1989
Pete Rose Booted From Baseball
On this day in 1989, as punishment for betting
on baseball, Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose accepts a settlement that
includes a lifetime ban from the game. A heated debate continues to rage as to
whether Rose, a former player who remains the game’s all-time hits leader,
should be given a second chance.
Although gambling on a sport you play or coach
is now considered unacceptable in nearly all levels of sport, it was relatively
common among those connected with baseball in the early 20th century. Some of
baseball’s most talented and well-known players, such as “Turkey” Mike Donlin
and Hal Chase, as well as manager John McGraw, who publicly won $400 dollars
when his New York Giants won the World Series in 1905, were often suspected of
gambling on their own games. Chase was considered a dangerous man to have on a
team because of his willingness to make extra money by dropping fly balls or
misplaying first base. This all changed, however, after the White Sox
purposefully lost the World Series in 1919 for a payoff from gambler Arnold
Rothstein. Outraged, a group of baseball’s faithful–including American League
Commissioner Ban Johnson, former player and manager Christy Matthewson and
White Sox owner Charles Comiskey, among others–made it a priority to clean up
the game and repair its reputation. Kenesaw Mountain Landis, a former federal
judge, was hired as Major League Baseball’s first commissioner to crack down on
corruption.
One of Landis’ first moves was to ban eight
White Sox players found to be involved in the World Series betting scandal from
the game for life, including Chase and “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, one of the
greatest players in baseball history. Major League Baseball Rule 21(d) now
states that a player faces a ban of one year for betting on any baseball game,
and a lifetime ban for betting on his own team. In addition, signs posted
prominently in every clubhouse remind players that gambling is not permitted.
It was known in baseball circles since the
1970s that Pete Rose had a gambling problem. Although at first he bet only on
horse races and football games, allegations surfaced in early 1989 that Rose
was not only betting on baseball, but on his own team. Major League Baseball
Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti began an inquiry, and hired Washington lawyer
John Dowd to head the investigation. Dowd compiled hundreds of hours of
testimony from numerous sources that detailed Rose’s history of gambling on
baseball while serving as the manager of the Cincinnati Reds, including betting
on his own team.
Although Rose continued to proclaim his
innocence, he was eventually persuaded to accept a settlement that included a
lifetime ban from the game. At a subsequent press conference, Giamatti
characterized Rose’s acceptance of the ban as a no-contest plea to the charges
against him.
In 2004, after years of repeated denials, Rose
published My Prison Without Bars, in which he finally confessed to
gambling on the Reds, though he added that had always bet on the Reds to win.
Because of the lifetime ban, Rose cannot work in Major League Baseball and,
despite his stellar playing career, he is not eligible for the Hall of Fame.