I bailed on NPR for sports radio as soon as Hilary bowed out, John McCain meandered from state to state, and George Bush's last and excruciatingly long days in office were limping to its shitty conclusion, very much like our last days of being a prosperous nation were, too. I was going to see how far my $10 would take Obama. I felt confident with my bet.
The morning show I listen to announced that the NL West will cede victory to the Dodgers. Though it's early May, the baseball season is now over in their division.
Then by afternoon today, the story broke everywhere that Manny Ramirez is suspended for 50 games due to the use of performance-enhancing drugs, or as he calls it, "His Medication". For people who don't quite get baseball--and I'll admit I can see where you're coming from, because I don't get golf or tennis or curling--they still knew this was history: the first time a ballplayer on possible track to the hall of fame medically confirmed to have used drugs (HCG). Clemens, Bonds, A-Rod were all accused of this. Supposing they were juicing or not, they weren't administered a test prior to a game and failed.
I'm not writing this to go over the implications, whether Manny will or won't go into the hall of fame, whether the Dodgers will win the pennant, whether he should be banned form baseball, yada yada yada. All I'm trying to say is, why the hell is Pete Rose not in the hall of fame? Why?
Seriously, Manny is sidelined 50 games for wittingly or not taking HCG, but Pete Rose places a bet on his team that they'll win--win, not lose--and he's banished from baseball, wiped clean from the books?
When we were kids in the sandlot, we'd always say we bet that you couldn't hit it over the fence. We bet you can't beat him in a race. We bet you can't beat Mike Tyson in a fight. We bet the Cubs are going to let you down this year. And these were all good bets, real good bets. Pete Rose bet on his team to win regular season games. There are 162 of them. Being a manager of any National League team is a saintly gesture enough not to pick up some kind of vice to keep his attention.
Also, he didn't tell his guys to throw the series like the Black Sox, so he can make a little on the side. If the league is saying, "If you cheat to improve your game, you get slapped with suspension, a long one, but you'll be back by July," it can't deny Pete Rose his rightful place in Cooperstown as one of the greatest ballplayers of all time.
That's all I got for today. Pete Rose should go to the hall of fame. Oh, and so should Shoeless Joe and Buck Weaver. Buck Weaver, of course, in light of John Cusack's stirring portrayal in Eight Men Out, as this movie is the only history I'll accept of the 1919 Black Sox.
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Pete exemplified "hustle," something that no one would ever accuse Manny of. You don't have to like Pete as a person and I sure don't, yet when he was on the field, nobody gave more of himself for his team, this side of Ozzy Smith or Joe Morgan.
ReplyDeleteTy Cobb was a rat bastard and a racist off the field, but he's in The Hall. Baseball cannot tarnish its name anymore than it has and the owners openly wanted these guys juiced after the 1994 strike. To say that the owners had no idea these guys were injecting themselves while historically having spies in the clubhouse for over a century, smackes of the worst hypocrisy of all.