Reply #25: There's a world of difference between steroids and gambling. [View All]

[jobycom]

Steroids are just another type of cheating, like scuffing the ball or corking the bat. It's always been part of the game. How do we know Ruth wasn't cheating somehow--corked bat, stolen signs, who knows? Hell, even Pete Rose admitted using barbs when he played, so he did use player-enhancing drugs. Cheating was around in 1919, and before, and ever since, and there were no lifetime bans for it.

Gambling isn't cheating. Gambling is fixing the game. It turns baseball into pro-wrestling, where no one believes what they are watching. Baseball cannot exist with gambling. The Black Sox threw the World Series because of gambling. If you think Barry Bonds is on steroids, you still can watch the game. You might be angry, but there's still a game going on, and you still don't know how the game is going to turn out. When gambling gets into a sport, it's no longer a sport. Would you watch baseball if you knew the World Series was pre-determined, that your team had already won or lost, not based on how they play or the luck of the game, but on decisions made in alleys and behind pool halls? That the whole game, the whole season, was just a performance to make some gambler richer?

This isn't an issue from 1919, and every sport has absolute, iron-clad rules on gambling. We saw the NBA take a big hit because of a referee recently, we see points shaving issues in college every couple of years. The official in the NBA threatened to bring the whole sport down, because suddenly all the angry fans who were saying "The refs took the game away" had evidence to back their complaints, and the whole sport looked questionable.

Steroids bring a lot of personal records into question, just as sandpaper taped to a pitcher's glove does, but it doesn't call the whole sport into question. Cheating has always happened, and will always happen. Tom House, a pitching coach and a pitcher during the 70s, has testified that many players were doing steroids in the 70s, and that at every era of the game players have been doing everything they could to gain an edge, even if it was considered cheating. And that's the difference--they are trying to get an edge to win, or outperform, the other person. There's still a sport going on. With gambling, you never know if the player or team you are watching is trying to win or trying to lose.

People will watch a steroid-bulked player in the World Series or the Super Bowl, but if they think the World Series or Super Bowl is already decided, they won't watch it. And that's why gambling is a lifetime ban, and should be, and why Pete Rose should never be in the Hall of Fame.

As for Giamatti doing anything questionable, there's no evidence of that, and only Pete Rose's contradictory claims to even suggest it. Rose accepted a lifetime ban, and according the rules was allowed to apply for reinstatement every year. Reinstatement was never promised him, he's just such a half-wit he thought they would make an exception for him. This guy has lied about gambling and whether he bet on Reds games, and probably even whether he bet against the Reds. He bet on a third of the games he managed in 1987, and he's been caught in so many lies--and honestly just seems so deluded at times one thinks he might believe some of his lies--that I have no belief, none at all, that he didn't bet against his team. He's shown how much of a sleeze he is, he bet on his own team, much evidence suggests he bet against his team, and he's never once shown any type of integrity to suggest he wouldn't rig a game to get out of gambling troubles--or just to win a few bucks, even.

Giamatti did the right thing. The evidence was overwhelming, and Rose's constant protests were all proven false. Giamatti didn't do anything sleezy, Rose just used his death to try to find a new way to cheat the system. He gambled on games he managed, he bet on his team to lose, he played on barbituates (by his own admission), and he was caught in so many lies he makes Bush look almost honest. The Hall of Fame doesn't need his stench. (Oh yeah, and I met him once, and he was a real asshole).

You don't want Selig to give a young pitcher who threw a perfect game the perfect game that everyone agrees he pitched even though he did absolutely nothing wrong and was not at fault in any way for that game being taken away from him, because it would alter the rules, but you want Rose to be admitted to the Hall of Fame even though he willfully and repeatedly broke the one sacred rule of the game repeatedly while constantly lying to investigators about it? Rose knew the consequences every time he placed a bet, he just thought he was so much smarter and better than the world that the world wouldn't dare hold him to those standards. He has slandered a dead man to try to gain some edge to escape the consequences of his actions. And you want the rules to be ignored for him, but not for the innocent pitcher who did everything right? I don't get that. Rose is the George W Bush of baseball. If they EVER let him into the Hall, even after his death, I'll never watch a game again.