes this has been done for a player like Addie Joss who got tragically injured in mid-career.
Jackson did not get injured. his career was cut short by his own stupidity.
Why do people talk about Jackson as if he, like Rose, would be a shoo-in for the Hall without the scandal.
Joe Jackson does not belong in the Hall of Fame because his stats aren’t good enough.
Simple.
With Pete, I still am inclined to say let him in, just as I would like Bonds let in (but not McGwire since the margin with Mcgwire is too small PEDs may have actually made the difference with him. Bonds was a Hall of Famer before he ever took PEDs).
The problem with Pete is you have to take his word that he never bet against his team and taking Pete’s word on anything is hard. But, since it can’t be actually proven that he bet against his team I’d hold my nose and vote for him if I had a vote.
Re 26: Joe Jackson is tied for 8th on the all-time OPS+ list (170), just ahead of Ty Cobb (167). Since he missed out on the decline phase of his career, his rate stats are probably inflated, but his counting stats are deflated. And essentially missing out on playing in the live ball era didn’t help his stats when looked at thru modern eyes. But he was right there with Hornsby (175) and Cobb as the best hitters of the dead ball era (I guess Ruth started in that era if you want to count him as #1 and the others as 2-4).
I don’t see any rational argument that Jackson’s stats weren’t good enough considering his era. I’d still keep him out, but not for his numbers.
What do you call using one’s ability to persuade so that you sell more books? Journalistic narcissism?
Ok, that was a bit harsh.
Wait until he dies.
Put him in.
Put a note on his plaque that says: SERVED A LIFETIME BAN FOR BETTING ON BASEBALL
This way the hall is complete, but the slimeball doesn’t get the reward/day in the sun.
Here’s a key point that I think gets overlooked in this debate. On page 3 of the Dowd Report, he writes:
“The testimony and the documentary evidence gathered in the course of the investigation demonstrates that Pete Rose bet on baseball, and in particular, on games of the Cincinnati Reds baseball club, during the 1985, 1986 and 1987 seasons.”
Rose didn’t retire as a player until after the 1986 season, meaning that for two seasons, according to Dowd, he was both betting and playing, not to mention managing. He was a player/manager in ‘85 and ‘86. In fact, in 1985, Rose played 119 games and had 500 plate appearances. In 1986, he played in 72 games and had 272 games.
So Rose did more than bet on games that he managed. He also could have bet on games he played in — potentially, 191 of them.
Make that “In 1986, he played in 72 games and had 272 plate appearances.”
Joe: if Bill James really IS your friend, you probably shouldn’t mention him in columns related to Pete Rose.
I’ve never met Bill James- for all I know, he may be a wonderful guy. But all of his worst faults were on display when it came to Pete Rose. He has never been so arrogant, so stupid, so smug, or so dead WRONG as he was in his loud, obnoxious, perennial defense of Pete Rose.
If you’re really his friend, and he really is the great guy you think he is, you OWE it to him to tell him the truth: he made an ass of himself by defending Rose so stridently for so long, and he owes an equally loud, equally public apology to John Dowd and Fay Vincent.
I have long held the position that Rose broke the cardinal rule, and – significantly – accepted a lifetime ban from baseball; as a result, he should serve a lifetime ban from baseball, with the result being that he does not deserve enshrinement into the HOF.
At the same time, I have held the view that Joe Jackson deserves his fate. While holding both these views, I *also* believe that what Jackson did was, by a magnitude, worse. And while it may seem incongruous to think that they can both face such severe penalties despite their crimes (against baseball) being different, the fact is that we recognize that there are crimes that are of different severity that still merit maximum penalties. For instance, are Bernie Madoff’s crimes worse than Charles Manson’s? No. Yet most people are satisfied knowing that both will die in jail.
Forgive this indulgence, but the Shoeless Joe issue is one of my pet peeves, so let me address this to all his defenders:
Eight Men Out was a work of fiction, yet it provides most of the fodder for those who would defend Jackson. The facts are not kind to Jackson.
Jackson was not an unwitting dupe. It is important to read his grand jury testimony (btw, the criminal trial, and acquittal, are entirely irrelevant to the issue of whether or not Jackson knowingly participated in fixing WS games – to begin, the legal issues and burden of proof are different). Here it is:
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/articles/joejackson.shtml
He admits not only to taking the money, but negotiating for a bigger stake; most significantly, he admits to being sore about being shortchanged after the second thrown game, which would be quite curious for someone who was not actively playing his part in the fix.
But what about his .375 BA? Well, he hit .545 in the games that were not thrown and .286 in the games that were fixed; not to mention, it is easy to pad stats in the latter part of a game that is out of hand (and otherwise fixed). It has also been suggested that a suspicious number of triples were hit to his position in LF – where you would not otherwise expect a triple.
If people look honestly at the facts, uncoloured by novels and films, they could only rationally conclude that Jackson knew of, and participated in, fixing World Series games. One is hard pressed to think of a worse crime against baseball (with apologies to Joe P., I think it is worse than a momentary loss of reason that leads to throwing at someone’s head or the like).
But here’s the interesting thing about Shoeless Joe’s HoF candidacy. Remember that it was only after Rose accepted his lifetime ban that baseball instituted the rule that barred players on the banned list from consideration into the HoF. IOW, that rule did not prevent Joe Jackson from being inducted into the Hall of Fame. Jackson *had* been eligible for consideration when contemporary voters considered his candidacy. They likely concluded, rightly, that his sin against baseball was too egregious to merit enshrinement (this was, after all, before Eight Men Out was published).
So, to conclude, not only did Joe Jackson actually *do* what he was accused of doing, his HoF candidacy *has* been considered and rejected. Case closed.
For 75 years, baseball has really had only one rule: don’t bet on games. That’s it, and for those who can’t remember that, there is a sign conveniently posted in every clubhouse. Since the Black Sox Scandal, players have played drunk, played high, assaulted their teammates, fought with fans, and been arrested for any number of things, including decapitating a cat. And none of those players earned a lifetime ban. Why? Because none of those things are posted on that sign in the clubhouse. Only gambling is.
