ESPN (“Pete Rose, ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson among players reinstated by MLB“):
In a historic, sweeping decision, baseball commissioner Rob Manfred on Tuesday removed Pete Rose, “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and other deceased players from Major League Baseball’s permanently ineligible list.
The all-time hit king and Jackson — both longtime baseball pariahs stained by gambling, seen by MLB as the game’s mortal sin — are now eligible for election into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
Manfred ruled that MLB’s punishment of banned individuals ends upon their deaths.
“Obviously, a person no longer with us cannot represent a threat to the integrity of the game,” Manfred wrote in a letter to attorney Jeffrey M. Lenkov, who petitioned for Rose’s removal from the list Jan. 8. “Moreover, it is hard to conceive of a penalty that has more deterrent effect than one that lasts a lifetime with no reprieve. Therefore, I have concluded that permanent ineligibility ends upon the passing of the disciplined individual, and Mr. Rose will be removed from the permanently ineligible list.”
Manfred’s decision ends the ban that Rose accepted from then-commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti in August 1989, following an MLB investigation that determined the 17-time All-Star had bet on games while managing the Cincinnati Reds.
Jackson and seven other Chicago White Sox were banned from playing professional baseball in 1921 by MLB’s first commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, for fixing the 1919 World Series.
Based on current rules for players who last played more than 15 years ago, it appears the earliest Rose and Jackson could be enshrined is summer 2028 if they are elected.
Manfred’s ruling removes a total of 16 deceased players and one deceased owner from MLB’s banned list, a group that includes Jackson’s teammates, ace pitcher Eddie Cicotte and third baseman George “Buck” Weaver. The so-called “Black Sox Scandal” is one of the darkest chapters in baseball history, the subject of books and the 1988 film, “Eight Men Out.”
I don’t have a strong view on whether Rose or Jackson should be in the Hall, and have essentially no view on the others involved in the Black Sox Scandal. They’re both undeniably great players who tarnished the game with their gambling. That Jackson took money to throw a World Series and nonetheless played extremely well does not mitigate the damage in my view; it just makes him doubly dishonorable. That Rose repeatedly demonstrated post-ban that he was just an awful human being does not help.
By and large, I tend to think that what happened on the field happened on the field. I’ve always found it bizarre, for example, when the NCAA tries to pretend that games that happened years ago didn’t happen because some transgression was found to have occurred.
I tend to think that visitors to Cooperstown who come to celebrate and learn about the game’s history should probably learn about the greatest players’ accomplishments on the field. That they cheated in some fashion should be part of the display.
While there’s something to be said for a morality clause that keeps those who have committed gross violations from being honored, it’s a slippery slope. Do we remove known racists, wife beaters, and the like from sports halls? Or do we limit the punishment to those who violated the existing rules of the game? And do we rescind the punishment when those rules change after the fact, as is the case with so many once-egregious acts in college sports?
