A Rose Not in Bloom

The Hall of Fame. Truly it is the final stop for any athlete who dominated his sport for years and it is the final recognition that you were one of the best and your legacy is cemented. It seems as if there has been a great deal of talk these past few months about the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. And this past weekend, I couldn’t help but be drawn into a story on ESPN about Pete Rose. It has been 20 years since Commissioner Bart Giamatti banned Rose for life due to his betting on baseball. It is my opinion that even though Pete Rose has generally been a buffoon in all this, he still deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.

Without question, Pete Rose was one of the greatest baseball players of all time. To this day, he is still baseball’s all-time hit king and the mark may never be broken. Pete Rose was Charlie Hustle. He gave it his all on the field and he played with reckless abandon and passion. Unfortunately for Pete though, he also took that passion and applied it to sports gambling. I don’t need to retell Rose’s story of betting on games while he was managing the Reds. He screwed up and received a lifetime ban from MLB and he is still paying the price to this day. To me however, it seems wrong to not have Rose in the Hall of Fame based on his on field accomplishments.

It is my opinion that Pete Rose never did anything on the baseball field as a player that jeopardized the integrity of the game. In fact, the way Rose played is how every player should strive to play the game. His accomplishments deserve to be recognized in the Hall. Now Rose is no saint, but the Hall of Fame is not meant to be for people you nominate for Sainthood. I understand that Rose compromised the game with his betting and he screwed up by lying about the whole ordeal for so long. But again, none of this has to do with what he did as a player for all those years.

Rose’s good friends Joe Morgan and Mike Schmidt feel that Pete has suffered enough. I tend to agree. Murderers and rapists get less time in jail for their actions. Now I am not naïve here thinking that is a straight up comparison, but Rose has basically been in jail for 20 years in baseball terms and at this point, I think time has been served.

However, former MLB Commissioner (and deputy commissioner at the time of Rose’s ban) Fay Vincent said in the ESPN piece that it is not about whether Rose has suffered enough. He claimed that again, the integrity of the game needed to be upheld and he said something to the effect of, we need to show that what Rose did will not be treated lightly as an example to future players. Really? So let me get this straight. Is Joe Schmo out there going to decide that he wants to bet on baseball and take the risk and if he gets caught, he will just chill out for 20 years and be able to come back? Are you telling me some young player wants to throw away their playing career and then assume he can come back when he is 45 and maybe manage? Come on, let’s be serious. No one is going to choose to go down that road because they think Pete Rose got a “light” sentence.

Now make no mistake, I don’t particularly have any love for Pete Rose and I certainly do not condone his gambling or his lying for all those years. Like everyone, Rose obviously has his flaws and faults and he should not just expect to be shown mercy or given chance after chance, especially when he will not help himself. But again the fact remains, Rose never compromised the game as a player and his on field performance is deserving of a spot in the Hall of Fame.

After seeing the story and reading a few articles though, it seems Rose will never get his induction day. Truly, it seems like the ship has sailed and Pete will have to live out his days in baseball exile. I truly hope that if MLB is determined to stick to their guns, then they do make it stick forever. I think it would be pretty disgraceful if they put the man in after he dies. In theory, it would be Rose’s lifetime and he would be eligible again right? That may sound cold, but I think it would be cold on MLB’s part to do something like that. Who knows what will happen, but it is just another sad tale in the great American pastime.

I, for one, have grown weary of all the steroid talk and the leaking of names from the infamous “survey testing” back in 2003. This also continues to be a sad tale when it comes to the Steroid Era. And in talking about the Hall of Fame, I think it will be sad that some other players get held out of the Hall. Let’s take baseball’s all-time home run king Barry Bonds. Sure, everyone knows he was on the juice. But if you look back on his career, you can argue that he was a lock for the Hall of Fame before he started with performance enhancers. I believe he had around 400 homers, along with multiple gold gloves and all-star appearances. He would have made the Hall without steroids. Alex Rodriguez could be in the same boat. Even before 2003, the guy was cruising toward 500 homers and was considered one of the best all-around players in the game. Now, the taint of steroids might keep him out. Add Roger Clemens to the list. He will take it to the grave that he never did anything, but the evidence seems to be there. And before he would have ever used PEDs, he was worth of induction.