So who cares if he was “only” the manager, or “only” bet on the Reds to win? He broke the only bleeping rule baseball has. How hard is this for everyone to understand?
I can’t believe I’m the first person posting who has used the word “troll.” People who claim that betting on a team to win is worse than throwing a game is obviously trolls.
But ‘Other Matt’ you have to realize, Pete Rose ran out groundballs really hard, so obviously he deserves to be in the HoF. Sure he broke a rule that’s posted in plain view, in every clubhouse, but he was a grinder, and that is more important so he should be allowed in the HoF
Suppose Bobby Cox were suddenly found to have been wagering on his Braves to win games. Think about that for a second.
History says that whatever Cox did or did not do as a manager, he was perhaps groundbreaking in his protecting pitchers to tbe benefit of their careers and their value to the Braves. I doubt it’s a coincidence that three of the recent HOF argument qualified pitchers (Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz) all pitched under Cox, who made sure they stayed healthy.
So in looking at *how* he managed, I see nothing in Cox’s behavior that suggests that he altered his style, to the detriment of his players, just to win a couple of bets.
Rose, on the other hand, provides plentiful evidence that he managed to win bets instead of managing to protect his pitchers and get as much long term value out of them. That didn’t just hurt the Reds; it hurt the pitchers, and maybe (in the case of Mario Soto) it deprived us baseball fans of seeing a true HOF calibre career come to fruition.
So in that case, what Rose did was worse than what Jackson did. But to me, that’s because of what Rose did, not the mere idea of what Rose did. Rose *seems* to have injured pitchers while he had financial motivations to put short term goals ahead of long term team goals (like keeping the pitchers healthy). At $20,000/game, his potential income from betting probably exceeded his salary. And we’ll never really know, because every admission we got out of Rose was like pulling tusks from a bull elephant. For all we know, Rose only bet 50 games a year and (even if they were all for the Reds to win) those bets were part of why so many Reds pitchers got hurt.
Rose is an untrustworthy lying gambling addict. No amount of good deeds removes his bad deeds; they simply show that like most addicts, he was capable of good. He knew the penalties before he made his first bet, and then he denied betting in order to avoid punishment for his actions. The only sorrow he has ever shown is sorrow that he got caught. I’ll happily vote for him for the HOF (like I’ll ever have a vote) but not until the year after he has died. And yes, I’m gonna want to double check the corpse is really dead, just in case.
“Joe: if Bill James really IS your friend, you probably shouldn’t mention him in columns related to Pete Rose.”
I was getting ready to post something very like that. No one should listen to Bill James on the subject of Pete Rose, ever, unless and until he makes a public apology to John Dowd.
I completely ignored all of the other posts so if this is a redundant statement then I apologize. Also, I know that similar statements to mine have been posted earlier, so again, I apologize.
Pete Rose is a sleazeball, there it is. He took ages to admit that he was guilty of the charges baseball was almost 100 percent sure he had committed, needless to say he loses some credibility there. However, he did play the game with the same reckless abandon we all wish we could have played with and hope that our sons play with, gains some credibility back. However you want to to dissect it, I don’t see how a manager who is either, 1) betting on his team to win or 2) betting on his team to lose has more of or even the same effect on the game as consistently as a player taking performance enhancing drugs does. Ever. I understand that baseball managers have a direct influence on the results of the game, at times. Sparky Anderson’s decision to lose the batless guy at third in ‘75 and move Rose there in order to gain bats for the guys in left field didn’t have nearly as much to do as the resolve of Rose to be a decent third basemen or of Foster to make the most of his opportunities to become a successful contributor to the Big Red Machine. Simply, I do not believe a manager’s influence on the game is nearly as important or decisive on the actual players, not in baseball anyway.
This is not to say that I endorse Major League Baseball to give a free pass to Pete Rose after all these years and allow him to the Hall of Fame. But, I firmly believe there will be a time in the next 20 years when more than one player will be voted in who has taken the performance enhancing drugs we complain about so much.
If, and if I state, this does indeed happen, then the inductions are going to start with someone. A-Rod, Clemens, Player A we don’t know about, who may be in already. I think it would be a farce for one of these players to be inducted before Rose. If they decide to induct him in as only a “player,” then fine; his accomplishments as a manager don’t warrant Hall of Fame discussion anyway. But, shame on anyone who believes his effects on the game are worse than the juiced players you may have been cheering for the past 15 years or so.
McKingford, I agree that “Eight Men Out” should never be considered the be-all, end-all, in any discussion of the Black Sox.
But the “facts” you listed are a bit more nuanced than you stated.
For instance, the infamous “triples to left” myth, which has been long debunked: http://www.blackbetsy.com/1919triples.htm.
There is also some evidence to suggest that Jackson’s Grand jury testimony was given while he was drunk.
And as far as Jackson’s Hall of Fame candidacy, I recommend Jim Reisler’s “A Great Day in Cooperstown” for a more detailed study on how seriously the voting was taken in 1936-37 and how varied the standards were for election. (For example: Judge Landis argued that Eddie Grant, who was killed in WWI, should be inducted. And two writers actually voted for 19th-century utility catcher Marty Bergen, whose claim to fame was that he later murdered his wife and kids before killing himself.) It’s hardly an open-and-shut “rejection” of Jackson’s career.
For what it’s worth, Jackson received two votes in 1936 before Landis made it known that he strongly discouraged that decision. That’s likely closer to the truth on why Jackson didn’t receive any more votes until 1946, when he garnered two more — after the commissioner’s death.
