Baseball, Permanent Bans, and Integrity

In a stunning reversal of previous commissioners, Major League Baseball’s Rob Manfred met the conditions of baseball’s permanent bans

It cannot be denied that Pete Rose was one of the most divisive sports figures of the late 20th century and into the 21st. His sparkling play in the field that included a dynamic ability to find open spaces in the outfield, as well as a full-blown intensity in all phases of the game, earned him the nickname Charlie Hustle, which was both a jibe when it was first fitted to him, as well as a term of affection at the end of his career.

It was not his game, though, that caused such polarizing views of Rose; rather it was what came at the end of it all, when the decision came down from then-commissioner Bart Giamatti that Rose – a 24-year player and sure-fire hall of famer with a still-standing all-time hits record – was banned from the game of baseball, permanently.

The ruling by commissioner Giamatti in 1989 was announced only two months before his own death of a heart attack, (which some believe may have been related to the Rose investigation and findings). He represented the second time a baseball commissioner had leveled the sport’s highest penalty against a player or group of players. The first was in 1919, when eight members of the Chicago White Sox, including the legendary Shoeless Joe Jackson, were permanently banned from the game.

Baseball’s Black Mark

For what accusation were these men excommunicated from baseball’s pantheon, driven into the wilderness of ignominy?

Jackson and the seven other members of the “Black Sox” – as they were ever afterward known – were banned from the game for accepting bribes to throw the 1919 World Series. A circus courtroom saw the men exonerated from criminal charges stemming from mob ties connected to the scandal, but baseball’s leadership leveled its most strict penalty ever, restricting them from ever playing or coaching in baseball again. The Black Sox scandal, and Jackson especially, became a legend in their own right, a cautionary tale against any others who would break the cardinal rule of the game, Rule 21: no betting on baseball.

Rose, nearly 70 years later, was found after a thorough investigation to have incontrovertibly and undeniably placed bets on games, including games in which he had played or coached. Rose, though he denied these allegations for years, later admitted it but maintained the fact that he never bet against his own team in those games; but that justification did not matter in the eyes of baseball’s owners and commissioner. The sport always adhered to a zero-tolerance policy when it came to gambling.

The Blowback

To say that Rose’s disqualification from baseball stunned the sports world would be an understatement. Being two generations removed from the events in Chicago, it is difficult to compare, but those inside and outside the game in 1989 were summarily shocked by the announcement.

“I vaguely remember all of us kind of looking at each other, thinking, this is unbelievable,” said Mark Dewey, former major league pitcher and host of the In the Bullpen podcast. “But I don't think any of us had any concept of, ‘Oh, this doesn't mean he gets in the Hall of Fame’. I think it was simply we knew he could not work in the game of baseball, and especially for a guy like Pete Rose. I mean it truly was sad. It truly was his life.”

Indeed, the additional ruling on Pete Rose’s hall of fame status would not be decided for another two years by Giamatti’s successor, Fay Vincent, who extended the ban to the hall of fame in 1991.

Dewey, a minor league pitcher at the time in San Jose, who would go on to pitch and coach in the big leagues for 24 years, is one of many who struggles with making a final decision on Rose. It cannot be denied that Rose broke the rule, objectively, nor that the rule itself was obscure in any way or unknown to those in the game.

“The first professional clubhouse I ever walked in was in Everett, Washington,” Dewey recalled. “And from that time, until I got done coaching a few years ago, every single clubhouse, spring training facility, anywhere you go in professional baseball, there is a huge sign posted with Rule 21 particular to gambling. Every single one. And every single person knew what it said. Every single person knew what the consequences were... And that's where I cannot have sympathy with him. He knew unequivocally what he was doing was wrong, and he knew unequivocally the consequences if you were to get caught doing what he was doing. In that sense, I can be very objective about it. Then once I leave that, I get a little bit squishy.”

The difficulty, rather, comes from the idea that these bans from the game are permanent, even posthumously. Part of the reasoning given in Commissioner Manfred’s announcement is that after death, these men no longer represent a threat to the integrity of the game of baseball. In that sense, Rule 21 and its penalties have been re-categorized as “lifetime” bans.

That reasoning, however, does not sit well with others around the game. Former players, for years, including Rose’s ex-teammates Mike Schmidt, Johnny Bench, and Tony Perez (all current Hall of Famers), were extremely vocal in their contention that Rose be reinstated and allowed into the Hall.

One of those players, who did not play with Rose, but nonetheless falls into that camp, is former major league pitcher Dennis Sarfate.

Sarfate, who played in the bigs in the early 2000s and then had a second career in the Japanese baseball leagues, saw Manfred’s decision not as a way to get out of a difficult position, but as a last way for baseball to stick it to Rose, who though sympathetic to fans, did not cut that way with league executives and owners.

“I think highly that (ending the ban) was because, finally, he's dead,” Sarfate said. “Let's put him in now. We can put him in and he doesn't get to enjoy being honored, which to me, is a crappy way to go about it.

“(And) I think people just got sympathetic to and resonated with, ‘Hey, we've all made mistakes in life.’” he added. “This guy has paid deeply for it. If he would have never been caught, never bet on baseball, he would have been celebrated for the last 30 years. He would have been invited to every All Star game. I mean, he would have been wheeled around and honored everywhere. And it's like, how long do you beat this guy down and make him suffer?”

