TOPPS disses Rose

[westofyou]

Originally Posted by WMR

WOY, do you think Pete will be a posthumous induction into the HoF? Really want your insight.

I sometimes think that he'll get in that way, after watching the writers use their power against almost anyone who played in the 90's I have my doubts.

After watching some of Pete's reality show I'm certain that he'll be dead before they let him speak about being inducted. In short maybe some day but the man is a train wreck when it comes to having a camera shoved in his face and the words "hall of fame" uttered. His best bet would to drop out of site in any way that doesn't have to do with baseball.

One note:

Everyone always mentions (and mostly Pete) that his "fans" want him in.

While that is true the fact is that if you are 35 years old or younger than you likely have a small memory to no memory of Pete the player.

One day his fans will be gone, one day the writers will be gone, one day though the only lingering memory some might have him is as a older ex player willing to sign anything with one hand while his other arm is draped around a big busted asian woman who is silently counting his daily take.

[RedsBaron]

Originally Posted by westofyou

One note:

Everyone always mentions (and mostly Pete) that his "fans" want him in.

While that is true the fact is that if you are 35 years old or younger than you likely have a small memory to no memory of Pete the player.

One day his fans will be gone, one day the writers will be gone, one day though the only lingering memory some might have him is as a older ex player willing to sign anything with one hand while his other arm is draped around a big busted asian woman who is silently counting his daily take.

There is probably a great amount of truth in that note.
I am also reminded of something Bill James wrote about Shoeless Joe Jackson years ago. James basically wrote that Jackson's permanent suspension and ineligiblity to be inducted into the Hall of Fame was keeping his memory alive, and there is truth in that as well.
Tris Speaker was a contemporary of Jackson and arguably a better all around player, but the casual fan, to say nothing of the non-baseball fan, probably knows nothing about Speaker. Meanwhile Jackson is a central character in classic baseball movies and even non-fans know who he was.
Pete Rose was not the greatest player of his era but he may very well now be the best remembered. It may very well be that Pete's rather tasteless present day personal conduct will also be forgotten and all that will be remembered is that "Charlie Hustle" was forever banned despte all of his on field accomplishments, making a mythic tragic figure.

Full disclosure: While I stand by the arguments I made in the above post, the comment I recalled that James made about Jackson was actually a comment he made about Enos Slaughter in his original Historical Baseball Abstract published nearly 30 years ago. James noted how the long debate about whether or not Slaughter should be in the Hall of Fame had kept his memory alive, and that, having recently been finally inducted, Slaughter might then become forgotten.

[RANDY IN INDY]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports...ecord/1931235/

[Sea Ray]

Originally Posted by RANDY IN INDY

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports...ecord/1931235/

I'm no Pete apologist but I agree with him here

[LoganBuck]

Yawn. Sorry Pete, you shouldn't have been a lying, profiteering, attention seeking, jerk for 15 years, then only admitting what you did for a payday. No sympathy.

If he had said to Jim Gray, at the All Century Team fiasco "I have made mistakes in my past that harmed the game of baseball, and my fans, and for that I am truly sorry. Today we are here to celebrate the last century of this great game, and I don't want to take away from that."

He would probably be back in. Instead we got this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4fmEbgKeh0

[RANDY IN INDY]

None of that changes a thing that he accomplished on the diamond.

[Always Red]

Originally Posted by RANDY IN INDY

None of that changes a thing that he accomplished on the diamond.

No it doesn't.

And those who were lucky enough to see him play will always remember Pete in a different light. Yes, Pete brought it all on himself, and nearly everything said above about him is true. He was my boyhood hero, plain and simple. Local boy who did good. Really good. Of course, when I became a man, I learned to not make heros of sports figures, and especially not Pete.

Maybe it's because of Roses obtuseness (ok, Shawshank Redemption is one of my very favorite movies), but I often find myself wondering why all of the other tragic figures in America can be forgiven and redeemed except for Pete Rose?

Rose remains easy to bash, make sport of, and make an example of, and so he remains this comic figure. Writers routinely bash Rose when they want feel holier than thou, in my opinion. Lance Armstrong is twice the villain, to my own line of thinking, with his own PED usage and then the 10 years of physical and legal bullying that followed. I'd be willing to bet that all is forgotten and forgiven with Armstrong within 5 years. Armstrong is a different man, much more intelligent and sophisticated than Pete. He will learn to say all the right things at the proper time. Pete did learn, but far, far too late. Pete has never been, and never will be confused for a smart man. He has always thought he was far smarter than he is, and has never been willing to take the advise of others.

Rose was a walking time bomb from the minute he first made the Reds in 1963. Hutch knew it and the FO knew it too. They tried to help him, educate him, refine him and guide him. Rose chose his own counsel.

I see Rose as a tragic figure. Not in a way that anyone would feel sorry for him. I know I don't. And I've never been mad at Rose once, not a single time. He didn't do anything to me or the Reds at all. He got caught doing the one thing posted on the wall not to do, the system worked and he paid the price. But in a sad way. He's so ashamed that he could never live in his hometown again.

I don't understand the venom for Rose, in general or here on this thread. I'm not stupid, I can see what he did was wrong. But he is not OJ Simpson, or Lance Armstrong or even Barry Bonds. He gambled on games he was directly involved in. He got caught doing it. He lied about it for years. He was banished for life. He confessed. Case closed. I have no argument with any of it.

I do think he will someday be in the HoF, long after he dies. Elected by the Veterans Committee, of his peers, if and when he ever becomes eligible.

Or not. It doesn't matter to me, one way or the other. I'll always have those memories of Pete Rose from my childhood. He was so big on the west side of town back in the early 70's that we actually had a framed picture of him in uniform on a table in our living room. Grandma didn't like Pete though, she thought there was something not quite right about him....

[George Anderson]

The whole subject of Pete Rose just really makes my head hurt.

[Red in Chicago]

Sadly, I think Pete's fate was set once Bart passed away.