I’m no Pete Rose fan, but as an American living in Britain, I have to say that the gambling culture over here is a real eye-opener. Soccer managers and owners used to – and indeed, likely still do – bet on their teams to win ALL OF THE TIME. (Some owners used to pay their players’ win bonuses in their contracts out of such gambling winnings.) As I’ve posted here before, probably the most famous cricket match in English history involved a fantastic come-from-behind win by England over Australia in 1981, a match in which two Australian players admitted to having bet on England to win halfway through the match because the 500-to-1 odds on offer were just too ludicrous to pass up; they were mildly rebuked, but this wasn’t seen as a big deal. There have been gambling scandals in cricket and soccer, but the moralism you would get across America in the wake of such incidents just isn’t there. Makes you wonder if maybe Pete Rose was just born in the wrong country…
I allowed my anger at Bill James to sidetrack me earlier. Back to Joe’s main point:
ASSUMING that Peter Rose only bet on the Reds to win, would that be a worse crime than throwing the World Series? No. It’s still a crime, it still warrants a lifetime ban from baseball, and it’s still unforgivable- but no, it’s not nearly as bad as throwing the World Series.
Problem is, that’s a ridiculous assumption to make.
How do we know Pete only bet on the Reds to win? We DON’T know that! We have only Pete Rose’s word for it, and we all know what Pete’s word is good for.
Pete Rose lied through his teeth for nearly 20 years, adamantly denying that he ever bet on baseball. Even Bill James can no longer deny that Rose is a pathological liar.
So, why should anyone believe him NOW when he claims he never bet on the Reds to lose? Hmm?
Pete Rose should remained banned for several reasons. First, he gambled on his team. As at least one commenter noted, this rule has been around for decades, and the punishment is banishment for life. Second, after he chose to accept the penalty, he lied to the public for twenty years about whether he actually gambled. Lying, standing alone, should not result in banishment. But taken with the fact that he gambled, it’s hard to see how he has any support anywhere for reinstatement.
Third, gambling participated in by players actually threatened to bring down professional baseball; drugs never did. Pete Rose participated in the one activity that MLB has said results in a lifetime ban. This shouldn’t be a hard one to resolve. He gambled on games, gambling on games results in a lifetime ban. It’s a bright-line rule that all the players, managers, and front-office personnel know. Pete Rose chose to violate this rule, he suffered the consequences, and that’s that.
Dustin Hoffman, not Woody Allen.
Really throwing a world series is of course worse, that’s a no brainer. The only wrinkle is of course the 1919 players may have had a point at the time in the way they were treated and the amount they were paid. Thus one may have more sympathy but the crime is worse even if from a 1919 Black Sox point of view maybe you felt more justified than Rosey boy who did it for his own gratification.
The term “forensic narcissism” is just a sign that not everything Bill James pens is remotely good, like all people who attack the status quo, or even reaches the level of mediocrity I think stupid/moronic/dumb/cretinous/idiot better describes someone making transparently false arguments. James is arguably practising sophistry accusing someone of something by obfuscating with use of the English language himself. I prefer to just tell a dumb-ass making a plainly stupid argument he’s an idiot.
Back to gambling based on horse racing gambling trainers even if they don’t lay their horse cheat the public as much when the horse loses when expected as when it wins when expected as it’s true odds are not determinable on the form. It corrupts and discourages people taking up horse play when the form becomes useless. How can one enjoy a baseball game when one suspects the results?
A bit like Gaylord Perry getting into the head of a batter he is throwing Vaseline balls a manager/player who bets even if you are told it’s only to win would undermine interest as fans would get cynical about what was happening when they disagreed with a move.
It undermines the concept of the contest unlike say steroids where you still have the challenge and compelling confrontation between a pitcher and Bonds say.
BTW Joe Jackson takes the money with his mates and then shows them up it probably makes him the biggest rat of the lot? A man no one could trust? A weak man who lets others do his dirty work? Wanted both ends against the middle? At least Pete Rose still has friends in the game like Joe Morgan and Mike ‘Naive’ Schmidt.
you’re better than this post, my man. that came across as more than a wee bit mean-spirited. not gonna make the people cheer with stuff like that…oh yeah, i forgot that you’re more interested in provoking thought and offering insight than building a “brand.” didn’t like it much, joe, but i respect you for throwing stuff like that up on a public blog.
I like the term “proof by vigorous assertion.”
I don’t get the arguement. How is betting on your team to win worse than throwing a game, esp. an entire World Series? Really? I don’t get it. Both are bad, and I don’t care if you bet to win every single game. But conspiring to throw a game is the absolute worst. Shoeless Joe took money from gamblers to throw the series, end of story. Don’t care if he really tried to or not, he agreed to do it and took money. I see the two as completly different. I would like for Pete to remain banned from baseball, but be put in the Hall.
The Jackson apologists conveniently overlook two items which tend to demolish any sort of argument they hold forth.
1. Not every game was thrown. Sure, his Series aggregate stats look good, but on a game-by-game basis, not so. He went 8-16 with a walk in the clean games, and 4-16 (all singles) in the thrown games. These are very small sample sizes and prove nothing, but they certainly cannot be used to claim that Jackson’s performance was solid throughout.
2. When the Hall (which I consider a much less significant issue than potential reinstatement by MLB) was founded in the 1930s and the writers enfranchises with the primary vote, Jackson was completely eligible for consideration. Realize that some of those first voters must have been men who witnessed the 1919 World Series first-hand. In the first ballot, 1936, Jackson got two votes. Then, in 1946, he got two votes on a nominating ballot (it was a one-time format the Hall used for composing the election ballot). And that’s it. Jackson got four votes, total, ever, while eligible. History has rendered its judgment upon Jackson. Absent new evidence, there is no basis for overturning his status except misguided emotion. That’s never been my imperative.
Rose has done NOTHING to merit reinstatement. While he’s still alive, he could, just possibly maybe, EARN a second chance, but he’s not going to get that done in Las Vegas and he’s incapable of doing it alone. Some of his many fans need to take personal, interventive action and drag his carcass to GA meetings until the message sinks through his thick skull. It’s their cause and he NEEDS them, but they prefer just to carp from the keyboard and rail that Rose should be HANDED a second chance — which is not and should not happen. And so nothing changes.