To Ban or not to Ban

Something that should not be lost in this whole conversation is the fact that the game’s rule on this has been unflinchingly rigid and when exercised previously, it has been with the full force of the letter of the rule.

But the Rose conversation has always circled around this one issue, how can someone’s acceptance into the hall of fame be considered a threat to the game’s integrity? Rose always held fast to the idea that he never bet as a player, and it was only as a player that he would have been inducted. Amassing 4,256 hits, still the most ever, all but ensured that reality when he became eligible.

More than that, the game’s integrity was only at risk if the person in question could make direct impact on the games themselves, as a player or a coach. The permanent ban, then, represented something else, a punitive measure to more than protect the game’s integrity, but to protect its storied history as America’s Game.

Baseball, as it happens, is the only professional sport to include in its hall of fame eligibility a “character clause.”

The clause, ostensibly, is meant to present baseball’s hall of heroes as not only great players, but upstanding citizens and sportsmen, a pantheon of greatness that included virtue and integrity, as much as skill with a bat and a ball. There is just one problem with this ideal: By what standard?

“The way it stands, the writers are told that they must take into account character,” Dewey said. “I would hate to be a writer because, you know, is it objective? Well, how are we defining character? Major League Baseball wants to have its cake and eat it too by saying character matters. And yet they endorse stuff that would obviously be outside of the category of a good character or a good person, if you're looking at a biblical standard.”

The Hall of Faith and Baseball’s Story

In Hebrews 11 of the New Testament, the author of that biblical book presents a list of names of Old Testament men and women who made up a lineage, not of blood, necessarily, but of faith. Faith, being the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1).

What becomes brutally evident as one reads that list is that the list is not full of virtuous, upstanding and totally righteous people. In its midst are serial philanderers like Samson, murderers like David and Moses, and prostitutes like Rahab. These are not virtuous paragons, but rather represent in microcosm the words of Romans 1:17: “The just shall live by faith.”

In other words, it was not their perfection that told the story of God through the ages, but it was the fact that despite their flaws and failures, these men and women illustrated the mysterious, awesome story of God’s redeeming mercy and grace revealed in Jesus Christ; grace imparted to those who “believed God and it was accounted to (them) as righteousness.” (Romans 4:3)

The Bible does not seek to whitewash its heroes because the story is bigger than any man or woman (except Jesus Christ Himself, who is the Champion of all and has no rival).

Why, then, should any sport or institution (especially one born and bred in a Christian nation) seek to paint its dignitaries that way? Especially when not a single one of those dignitaries can live up to any high standard of character? Some were racists, others were drunks and adulterers.

Still others were addicted to pain meds and, though some have been excommunicated because of Performance Enhancing Drugs, Sarfate is confident that not all players that used PED’s in the game were caught, and some have since been given admittance to the Hall of Fame.

“I think Barry Bonds should be in the Hall of Fame. I think Roger Clemens should be in the Hall of Fame. They were in an era where you can put an asterisk, but there's guys that are in the Hall of Fame right now that we're doing steroids, just never got caught.”

That should not even be the point of a Hall of Fame in the first place.

It should be to tell the story of America’s favorite pastime. And that pastime includes the warts of the Black Sox, segregation, Pete Rose, “Chicks dig the long ball” and a whole host of others.

The irony is, if one were to walk the halls of Cooperstown, one would not be able to help but see evidence of those Black Sox, Rose, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and all those who have been barred entry for missing the mark. Their bust may be missing from the rest, but their mark on baseball is inexorable.

Integrity of the Game

One of my own personal bones with all of this is MLB’s blind spot when it comes to integrity. They want to hold their nose at Rose, Bonds and the like, but at the same time enjoyed reaping the benefits of their contributions.

Baseball was flatlining in the 90s when the infamous steroid era took off and re-captivated the imagination of fans. Former commissioner Bud Selig is in the hall of fame himself off the backs or ‘roided out titans launching baseballs into the stratosphere.

How does one square that with a permanent ban for betting, on the basis of integrity? Moreover, how does baseball adhere to that standard when in the wake of the legalization of gambling nationwide, the sport has thrown its full support and marketing behind FanDuel, Draft Kings and other sites that encourage sports gambling?

“Herein lies the problem, and it probably a big part of the problem for Manfred making this decision he made last week,” Dewey said. “I think they're being hypocritical by endorsing gambling, (even though) I don't really think that plays into the Pete Rose situation.”

In the last year, baseball’s biggest star, Shohei Ohtani has been linked to a multi-million dollar gambling scandal (though he has been exonerated personally). Moreover, the amount of money changing hands daily has bred an air of suspicion at every missed call by an umpire or passed ball resulting in a game hitting the “over”.

One cannot help but wonder if Manfred’s bending of the limitations of Rule 21 is not pressured by the game’s financial benefits from gambling enterprises.

Regardless of the reason, it is clear that Manfred’s decision will have one unintended consequence. If baseball’s story is a progression of eras defined by its stars and heroes – as exemplified by its hall of fame inductions (the Dead Ball Era, the Steroid Era, etc) – Manfred and his team have unleashed the gambling era of baseball. And its crowning inductees, most likely, the next time the Classic Baseball Era committee votes in new members, will be the men formerly banned for gambling, Pete Rose and Joe Jackson.