I am not trying to give these guys a pass for stupid actions, but it is what it is and I still believe these players proved enough when there was no steroid cloud over them. To me, it just becomes sad how great players can ruin their legacies. This is all just my opinion though and I have no problem with baseball purists out there who would NEVER give these guys consideration because of steroids. I just think that they clearly proved they were the best of their era before the “steroid portion” of their careers. If you do cast these players aside, history may tell us that Ken Griffey, Jr., Frank Thomas, and Jim Thome were the best sluggers of this era. If injuries didn’t get to Griffey, I believe he would easily be challenging Bonds’ home run record. And with every cloud there is a silver lining and his name is Albert Pujols. He may end up being the very best of all and surpass all of these guys when he is done.

So those are my thoughts of the day. Like your parents teach you, it is best to own up to your mistakes and not lie about them. Unfortunately for Pete Rose, it seems like he didn’t learn that lesson and instead, he has to remain in exile and he will most likely never get his day in the Hall of Fame sun. Sadly, he looks like he might not be alone.

The Game’s Quick Hits

ECW Thoughts: I thought that last night’s ECW was a decent show, but nothing to write home about. The best parts of the show were the beginning and the end, which conveniently featured ECW Champion Christian and William Regal. As expected, the feud between these two will continue after Regal pinned Christian in the main event match (with a little help from Vladimir Kozlov) to earn a future Championship match. The opening promo between the two was very good and the match had some solid wrestling and action, so kudos to the WWE on that one. The middle portion of the show was pretty pedestrian with nothing that exciting happening. I was happy that Abraham Washington did not grace my screen this week and I wish I could have said the same about Tyler Reks. Unless Washington has some great wrestling ability, the guy is a waste. I don’t think he is that great on the mic and his delivery is too whacked in my opinion. And Reks’ bland surfer dude persona just does nothing for me. Unless he really starts to pull off some moves in the ring, he just will remain boring and not get over with the audience.

- P Billy Wagner was traded from the Mets to the Red Sox for 2 players to be named later just under the final deadline after Wagner decided to “throw caution to the wind” and waive his no-trade clause. Well I guess at this point, Boston will take any help that they can get even though I think they need more help on the offensive side of things. As I have already said, the Yankees should cruise to the AL East title and Boston will have to fight for the Wild Card spot. It will be interesting to see what Wagner has left and he probably made a smart decision to get the hell away from the Mets and go to pitch in a pennant race. He is only 11 months removed from Tommy John surgery and he can only pitch every few days, but he did hit 96 mph on the gun recently. Intriguing indeed…

- Speaking of the Mets, P Johan Santana is now out for the season after opting for surgery to clear out bone chips in his left elbow. Damn, the Mets are cursed by the injury bug this season. This was a smart move to shut him down and get it fixed before something more serious happens to the guy. This is just a lost season for the Mets and they can only hope their ace pitcher recovers for next season. Probably won’t help though and they will still choke it up next year!

- Time for your daily dose of Michael Vick news…as expected, Eagles coach Andy Reid confirmed that Vick will play in Thursday’s preseason game. Reid says that Vick looks good in practice and he wants to see how he will respond to the speed of the game after 2 years away. Well now that it is confirmed, it should be an absolute show in Philly come Thursday night. I expect Vick to look decent and not embarrass himself, but I would be shocked to see some game breaking, jaw dropping play. On the animal rights front, the meeting between Eagles officials and local animal rights groups seems to have gone well. Of course these groups are still skeptical and they are “demanding” the Eagles donate a match of Vick’s salary to local charities. Ahhh, got to love that try at extortion LOL. Like I said before, these groups should be happy to try and work for solutions. They don’t need to “hug” Vick and become his best friend, but they should not be so critical when people want to reach out and try to help.

- Roger Federer and Dinara Safina were named the #1 seeds for the 2009 U.S. Open which begins Monday. American Andy Roddick was seeded #5, while Serena Williams and Venus Williams were #2 and #3 respectively. Roger looks to be in fine form and deserving of the seeding, but someone needs to look at these women’s rankings because Safina continues to get pounded at the Grand Slam tournaments. How she is STILL ahead of Venus and Serena is beyond me. I always like checking out the Grand Slam tennis tournaments so I am hoping for some good and compelling matches.

- Quick notes from the NFL injury front…Bills WR Terrell Owens will miss this Saturday’s preseason game against Pittsburgh, while Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger will be back in action after reportedly coming back to practice and showing no ill effects from his foot injury last week. At this point, Buffalo needs to hope that Owens can be ready for the regular season because this toe injury seems like it was fairly serious. And I guess the Ravens and the rest of the AFC North catch no break with Big Ben *sigh* LOL