Joe and some of the commenters are of course correct that there are some forensically narcissistic arguments against Pete Rose advanced by his detractors.
What I don’t understand about Rose-defenders (and semi-defenders, like Joe Poz) is that they uniformly — to a man (and it’s all men, not that there’s anything wrong with that) — ignore the single most important salient fact about Pete Rose’s lifetime ban:
Pete Rose AGREED to his lifetime ban in exchange for MLB dropping its investigation against him. He plea bargained to the baseball equivalent of life-imprisonment-without-parole, presumably, because he was worried about something much worse happening if he didn’t do so. You can speculate as to what that is — the Rose detractors have, of course, already done so.
Of course, it’s now far too late to investigate what Rose actually did — which is what Rose is counting on, and which is a pretty good prima facie reason for continuing to give Rose what he agreed to.
I’m not saying this is the be-all and end-all of arguments, but it is a serious one, and it’s one that I never see given serious consideration by Rose’s defenders.
John Dowd, of course, has said that he never found any evidence that Rose bet against the Reds. So no, we’re not just relying on Rose’s word on that. If you’re going to accept the validity of the Dowd report on the matter of Rose’s betting on baseball, it seems to me that you also have to accept it on the issue of who he bet on.
I think it’s a testament to the passionate love of baseball and the buttons pushed by even mentioning the name of Pete Rose that 50 comments into this post, no one has mentioned anything political. Not that I want to start a political discussion, but the phrase describes so much of the political discourse over the last decade that I’m astonished no one went there.
I kept thinking, in response to this post, saying something over and over doesn’t make it true.
I think sophistry implies some argument that, while invalid, is sufficiently creative to be persuasive. Forensic narcissism dispenses with the flourishes and leaves the argument to be blatantly false. But the arguer is unaware of this.
I only bet on my teams to win. Who are you to judge me? I am the greatest hitter in baseball history, I deserve to be in the HOF. So I broke the rules, I’m Pete Rose, they don’t apply to me. I’m bigger than the game. Baseball needs me, I don’t need baseball. Hey how about that time I ran over what’s his face in a meaningless All-Star game. Bet he didn’t see that coming. I play to win baby. Totally blindsided him and ruined his baseball career, but I’m Pete Rose baby, F’him.
I’m the Hit King baby. Nobody will ever be as great as me. That Jeter guy, tell him the first 3,000 were easy. That punk won’t ever catch me. He ain’t good enough. That asian guy Ichiro, he wasted too much time in Japan, an inferior league. Even if he hadn’t he would never have caught me. He’s a rinky dink singles hitter anyway. What’s his OPS anyway?
I don’t understand why so many of you have this unreasonable hatred towards me. You’re all haters. I’m the greatest hitter in baseball history, THE HIT KING!! Kneel before me. I don’t have to answer your questions. You are beneath me.
BTW, stop by my website, I have great memorabilia for you. Great stuff from the Hit King.
*In case you couldn’t tell, this wasn’t really posted by Pete Rose. Sarcasm, try it. It’s funny because its based on truth.
Forensic narcissism = hosting a political talk radio show
The realy problem, here, is that people that run MLB, the Hall, and fans think the Hall is about great players, not a museum about the game. IF the Hall was really a museum about MLB, about preserving the memories of great moments, of being a true musem that “taught” us about the history of the game, this wouldn’t be an issue.
Instead, they’ve tried to make the HALL a shrine to humans as gods or something.
That’s the problem here.
Shocking that a media member would go to great lengths to defend someone who is putting money in his pocket.
I made it to No. 33 before my eyes glazed over.
Pete Rose has a permanent ban from baseball, not a lifetime ban. When he dies has no bearing on this conversation. Honestly, I’d be happy to let Rose in if it meant an end to this conversation.
When I was very young, probably about three, my grandfather (I’m gonna blow the punchline: He was a sunofabitch) goaded me into taking a piece of candy I was sucking on and placing it on the velour fabric of his new La-Z-Boy. His words were soothing, and so after some prodding I did it.
And then he beat the crap out of me.
This is the dynamic surrounding Pete Rose, and which mirrors something very unpleasant I find about society … which is that we say, “Well if he’d just own up to it, come clean, etc., all will be forgiven.”
But that’s not how we function. We goad people into admitting their mistakes, then we pull the rug out.
Forgiveness? Oh. Right.
You didn’t really think we were serious.
It’s never too late?
Whatever.
Further complicating this we forgive the people we perceive as good guys (see Pettite, Andy) and just keep right on skewering the jerks (see Rodriguez, Alex).
But it’s not just the sanctimony or the hypocrisy that drives me nuts about the Pete Rose debate, or that BBWAA members have anointed themselves my moral conscious (they could have at least asked first; on the other hand I don’t have to read what they write), it’s that it takes something very complex, i.e., what motivates compulsive gamblers and, in general, compulsive risk-takers to do something (repeatedly) as obviously stupid as what Rose did, and it reduces it to good vs. bad, neat-and-tidy, just how we like it.
What motivated Rose? Surely, he didn’t do it for the money, because apparently he lost buckets of it. And, through the years, there’s no evidence whatsoever that Rose ever-ever tried to fix a game.
So why? Because the thrill of the game, itself, wasn’t enough for him? He needed to make things more interesting.
Of course, that’s what also made an extremely ordinary athlete one of the best baseball players ever.
That’s a sick guy. Who happens to hold seven Major League records, and who is in the top-10 in four other categories, who made 17 all star teams, and who, according to baseball reference, is ranked 19th all time
in MVP votes.
But, ah, people say, “We have to punish the gambler. We have to set an example so it never happens again. We can’t allow this in our sacred game.”
And we do this how? By officially pretending he never existed.
There’s a philosophical paradigm: You can’t actually have a just society without forgiveness.
