Somewhere along the way, I lost my interest in baseball. It started coming back when I was in my early 30s, and that was after Pete Rose accepted a lifetime ban from Major League Baseball for gambling. And when the players went on strike in 1994, that was it for me. They came off the strike the next year and and I went on strike as a fan and have been on strike since. (This is coming from someone who still refuses to rent from Hertz, due to their previous association with OJ Simpson. And I have no idea why people say I'm stubborn.) But let's get this back to Pete Rose.
There is no doubt he was one of the greatest baseball players of all time. I remember him running to first base when he drew a walk. From what I have read he adopted a derisive nickname and made it his own. There was never a Charlie Hustle before and there will never be another one.
When the gambling allegations surfaced, I'm thinking..........say it ain't so, Pete. The investigation went on for many months, and I read that Rule 21, prohibiting gambling from the players, was conspicuously posted on the door of every clubhouse. In other words, Pete Rose had no excuse. Gambling problem? Yeah, we learned he had one. But it went deeper than that. There was tax evasion and shady behavior on his part. The man who I saw run to first base upon drawing a walk was doing a different kind of hustling off the field. I was disappointed, and I agreed with the ban.
For some time, I thought MLB was going to cave, and reinstate him. To their credit, they haven't. In my opinion MLB isn't exactly an honest enterprise and a large part of that is due to continued fan support, which I've touched upon in a few posts from many years back.
Anyway........someone who became as controversial as OJ Simpson, but in a different way, is no longer with us.
I hope that anyone he was ever a role model to will restrict their emulation to passionate execution in what they do for a living, and not in what Rose did off the field.
No comments:
Post a Comment