Baseball’s hit king Pete Rose passed away at the age of 83.
His legendary career has been surrounded by controversy.
And Bob Costas dropped one fact about Pete Rose that had sportswriters up in arms.
Send Pete Rose to the Baseball Hall of Fame
Baseball legend Pete Rose will go down as one of the greatest players in the sport’s history.
He became the all-time leader for hits in Major League Baseball (MLB) with 4,256 career hits.
Rose won three World Series titles and starred on the Cincinnati Reds during the “Big Red Machine” era of the 1970s with greats like Hall of Famers Johnny Bench and Joe Morgan.
His death reignited the controversy over whether Rose should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Rose was banned from MLB for life for gambling on games while he was the manager of the Reds.
In 1991, the Hall of Fame passed a rule banning players on the permanently ineligible list from enshrinement.
Rose fought to get reinstated to baseball but was never successful.
Memorabilia from his career is displayed at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, but MLB wouldn’t allow him to get his plaque.
Veteran sports broadcaster Bob Costas said that it was time to put Pete Rose in the Hall of Fame during an appearance on ESPN’s Get Up.
“So, 1991 is exactly when Pete Rose would have become eligible, right on the cusp of being eligible — retired as a player for five years, last played in 1986,” Costas said. “Right on the cusp of his being eligible, they put that [rule] in. It was obviously aimed at Pete Rose; and from that day forward and to today, my position and the position of millions of others is, ‘Yeah, we get it.’”
Costas admitted that he committed the “cardinal sin” of betting on baseball and that he should have been banned for life.
“But somebody got those 4,256 base hits and those three batting championships,” Costas explained. “Put him in the Hall of Fame. Put it at the bottom of his plaque, ‘Banned from baseball [in] 1989 for life.’ It’s part of the record, but he should be in as a player.”
Pete Rose still generates passion among fans
Costas told host Mike Greenberg that the controversy over Rose and the Hall of Fame still elicits passion from sports fans.
“And, as you know, Greeny, if you have a slow day on a talk show, and you just say, ‘Hey, folks, should Pete Rose be in the Hall of Fame?’ The phones light up,” Costas said. “All those decades after he last played, he remains a central figure in the minds of baseball fans — including baseball fans who never saw him play.”
Costas said that MLB has to separate the player from the person.
“Justice is one thing,” Costas stated. “Justice can be tempered by mercy. No one is nominating, even in death, Pete Rose for citizen of the year; but it’s cruel and unusual punishment that the game he loved — and the game he gave so much to and is so much a part of its history — turned its back on him in the case of the Hall of Fame.”
Pete Rose got in trouble for actions he took after his playing days were done.
The Hall of Fame isn’t a memorial of good deeds, but it’s a celebration of what players did on the diamond.
Pete Rose was baseball for decades and deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.