I know a few people who deliberately go against the grain for the sake of being contrary (I might be a mild example myself). Without meaning any offense, I think Jason Whitlock is also a mild example. But I don’t think it’s his arrogance regarding his ability to win the argument that causes him to be contrary, I think it’s more that he simply likes to stir trouble, just to see what will happen. Maybe Whitlock wants you, of the more sane (conventional?) opinion, to solidify your own argument, so he’s going to throw something wild out there in an effort to see if your response passes muster. I hate to admit it, but I do this on occason at bars with my friends. They must hate me.
Forensic narcissism. See also Beck, Glenn.
What the Black Sox did is obviously worse. Rose’s gambling raises reasonable suspicion that he tampered with the integrity of games. But suspicion of committing an act, no matter how well-founded, can never be as bad as committing the act itself.
The only aspect of this brilliant blog that wears me out is the obsession with the Hall of Fame. In the end, it’s a tourist attraction that exists to promote baseball and it’s supposed to be fun. It’s not worth all the agita.
Steve,
There is a religious group, I can’t remember who it was, that told me that as long as I accept Jesus Christ as my savior and confess my sins before I die, I will be forgiven and I will be welcome in Heaven. So I asked them, no matter what I have done, whom I have hurt, what sins I’ve committed, I will be forgiven? They said yes. So I’ve got that going for me. I told them I’d come calling in a few years. I really value my get out of Hell free card.
Forgiveness is an individual, personal thing. Like all things, some have more in their heart than others. There are some who can forgive anything easily, but there are some who have more reason not to forgive than others.
Maybe you’re right, it’s our fault that we don’t forgive him. He is just a human being who had a sickness. We’re the bad ones. We have hate and anger in our heart. We’re unreasonable. Why shouldn’t we let this man get rewarded with entry into the HOF. What does it really mean to us anyway. Its just a museum with plaques and names on a wall. Hell it just a museum about a sport. Freaking entertainment, why are we even getting upset about this. Hell its like complaining about who won the Oscar. it really means nothing. Heck I’ll just find something else to watch, baseball is a slow dull game when you think about it. All this vitriol about a silly kid’s game. It’s not like we’re talking about morals and ethics here, and what we want to pass on to our kids.
Heck I feel better. Pete Rose for Commissioner of Baseball. I forgive.
Isn’t gambling on your team to win just a form of ‘incentive compensation’?
Agree with Marco; put the HoFer’s offense right on the plaque-BET ON BASEBALL or USED PEDs. And if they don’t like it, don’t come to Cooperstown.
Most amazingly delusional thing about Rose is he belief that were the ban lifted some team would hire him to be manager or GM. There’s simply no way even the mosyt desperate team would think of hiring him to do anything that significant. The GMs today are (rightly) number-crunching technocrats. They’re usually bland and quite sorts.
The managers aren’t all that different. And most of the good ones seem to either have some serious book learning(Larussa) or were catchers(Scioscia, Torre, Girardi) or had long minor leagur careers(Manuel), giving them insight into pitching. Rose’s pedigree is no longer what you see in a manager. Even Gaston and Piniella-2 of his contempraries-are more attuned to Bill James’ logic.
Joe in Jersey,
You make for an excellent foil.
It’s not that a think the Hall is just a museum with plaques and names on the wall. Clearly, it means something, or so many people wouldn’t have gotten so bent-out-of-shape over Jim Rice.
What I do think is that Rose has earned the plaque in Cooperstown, and that societally we’re capable of looking at that plaque and considering (the abundance of) Rose’s failings.
And, somehow, though I freely admit it’s a very gray area, I think that’s better than the process of, over time, erasing him from baseball’s institutional memory.
I don’t understand why the self-appointed guardians of the Hall feel they’re obliged to spoon-feed me their narrative. As I have mentioned several times, I can arrive at my own moral conclusions just fine.
Rose’s achievements are indisputably historic, as are his flaws. In a great many ways, I don’t give a hoot about Rose, himself. What I do care about is that the Hall accurately reflects what actually happened, independent of what you, me and everyone else thinks about it.
Pete Rose *not really
If the game didn’t matter, why was Fosse blocking the plate? You can’t have it both ways. Rose and Fosse were BOTH playing to win.
Steve,
I can definitely see your point. And arguing over who gets into the HOF is usually a good thing.
It is just my opinion that what Rose did is egregious enough to keep him out of the HOF during his lifetime. After that I really don’t have an opinion and am very happy ro leave it to those with the votes. I really don’t feel that strongly about it, once his lifetime has passed.
If the voters were to feel that certain players, because they admitted or have been shown to have used steroids, they should not be in the HOF in their lifetime I would also be ok with that. I don’t think anything specific (proven fact) ever came out about McGwire but it is generally believed he used PED’s, so if they were to keep him out of the HOF during his lifetime that is ok with me.
Pete Rose bet on baseball. He accepted a lifetime ban. He’s out of baseball until the ban expires. I believe that is just and fair. My opinion.
Fair enough.
Thanks for the entertainment.
Two things — first, while “Eight Men Out” the movie may have been a work of fiction, Asimov’s book is not. Check it out.
Second — and this is from memory, so don’t flame me — I don’t believe Bill James ever defended Pete. He did say that he thought Dowd’s investigation was a sham & a bit of a witchhunt, but even a fanatical vendetta may come to the same conclusion as that warranted by the facts.
Obviously betting on your team to win is not worse than, or even equally as bad as, throwing a game. However, that doesn’t mean that the argument you made in the article (that it really isn’t that bad at all) is correct.
The easiest case to make is that it is highly unlikely that Rose bet on his team to win every day and if he ever missed a day, even stupid gamblers could figure out that Rose didn’t like his chances that day.
Now maybe they should have been able to figure that out anyway but they get an edge from the insider knowledge.
So Rose betting – no matter how he bet – is not doing MLB a good service. Period. So some punishment is appropriate and as it happens the well known, seriously well displayed, punishment for gambling is a ban.
It seems to me that no one should argue that Rose has served enough when the punishment is for life and he still lives. Change the rules if you like and if you can or accept them and move on.
