Rose finally gets his due

Major League Baseball officially lifted its ban of Pete Rose, among others, for their involvement in gambling infractions from their playing days. The ban now makes these players eligible for the Hall of Fame and other league-related honors.

This was a long time coming and an obvious move to make. You simply can’t have your all-time hits leader out of the Hall because he bet on himself. You just can’t.

Don’t get me wrong, allowing professional athletes to gamble on their respective sports is a slippery slope. I am not advocating for it to be legalized or common practice. However, Rose has more than paid for it. He’s one of the greatest players to ever do it and he did it the right way, despite making the boneheaded decision to gamble.

If we want to really get controversial, I am totally for steroid users to be allowed in the Hall as well. Well, let me amend that take a bit. Players that succeeded during the steroid era of the late 80’s into the early 2000’s. Modern day users should not be allowed in.

Reason being, for about 20 years, steroid use ran rampant throughout the sport. There wasn’t a clubhouse that wasn’t littered with users and that was why offenses surged in the 90’s. Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, all of these sluggers should be allowed in as well as Roger Clemens, who I believe is the best pitcher of all time.

There are just too many greats to ignore during that era, and what people seem to forget is that they battled each other. Steroid users versus steroid users.

I am glad that the league cracked down on it and has seemed to have made it out on the other side in a good place. Modern day players are not nearly as reliant on performance enhancing drugs as they were 20 or so years ago. It’d be impossible to narrow the cut-off down to a single year, but I really do feel that players from that era deserve to be inducted. It was one of the most thrilling eras in the history of the sport. 

Admittedly, I am a bit biased as that was the era in which I grew up. A-Rod was my guy until he donned the pinstripes. 

Let’s get back to Rose.

Unfortunately, he passed away last September at 83 years old so he will not be present for when his name is inevitably called. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred announced the news and essentially said that the decision was made now that Rose has passed and to have lifted the ban while he was alive would have gone against previous commissioners. I am not a fan of the sentiment.

No one is perfect, and things evolve over time. I would understand not wanting to rock the boat if this was 30 years ago, shortly after Rose was banned in 1989, but for years people have been calling for the ban to be lifted. For Manfred to admit openly that the decision was made due to Rose’s passing is tone deaf, to be frank.

Baseball has the richest history of any North American sport. The actual gameplay is fascinating and the culture in the dugout and clubhouse is something that everyone should experience whether it is in Little League or beyond. Baseball is America’s Pastime, no doubt.

Having said that, though, there are still far too many crunchy pencil pushers running the MLB. The latest generation of players has been a breath of fresh air. These kids are maybe a little snooty, a little more entitled, but they also have a ton of fun and are elite athletes. Baseball has never been this athletic.

The older generations that are running the league front offices have not caught up yet and are still, in many respects, stuck in the overly formal, dry, monotonous mindset that helped plummet TV ratings and viewer interest. With the emergence of some new stars, guys like Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Paul Skenes, we are finally seeing things turn back around. Let’s hope that this news is a sign of the times changing in the league and the commissioner fully embracing a new outlook.