Chips ‘n dip: Pete Rose still doesn’t get it
14 03 2007“The banishment for life of Pete Rose from baseball is a sad end if a sorry episode. One of the game’s greatest players has engaged in a variety of acts which have stained the game, and he must now live with the consequences of those acts. There is absolutely no deal for reinstatement.”
– Bart Giamatti, on why he ruled to have Pete Rose removed from baseball.
We posted the story that Pete Rose told ESPN Radio’s Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann that “I bet on my team every night. I didn’t bet on my team four nights a week. I was wrong.” He went on to say that he no longer cares if he’s in the Hall of Fame, but if he’s reinstated, he’d like to manage again and that he’s the best ambassador baseball has (um, no). 
Well yes Pete: you were wrong. The problem is, you still don’t get it., especially since you’d admitted to betting on your team and want to manage again.
It’s nice to see that he’s gone on some sort of public relations tour since releasing his 2004 bio telling everyone within earshot that he bet on baseball. It’s even better that he’s come out and said that he even bet on the Cincinnati Reds, a team that he managed from 1984-1989, to win every night.
However, the whole point of his banishment from the game was that he violated a written rule in place since the Black Sox scandal of 1919. He followed that up with more than a decade’s worth of stonewalling media, baseball and investigators with repeated denials on his gambling. Rose only decided to finally come clean after much pressure and the almighty dollar, something he has never been able to pass up, whether it be from gambling on baseball or his memorabilia site where he hucks everything a Montreal Expos bobblehead of his likeness or a sliding ‘Charlie Hustle’ bobblehead that’s autographed.
But let’s make one thing clear — for all the self-serving bullshit that’s come out of his mouth since he decided to issue public mea culpas no matter the opportunity (take this week’s Cincinnati Reds museum opening where there’s an exhibit dedicated to him), Rose has been used by Major League Baseball just as much as he’s used them since the late-1990s.
MLB gave the fans what they wanted when he was voted on baseball’s ‘All-Century Team’ in 1999 and 2002’s ‘30 Most Memorable Moment’; the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York even has exhibits displaying his record-setting the bat and baseball used when he surpassed Detroit’s Ty Cobb on the all-time hits list.
Someday Peter Edward Rose will get it. Unfortunately, MLB need to see the light as well.
The question is: who’ll blink first?
© 2007, The Buried Leadinfo@theburiedlead.com
Categories : Chips 'n Dip, Featured Commentary, MLB, Featured
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