I understand very well what the definition means; I recall having to listen to 2 people interminably argue when an old song was initially published until I could take no more. So I said they were both wrong – that it was a third year and I remembered because I had just started at a new school.
The firmness with which I issued that statement won the argument despite being incorrect. I learned a lot that day and began questioning people who were too insistent with not a lot of obvious evidence. People like Neyer (who sometimes falls prey to this) and Law (who frequently does). Just my .02 of course.
@27 Jackson’s rate stats were HELPED by the fact that he never had to go through a decline phase. The HoF is also about longevity and many players who look like they’re headed there at 30 don’t end up making it for one reason or another.
If Joe Jackson had suffered a career ending injury at the end of the 1920 season and had the Black Sox scandal never came out would he have made it into the Hall based on his career to date. It’s possible but I don’t see it as a sure thing or a particularly good selection if he was allowed in.
It bugs me that Jackson is so much better known than Tris Speaker today when Tris Speaker was in every way a better ballplayer (and seemingly a better human being).
I think the whole concept of ethics in sports may very well need an overhaul. Bill James was the first person to try to take statistics and create a meaningful relationship between the numbers and the wins. He was trying to prove something we know is true but cannot express other than by agreeing.
Now, here’s the thing — what is the VALUE of winning itself? We know that winning is tied to something called competition. Competition exists as a kind of infinite asymptote, where the limit is always “no contest”. Meaning, as long as there is a chance of winning, competition has some value for the spectator as well as the competitor.
Somewhere along the way, though, the notion of ethics came in. Now, ethics is very interesting, and very important. But only from the perspective of something personal that is held close as a notion of honor and respect. I respect myself and my honor through my expression of my personal ethic. It’s mine.
When, however, what is mine becomes yours — for example, I’m a professional athlete for whom you root, or whom you choose to actively hate — then, all of a sudden the notion of a public ethic arises.
So, the Forensic Narcissistic comment is quite useful, since it speaks to the intent of the argument which the evidence is there to support.
This goes back to the notion of clutch athletes, and whether it is tied to some undefined internal concept of will or desire.
All this is by way of saying I find the Pete Rose moralizing incredibly tiresome, as I do the steroids moralizing, because often the outrage expressed is based on some crashed childhood dream. I would prefer, simply, to reserve my respect for those who truly earn it through the evidence they produce as players. Now, I get to define the scope of that evidence based on what I value. I don’t value gambling, I value what appears to be a fair fight. Although, to be frank, I’m not sure I know how to determine it at this point in history.
Bud Selig has done more to ruin the game than Pete Rose ever did.
Buckweaver @41:
Thanks for that link. Having read it, however, I think it overstates matters by quite a bit to say that the “triples to left” myth has been “debunked”. Reading those accounts, I count at least 3 triples which may have been within Jackson’s play. The fact that his name is not mentioned is of no moment – if a fielder’s intention was to misplay (eg. by getting the wrong jump on the ball), it is entirely conceivable that it would be the CF who would ultimately play the ball. Think, for instance, of an inside-the-park HR: the outfielder who eventually throws the ball to the cutoff is almost never the same outfielder who had the best initial chance to make a play on the ball.
Don’t get me wrong – there is nothing in these accounts to *support* the notion that Jackson was intentionally dogging it, but I can’t say they refute that suggestion either. I do have to say, however, that 7 (!!) triples (only one of which was a “ground rule” triple) in 8 games is quite astonishing. The Sox, by contrast, hit 2 – one by the great innocent, Buck Weaver, and the other by the biggest cheat, Chuck Gandil – but in the 8th inning of the last game, with the Sox down 10-1.
I’m not sure what to make of your remark about Jackson’s drunkenness. So what? Isn’t the saying “in vino veritas”? Explain how Jackson being drunk during his testimony helps him. You can analyze the actual play of the WS all you want, but to me the grand jury testimony seals the deal. Jackson acknowledges being in on the fix, demanding a higher stake when first propositioned, and complaining about being shortchanged after the first two (fixed) games.
The is not an answer to which offense is worse. It is like trying to decide if infinity is a bigger number than negitive infinity.
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Pete Rose would not make the Hall as a manager, nor as a player (plus manager) like for instance a Joe Torre might.
Unless he bet on his team to lose while an active player, the point is moot.
And lest we not forget, Tris Speaker and Ty Cobb, as managers, were “invited to retire” by Judge Landis for betting on (granted) one game. And they did.
Anyway, Steve is right – it’s probably no coincidence that the vast majority of the top recordholders are jerks (or, let’s say, maladjusted) in one form or another. That that continues off the playing field, per se, shouldn’t really come as a surprise.
Charlie didn’t stop hustling when he stopped taking at-bats, because he was still Pete.
Re: Richard at 66. I watched Pete Rose ruin Ray Fosse’s career live on television. At the time, my thought was, “He wasn’t even blocking the plate. Why did Rose run through him?” Since I was only 15 at the time, I today searched the internet to see if my recollection is correct.
I’ve found this interview with Fosse: Even so, Rose’s commitment to his signature headfirst slide made the collision almost inevitable. As Fosse puts it, the play only happened because Rose always had it “in his mind” to slide headfirst. “I positioned myself where the throw was coming,” Fosse says. “I knew I was up the line, so I intended to make a sweep tag. The next thing I knew, it happened. I had no warning.”
I found this picture of the incident, showing that Fosse was neither blocking Rose’s path to home plate (coming as all runners will do when they round third slightly into foul territory) nor was Fosse posed like a catcher attempting to slow down a runner: http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2009/jul/12/no-headline—spt_all-star_c1/
I found another picture which shows clearly that Fosse wasn’t even facing Rose, and that the collision came from Rose’s left side into Fosse’s left side outside his arm. http://www.mlb.com/mlb/history/mlb_asgrecaps_story_headline.jsp?story_page=recap_1970
From the two pictures it is obvious that Fosse was not blocking the plate, was not on a direct path between Rose and home, and that Rose could easily have slid home without touching Fosse, either head first or feet first or without sliding at all. It is possible that if Rose had not forced the collision that Fosse might have caught the ball and swept tagged Rose out. So it’s possible you could argue that the play was smart in that it prevented any defensive play by Fosse. But I think the play was dirty, whether or not it was smart, because Rose could have stayed in foul ground and reached home before Fosse caught the ball.
