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Hall of Fame eluded baseball great Pete Rose for committing game’s ultimate sin – Caldera

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Hall of Fame eluded baseball great Pete Rose for committing game’s ultimate sin – Caldera

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NEW YORK – Down in Atlanta, both the Mets and Braves were celebrating one of the craziest MLB playoff-clinching days when word arrived that Pete Rose had died at 83.

Before they cut away to another Draft Kings commercial, that first game of Monday’s doubleheader – all the comebacks, all the drama – would have greatly pleased Rose, a baseball lifer.

Rose deeply loved the game, sinned against it by gambling on games as Cincinnati Reds manager – following a brilliant playing career – and was denied entry into the Hall of Fame because of it.

Years of denials of baseball betting only made things worse, and Rose never did find a sympathetic MLB commissioner that would lift his ineligible status.

Not that it would have mattered when it comes to Hall of Fame induction. Rose never once appeared on a Baseball Writers’ Association of America ballot because of that “ineligible’’ rule.

You couldn’t write his name in, and any iteration of a veteran’s committee likely wouldn’t have reached the 75 percent voting threshold to send baseball’s all-time hits king to Cooperstown.

If you’re leaning heavily on the character clause issue, certain of Rose’s indiscretions, both personally and connected to baseball, would be disqualifying to many.

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But as it relates to his post-baseball life, Rose’s story after the 1989 ban was profoundly sad and cautionary and…well, isn’t sports now connected to legal gambling in ways that could never previously been imagined?

That doesn’t absolve Rose of anything connected to illegal betting of games he was involved in, and how the steep penalties that have existed – since the 1919 World Series fix – must be enforced to prevent anyone in uniform of doing the same.

But it doesn’t take Rose’s death to feel some empathy for those who remembered him as the great Charlie Hustle in Cincinnati, who had already lost him years before.

Before the gambling scandal, Rose was celebrated for maxing out every last drop of his talent on the way to 4,256 base hits, surpassing Ty Cobb – an enormous achievement.

Rose was the cog of the championship Big Red Machine teams that won back-to-back World Series in ’75 and ’76, but Rose could appreciate the game in the moment, too.

By the numbers: How Pete Rose became a Cincinnati Reds legend

He couldn’t help but silently applaud in his glove when Carlton Fisk’s dramatic home run at Fenway Park ended Game 6 of the ’75 Series; he’d just played in one of the great games of all time and knew it.

But he was back to rip Boston’s heart out in Game 7.

If there’s a snapshot of Rose’s determination on a diamond, it’s defined by Rose launching his body into third base on an aggressive head first slide, helmet gone.  

Rose wasn’t a classic hitter in the Ted Williams sense, but his instincts for hitting – from both sides of the plate – were astounding. He was the leader of those championship Reds teams and burned to win.

He’d have likely been one of the rare players with an excellent career who’d have been an excellent manager, with an instinctive edge.

Rose wouldn’t have needed a printout of which matchups were best, he already knew it cold.

Because of that knowledge, and that super-competitive drive, maybe it’s not surprising that Rose took to gambling on baseball.

It’s a powerful addiction. Had baseball treated it as such, maybe Rose has something closer to the second chapter that players involved with drugs have received.

Not a uniformed position in baseball; that’s one strike. Cooperstown? Yes or no, that should have come to a vote a long time ago.

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