Pete Rose, Shoeless Joe, and the Hall of Fame

Charlie Hustle & the Matter of Pete Rose is a four-part HBO Max documentary telling three stories at once--Rose's playing career, Rose's ban and the years that followed, and his current life. Daniel Fienberg offers a lukewarm review. The central issue, as with everything Rose, is whether he should be enshrined in the Hall of Fame. While writing this post, I came across Backstory: Banned for Life, a 2020 ESPN program (paywalled--need an ESPN+ subscription) about Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson and their status on the permanent ineligible list.

There are many pieces to the "Rose in the Hall" question, which Charlie Hustle describes but does not fully unpack.

1) The Hall and MLB--independent entities making independent decisions--play an interesting game of hot potato as to who is responsible for keeping Rose out. MLB placed Rose on the permanent ineligible list in 1989 (with eligibility to seek reinstatement). The Hall two years later enacted a rule that those on MLB's ineligible list are ineligible for Hall induction; the change largely responded to Rose's looming Hall eligibility (1992 would have been his first year on the BBWAA ballot). It has become known as the "Pete Rose Rule," although it came amidst a groundswell for putting Jackson  in the Hall following the movies Field of Dreams in 1989 and Eight Men Out in 1988. Charlie Hustle then includes a clip of a  MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred kicking the can back to the Hall, stating that nothing requires the Hall to retain its rule linking Hall eligibility to MLB eligibility; in other words, those who want Rose in the Hall should take the case to the Hall, not to him.

According to ESPN, in 2020 MLB announced that it interprets its ineligible list to limit employment and other involvement with MLB and its team; ineligible status ends when the person dies and he can have no further involvement in the game. The Hall responded by interpreting its rule to apply to anyone on the ineligible list, living or dead. This creates a genuine catch-22 with respect to a dead player. The Hall says the player remains ineligible unless MLB takes affirmative steps to remove the person from the list; MLB says it cannot do anything once the person dies and the effects of ineligibility end.

2) Both shows discusses the Steroid Era and Houston Astros sign-stealing, showing that MLB never punished any of the involved players, to say nothing of punishing them as severely as it punished Rose (or Jackson). But this misses the key point. Gambling on baseball remains the game's cardinal sin, a prohibition (and punishment) posted on every clubhouse and antithetical to baseball operating as a legitimate competitive enterprise and not professional wrestling. PED use and sign-stealing are milder violations that many within the game regard as part of a longstanding search for competitive advantage. Moreover, the BBWAA has served as MLB's enforcer--Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, and other steroid-linked players never received more than 65 % support and nowhere close to the necessary 75 % on writers' ballots.*

[*] This reflects another way in which Selig failed as MLB commissioner.

3) Rose may not be the BBWAA's call, which Charlie Hustle discusses. Players can appear on the writer's ballot up to ten years after first eligibility (a player falls off the ballot if he received less than 5 % the prior year); after that, the Veterans' Committee (comprised of Hall members, executives, and historians) considers these players. So if Rose becomes eligible for the ballot (whether through actions of MLB, the Hall, or both), does he begin on the writers' ballots, since he has never appeared on the ballot and thus the ten-year clock has not begun? (Bob Costas suggests this). Or does he jump to the veterans, since it has been more than ten years since Rose would have appeared on the ballot? Given how the writers approached players with steroid connections, I cannot imagine Rose getting to 75 %, although it would be interesting to see whether his support would grow (as happened with Clemens, Bonds, et al), who reached mid-60s by their final years. In Charlie Hustle, one journalist says he voted for Clemens and Bonds every year and would vote for Rose if his name appeared on the ballot. On the other hand, Rose's strategy has been to cultivate support from Hall members (Charlie Hustle features Hall members Tony Perez, Mike Schmidt, and Reggie Jackson expressing support). This affects the goal of getting Rose into the Hall while he is alive (he is 81); chances drop if he has to go through the motions of up to a decade before the writers.

4) Someone (I think long-time Reds announcer Marty Brennaman) says it would be a tragedy for Rose to be inducted posthumously. I wonder. Rose supporters argue that the Hall is a museum that should record the history of the game and its players; Rose deserves a spot because the story of baseball (and certainly not the story of baseball in the 1970s and early '80s) includes Rose. But it also is a shrine, a way to honor, grant a title ("Hall-of-Famer" or "First-Ballot Hall-of-Famer"), and bestow unique privileges to certain players. Perhaps posthumous induction offers the right compromise: Rose becomes part of the baseball story for all time but does not receive the honors and prestige of--and opportunity to monetize**--being a living Hall Member.

[**] Which has been at least part of the ick factor with Rose over the years, although he defends his need to make a living.

5) Charlie Hustle never mentions Shoeless Joe, other than to explain the Black Sox (and the irony that they threw the 1919 World Series to the Reds, Rose's team) and the origins of the gambling prohibition. In particular, it does not address how arguments about Rose affect Jackson. (It includes the segment, described above, comparing non-punishment of steroid use and sign-stealing, but does not mention the genuinely comparable gambling case). This is a problematic omission, because you can discuss Rose' induction without discussing Jackson's--if Rose can be forgiven and allowed into the Hall, why should Jackson not be forgiven and allowed in? Some (including Rose in Banned) distinguish the cases because Rose apparently never bet against the Reds. But that argument misunderstands three points of the gambling rules. First, gambling affects games over a season, those bet on and not bet on. Second, the gambling rule reflects the ideal of the player seeking to win for the team that pays him and for the competition, not for some outside gains. Third, and most important, the gambling rule is prophylactic. It seeks to avoid any hint or risk that gambling might affect outcomes, play, or decisionmaking in games; it avoids the scent of gambling's effects, irrespective of actual effects. The rule therefore cannot distinguish betting on one's team from betting against one's team from taking money to tank becauseall cause the harms--the risk of the appearance of impropriety--MLB seeks to prevent.*

[*] On Banned, the host too readily concedes to Rose that what Jackson did is worse, ignoring the underlying rationales for barring gambling.

Banned shows that the links between Rose and Jackson are more extensive than I realized:

    • In early 1989, the South Carolina legislature petitioned MLB Commissioner Bart Giamatti to consider reinstating Jackson, part of a broader groundswell of renewed support for Jackson following his sympathetic portrayal in the two movies. Giamatti asked former federal prosecutor John Dowd to make the case for Jackson, which he did (TL;DR: Jackson played well in the Series and received no due process prior to his suspension). Giamatti was considering it--then stopped when the Rose case blew up a few months later; he could not reinstate (or even consider reinstating) Jackson while also investigating and potentially punishing Rose for similar misconduct. Giamatti also hired Dowd to conduct the investigation into the Rose allegati0ns. Dowd sits for interviews; he does not like Rose.

    • The Hall's 1991 rule change affected Jackson, short-circuiting some momentum among Hall members and the public following the movies. This can lead to two conclusions: 1) Despite its name, it did not target Rose but reached two similarly situated players or 2) Rose screwed Jackson, because the immediacy of dealing with Rose imposed unintended consequences on Jackson.

    • Former MLB Commissioner Fay Vincent (who worked with Giamatti, became commissioner when Giamatti died, and served until Bud Selig and the owners shanked him to set-up the 1994-95 strike) relays a conversation with Ted Williams in which Williams expressed support for Jackson. Vincent said if they let Jackson back in, Rose comes with him; Williams bascially said "no, fuck that guy," views supposesly held by Hall of Famers of Williams' era.

Interesting stuff. I remain in the no-Hall camp. But I am coming around to the idea of posthumous induction for both, with plaques detailing their bans in addition to their accomplishments.