There is nothing Pete Rose has ever done or said that made me think he cared about anything except Pete Rose and the public perception of Pete Rose. Win at all costs? That’s good for his public perception. Pete Rose was a below average player in 1980 (OPS+ of 94) despite playing the biggest offensive position, and he played all 162 games, of course. In 1981 he was above average for the last time in his career (OPS+ 119). 1982, 162 games, OPS+ of 99. 1983, 155 games, a miserable OPS+ of 69. 1984-85, still not retiring, OPS+ of 99. 1986, with the record, and goes out with an inspiring OPS+ of 61.
Ty Cobb’s last season was better than Rose’s last five seasons, OPS+ of 112, and he knew to retire for the good of the team. Ted Williams went out with an OPS+ of 190. Hank Aaron retired the first time in 21 years he didn’t make All Star, even with an OPS+ slightly above average at 102. Barry Bonds was driven out of baseball while his OPS+ of 170 says he still had some juice in his bat (sorry). Even Willie Mays, almost everybody’s poster child for somebody hanging on too long, had an OPS+ of 131 his next to last year. He was given one bad year, and then he was gone.
But Rose lasted five years as a detriment to his team, providing below league average offense at the most important offensive position. The teams sold tickets, and Rose got to pass Cobb. Rose didn’t even need those last 52 hits his last season, but he was making sure no archivists would ever find a few missing box scores for Cobb.
The man was selfish. The man is selfish. He agreed to his penalty to stop the investigation. What worse could have happened if they’d kept on investigating him? I suspect lots more jail time. Plus Rose’s intellect doesn’t shine brightly enough to cause too many dropped popups. I suspect Rose really didn’t know he was losing money on gambling, and feared tax penalties on all the money he was winning.
Rose was and is a selfish guy who would literally run over anybody to try and promote Pete Rose. He broke rule one. He accepted the penalty. There’s nothing to see here; lets move along.
McKingford:
I think judging guilt or innocence based on published — and often conflicting — play-by-play or box scores of events that took place 90 years ago is a fool’s game. As Mike Nola wrote in that “triples” link, if you’re looking for “suspicious” plays, you can probably find them. And if you’re not looking for them, it’s almost impossible to tell the difference between a common, on-the-level misplay and a deliberate error. If someone’s mind is made up, then they’re going to see what they want to see.
The myth of the “triples to left” has been repeated for so long that some people take it as fact, when that link shows that Jackson was never mentioned as being in the vicinity of any of those triples in a single account from EIGHT different contemporary sources. You can argue that maybe he intentionally got a bad jump and let Felsch handle all of the plays, but there is no evidence to support that claim. The strongest evidence we really have is the opinions of eight different writers who were at the game — none of whom thought Jackson was worth mentioning in describing any of those triples. Anything else is simply conjecture. That said, those accounts certainly don’t *refute* the idea that Jackson didn’t misplay those triples, but then, it’s awful tough to disprove a negative.
Again: People are going to see what they want to see.
re: seven triples, it sounds like a lot, but in the 1917 Series, Chicago pitchers — who were never accused of throwing anything then — allowed four triples in six games to the Giants. And in 1916, the Red Sox and Dodgers combined for 11 triples in five games. So, not totally unprecedented.
re: Jackson’s testimony. One of the problems with it being “conclusive evidence” of his guilt is that his words are riddled with contradictions, which some have suggested is because he had been drinking when he gave it. At the same time that he admitted accepting money from gamblers, he also adamantly stated that he played every game to win and tried his best at all times. Furthermore, his 1924 testimony in his back-pay case — when he actually had his own legal counsel, not a White Sox-backed attorney “advising” him to waive his right to immunity — contradicted much of the testimony he gave in 1920 (and caused the judge to throw out the 11-1 jury verdict in his favor on grounds of perjury, when the “stolen” 1920 testimony suddenly reappeared four years later in the White Sox’s possession.)
You say his 1920 testimony “seals the deal” for you, but with so many contradictions, how can we be sure which version is the truth? Besides, if he was so deceptive and dishonest that he deliberately helped lose World Series games, why should we trust that he’s telling the truth in ANY version of his story? (Which is a question that’s been asked of Rose, too, who we know for a fact has lied repeatedly.)
The answer is: We see what we want to see. There’s too much conflicting evidence to suggest definitive proof of guilt — and too much damning evidence to suggest definitive proof of innocence.
All we can do is keep digging for more. Because trust me, there’s more out there. If you look for it.
Perry: read again. I never asserted that Pete Rose DID bet against the Reds, nor did John Dowd.
What I AM saying is, there’s absolutely no proof that he didn’t.
What’s galling (and occasionally amusing) to me is this: Pete Rose’s defenders spent the better part of 20 years insisting that Pete NEVER bet on baseball. When he finally acknowledged that he DID, in fact, bet on baseball regularly, did his defenders stop making excuses for him? No! Without skipping a beat, they went from screaming, “Pete NEVER bet on baseball” to screaming, “He ONLY bet on the Reds to win, which isn’t really so bad!”
I’m asking, how do you KNOW he only bet on the Reds to win? You DON’T know. You have only the word of a man who’s been lying in our faces for two decades.
?buckweaver: thank you for the considered reply.
I don’t think we are very far apart on the issue of triples. My point, perhaps inelegantly made, is that the game accounts do not “debunk” anything; and I freely acknowledge that the game accounts are *not* evidence of Jackson’s complicity in the fix. You are certainly right that it is hard to prove a negative, but it is the Jackson defenders who point to his play as somehow exonerating him. As you say, you can find anything you want if you are looking for it, but there is nothing in Jackson’s play that is inconsistent with him having participated in the 1919 fix. (Interestingly enough, in his grand jury testimony, Jackson – even though he was in on the fix, and presumably would know what to look for, claims there was only a single play in the whole series that looked like a deliberate ploy to fix a game – a double play ball misplayed by Risberg).
