Baseball Does NOT Have This Right
Pete Rose, the all-time total hits leader of Major League Baseball, certainly one of its best players and greatest stars of all time, and a sure fire Hall of Famer under any and all ordinary circumstances, is being kept out of consideration for the Hall of Fame by the same Major League Baseball for which he was such an extraordinary contributor. Baseball, specifically the Commissioner’s Office, is punishing him for the solitary reason that he “bet on baseball games” when he was the manager of the Cincinnati Reds. Its reasoning is that his betting on a game was a sin so deplorable, so despicable, that he should NOT be allowed to have anything to do with the game for the rest of his life. Baseball does NOT have that right.
What’s that, you say? Baseball would say, surely, it has the right to set its own guidelines, and one of its guidelines is that it does not want its players and coaches to bet on baseball. (And to that I would say, don’t call me Shirley) So, it acted as judge, jury and executioner in ruling that Pete Rose, with all of his statistical excellence, is banished from baseball indefinitely and is subsequently NOT to be allowed to be considered for the Hall of Fame designation he so obviously earned by his playing career, BECAUSE he committed the crime of betting on baseball games. I say again, Baseball does NOT have this right.
Baseball, you see, has its own dark, little secret that it is trying to quietly sweep under history’s rug and it is hoping upon hoping that its dark little secret won’t be brought into the public’s eye, thanks to a generation of people growing up who are very reluctant to acknowledge that there was a world that happened BEFORE they were born, and only think that the world started after THEY were born.
Baseball, you see, committed its own “little sin,” and it was not a simple, Donald Sterling-like politically incorrect slip of the tongue that was offensive. It was far more heinous than that. Baseball committed a sin far more despicable than anything Sterling, Ken Imus, Riley Cooper or whoever is on the list of the next ten politically incorrect bad boys of today may have committed… COMBINED. Including the gambling sins of Pete Rose.
Baseball practiced INSTITUTIONAL RACISM. Baseball, through its own agreements, laws and rules, prohibited ANYONE of color from playing in its leagues from its infancy in the 1880’s all the way through to 1947, when of course, Jackie Robinson was finally allowed to play. It’s leaders didn’t JUST accidentally say something inappropriate once or twice. It PRACTICED policies that favored one race and punished another one, all because of the color of their skin that they were born with.
Think about it. The institution of Major League Baseball made it its policy to NOT allow anyone who happened to have been born with non-white skin to play its games. Baseball was RACIST. History has now shown it was on the same side of the racial equality issue as George Wallace, Bull Conner, the redneck cops blasting non-violent protesters with pressurized water from fire hoses and many others that are now looked down upon as the worst of the racists and the most despicable people of that era. In other words, Baseball was on the same side of the issue as the Ku Klux Klan.
By the way, the Commissioner of Baseball from 1920 to 1944 was a man named Kennesaw Mountain Landis. A staunch Southerner, he completely opposed any integration of baseball during his entire tenure. He was as opposed to black men being allowed to play big league baseball (note that The Negro Leagues existed from 1920 to 1950) as any man who ever lived. HE is in the Baseball Hall of Fame. The following Commissioner, a man named Happy Chandler, was the man who helped immensely with the integration of Major League Baseball. He, using his undisputed powers as Commissioner, allowed the Jackie Robinson story to happen, even though he was opposed by the owners by a margin of 15 to 1. HE was “fired” as commissioner in 1951 by those same vindictive owners after his term was up. This is your past, Baseball.
Baseball, of course, has cleaned up its racist past. It goes out of its way every year on April 15th to pay homage to Jackie Robinson on the anniversary of the day he began playing. They have retired Jackie’s number 42 from ever being used again. I do not think they would have done any of these things for Jackie had they not had a massive guilty conscience over their racist past. (Or, if they had simply allowed African-American men to be playing all along, Jackie would not have even been a player/issue that needed to be honored/addressed.)
Which brings us to the case of Pete Rose. MLB has chosen to do everything possible to prevent Pete Rose from being voted into the Hall of Fame. They are holding it against Rose that he sinned against the Baseball Establishment by betting on those baseball games. Even though Rose has now shown contrition and asked for forgiveness, baseball has rejected him at every turn. They have refused to forgive him for the moral nature of his sins. They do not have that right.
Pete Rose may have bet on baseball, but that, at its worst, was a sin against the rules of baseball. The discrimination against players of color by the Baseball Establishment was a sin against the rules of humanity and should have been declared an unconstitutional restraint of free trade. In matters of making moral judgements of other people’s actions, Major League Baseball has forfeited that moral position. Baseball CANNOT play the self righteous moral high ground card with anyone. Otherwise, they are total hypocrites. There is a quote from the bible that is quite applicable for this — “Judge not lest ye be judged.”
