With all the furor surrounding Shohei Ohtani's interpreter and his gambling

Mar 26, 2024, 2:19 PM

issues using Ohtani's money, Pete Rose supposedly just commented, "If I had had an interpreter, I would be home free!"

I have long been a proponent of Rose being banned from the Baseball Hall of Fame, but it just now struck me. NOTHING Rose is banned for occurred during his time as a player. He was still involved in baseball yes, but as a Manager, not a player. So, my stance on this may have changed.

Pete Rose's accomplishments on the baseball field as a player are Hall of Fame, beyond any shadow of a doubt. So, I now say, let him be on the ballot, strictly as a player, with the details of his ban made known once again. Let the writers decide.

This post will indutably bring on discussion about Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and other steroid users getting into the Hall of Fame. My stance on that is still the same, not just no, but HEYALL NO. They cheated the game, using banned substances, or artificially created "Designer Drugs" geared specifically to help them bulk up and inflate their career numbers, in clear violation of the spirit of fair competition, not to mention major league rules which already existed.

There are also those who will argue, in the case of Bonds, specifically, "He was already a Hall of Famer before he started with the steroids." Possible, but do you really trust Barry Bonds to be truthful about when he STARTED taking the steroids? Far as I'm concerned, his word and a dime will buy you exactly ten cents worth of anything. Same with Roger Clemens.

If the Hall wants to start a separate "PED Era Steroid Users" Hall of Fame wing, then have at it, put Bonds, Clemens, Mark McQuire, Sammy Sosa, and all the other known and suspected steroid jockeys like A-Rod in there. But keep them away from the rest of the Hall, FOREVER.

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Re: With all the furor surrounding Shohei Ohtani's interpreter and his gambling

If Pete had come clean on day one...

Re: With all the furor surrounding Shohei Ohtani's interpreter and his gambling

Baseball has always had a split personality when it comes to stuff like

spitballs, scuffing the ball with a nail file, "foreign substances" being applied to the ball, etc.

Just like NASCAR, the attitude about that stuff has been, "If you ain't cheatin', you ain't TRYIN'."

But more organized things like the Houston Astros sign stealing network, gambling, PEDs, etc, are dealt with harshly, and rightly so.

The difference may be that most consider it "up to the umpires" to spot spitballs, scuffed balls, pine tar, and the like, and those are instant repercussion offenses, you're thrown out of the game at the time. The other things are not physically visible except in the case of long term PED use. I call that the "Barry Bonds Exploding Head Size Syndrome." Anybody with even average vision could look at Bonds, Mark MacQuire, and some others and tell they were juicing. Nobody just suddenly naturally grows all those new muscles, especially at the age Bonds and MacQuire did it.

With all the furor surrounding Shohei Ohtani's interpreter and his gambling

Re: With all the furor surrounding Shohei Ohtani's interpreter and his gambling

Re: With all the furor surrounding Shohei Ohtani's interpreter and his gambling

Re: With all the furor surrounding Shohei Ohtani's interpreter and his gambling

Re: With all the furor surrounding Shohei Ohtani's interpreter and his gambling

Re: With all the furor surrounding Shohei Ohtani's interpreter and his gambling

If Pete had come clean on day one...

Re: With all the furor surrounding Shohei Ohtani's interpreter and his gambling

Baseball has always had a split personality when it comes to stuff like

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