All I can say about his play is that it is not inconsistent with someone who has been paid to fix some – but not all – games. He hit well in the games where there was no fix, and he hit much less well in the fixed games, where even then most of his successes came after the Reds had the game well in hand. Now, of course, you would expect a player to be less successful in the games his team lost – after all, playing well leads to winning and playing poorly leads to losing. So the fact that he played well in the games Chicago won and poorly in the games they lost doesn’t, in itself, prove anything.
Which brings me to the grand jury testimony. I’m a criminal lawyer by profession, and it has taught me a lot about the human condition. While Jackson defenders point to his assertions that he played to win, there are two important points to remember: a) he was, after all, testifying before a grand jury where he was in legal jeopardy because of his role in the scheme; and b) pride or shame would compel many in Jackson’s shoes to say the same thing. Don’t forget that throwing a baseball game doesn’t mean you have to go O-fer with 6 errors. Rather, with a team sport such as baseball – with 9 aside – it is very easy to play almost as well as you can and still come up just shy of your very best, and thus lose with subtlety.
As a criminal lawyer, I can say this with some confidence: In the entire history of Western civilization, getaway drivers and lookout men have said one of two things when apprehended: “I didn’t know what they were doing” (ie. I wasn’t in on it), or “Although I was in on it initially, I abandoned the joint intention just as it was starting”.* In short, Jackson’s comment that he was in on it, but didn’t actually participate it in is *exactly* what you would expect anyone in Jackson’s shoes to say. (The transcript also makes very clear that Jackson was being interrogated by a DA who was very sympathetic to him).
*[Burglars are slightly more creative, as I suppose they have greater responsibilities, as they have 3 stock answers: "I thought it was my friend's house"; "I had to use the bathroom"; "I was being chased".]
If Jackson had not been complicit in the fix, he would not have complained about being shortchanged after the 2nd game. It simply defies both common sense and human nature to believe that he got angry to the point of threatening to tell Comiskey* not that the fix was on, but that there was a fix, he didn’t participate at all in it, but that he was being deprived of his fair share of $20K. I mean really, if it were anyone other than Shoeless Joe Jackson, with all the attendant mythology, would anyone seriously believe that the guy wasn’t an active conspirator?
*[The common mythology was that Jackson was so distraught about his knowledge of the fix that he went to Comiskey and asked to be benched. But the transcript makes clear that Jackson merely threatened to tell Comiskey about it, and this only after the 4th game, when Jackson clearly understood he was being shortchanged the promised $20K.
Q Didn’t you think it was the right thing for you to go and tell Cominkey about it?
A I did tell them once, “I am not going to be in it.” I will just get out of that altogether
Q Who did you tell that to
A Chick Gandil
Q What did he say?
A He said I was into it already and I might as well stay in. I said, “I can go to the boss and have every damn one of you pulled out of the limelight.” He said, “It wouldn’t be well for me if I did that.”]
To believe that Jackson was innocent, one has to believe that he lied about arguing for more money. Don’t get me wrong, people lie all the time under oath.* But they always lie to put themselves in a better light, not a worse one.
Even when putting Jackson in the very best of light, I still don’t see how Jackson deserves anything other than the fate he got – a permanent ban. Think of it this way – assume you own a business and you find out that a group of employees broke into the company safe one night. You don’t suspend them, you fire them, right? What if one of them said – even though he accepted part of the money – he didn’t actually do anything? He gets fired too, right? Of course. You can’t have an employee on your payroll who would know about a plot to rip you off and not do anything about it (never mind the absurdity of believing him when he said he wasn’t involved even after being paid ill-gotten gains). How is this any different than Jackson’s fate?
I cannot say that Pete’s crime is worse than or even equal to the Black Sox crime, however, I think I can say that Pete’s expectation of what punishment he would receive for his betting activities should have been greater than the Black Sox.
Prior to the Black Sox scandal, many players had thrown games. We probably really will never know just how many games were thrown. More than we know, I am sure. But I cannot recall one single player who was actually banned for the behavior. Part of the reason for this, I presume, is that the AL and NL were seperate entities and if a player was good enough to be kept around, despite the possibility that he would occasionally throw games, then if the AL banned him, the NL would be glad to pick him up. Anyway, the point is, the Black Sox players probably did not have an expectation that their behavior would get them banned.
Then, they got banned as well as a few others and baseball made it very clear for 60 years that betting on baseball games would result in being banned. (heck, Leo Durocher got suspended for a year in the 40s because he went to the track too often)
So, when Pete began betting on baseball in the 80s, there should have been no surprise in his mind at all what would happen.
Unlike the Black Sox, he knew what the penalty was for betting. I feel no sorrow for him.
For starters the last many, many years Pete Rose has been the only one with a voice on this. The other side and all it’s eveidence were kept silent. That’s not the slightest bit fair nor does it lend itself to any kind of reasonable discussion.
Joe’s arguments boil down to
…it wasn’t the worst offense possible. As if not being the worst makes it somehow not what it was.
…$2000 bets aren’t that much money. Of course that’s $324,000 per YEAR for years in the 80s. That’s a *ton* of money even 25 years later.
…fantasy baseball is betting. Which it absolutely is not. It’s only betting if one actually *bets* on fantasy baseball. Fantasy baseball can and is played with no betting involved. This even getting into the article is absurd.
…we should forgive. Rose should be forgiven when he *asks* for foregivenss. That has yet to happen. Forgiveness should be given when one is contrite, and we know that will never happen. Or if one wants to forgive that’s fine. However, that does not mean he should be allowed in the HOF. We can forgive without rewarding as well.
That’s it. That’s the argument put forth. Just a worthless article.