I am delighted that the Cincinnati Reds will retire Pete Rose’s No. 14 and induct him into the team’s Hall of Fame Sunday at Great American Ball Park. It this is as good as it gets for Rose – if he never gets inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. – it’s still should be more than enough to enable him to live out his years in peace and satisfaction.
I think of my friend Ralph Beard.
As the whirling-dervish leader of the University of Kentucky’s immortal “Fabulous Five” teams of 1948 and ’49, Beard played basketball the same way Rose played baseball – all out, all the time. He dove for loose balls, pushed the ball up the floor on fast breaks, and played defense as if he were a Secret Service agent guarding the President.
Rose signs autographs at a Florence Freedom game last season. (Photo by Mark Hansel)
But also like Rose, his reputation was stained by a gambling scandal. In 1952, by then a star in the fledgling National Basketball Association, Beard and two of his former UK teammates, Alex Groza and Dale Barnstable, were arrested and charged with manipulating the final margins of certain games – “point-shaving,” as it was called – during their UK careers.
They were by no means the only culprits. Since many of the suspect games were played in Madison Square Garden, New York District Attorney Frank Hogan cast a wide net that brought in players from Bradley, Long Island University, the City College of New York, and other schools.
The only player who didn’t plead guilty was Bill Spivey, the 7-foot center who starred at UK in the early 1950s. He passed lie-detector tests and was acquitted by a jury on perjury charges. Nevertheless, like Beard and the others, he was barred from the NBA for life and never allowed on the ballot for the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.
Although Beard admitted taking money from gamblers, he swore that he never did anything to rig the final score of a game. He was devastated by his ban from basketball because the sport was his life. Nevertheless, he pulled himself together and led an exemplary life in every respect.
In 1985, when my friends Bill Malone and J. Bruce Miller joined me in leading the effort to get the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame up and running after years of benign neglect, we made sure that Beard was in our first class of inductees. That changed his life, and I’m not exaggerating.
He ended his emotional induction speech by looking upward and saying, “Mom, I finally made it.” It was as if a huge burden had been lifted. He felt loved and respected again. And even though he went to his grave disappointed that Springfield never forgave him, he at least had his Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame plaque to certify his accomplishments.
Much as Rose and Beard may share, there are three fundamental differences in their respective stories.
First, when Beard took a few dollars from gamblers, he needed the money. He was dirt-poor all his life. On the other hand, when Rose bet on baseball games during his years as the Reds’ manager (1984-’89), he was a wealthy man who drove fancy sports cars and traveled with entourage.
Second, Beard was just a kid, barely 20 years old when he graduated from UK in 1950. On the other hand, Rose was in his 40s when he managed the Reds. A mistake by a naïve kid is more forgivable than one made by an adult who knew better.
And third, Beard never lied about taking money from gamblers. On the other hand, Rose lied repeatedly for more than two decades. He only came clean – or, at least, as clean as he can come – until the evidence against him was so overwhelming that he could no longer deny it.
I believe both should be members of their respective sport’s national Hall of Fame. Beard and his teammate Groza were consensus All-Americans on two consecutive NCAA championship teams, and Rose was the leader of the “Big Red Machine” teams that won the World Series back-to-back in 1975 and ’76.
But gambling has been sports’ ultimate sin since the 1919 World Series, when members of the Chicago White Sox – the “Black Sox,” as they came to be known – were found guilty of throwing games to the Reds.
After that earth-shaking revelation, baseball hired Judge Kenesaw “Mountain” Landis to be its commissioner. His job was to make sure that baseball never again had another “Black Sox” scandal, and he did it by imposing a lifetime ban on any player or manager caught gambling on the sport.
That rule was more or less adopted by the NBA and the NFL. What’s unfair about it is that the culprit who admits his guilt, apologizes, and asks forgiveness – as Beard did for many years – is no better off than the culprit who lies and denies, as Rose did for decades. In a society built on second chances, there seems to be something fundamentally wrong about that. Even some murderers and rapists get a second chance.
Although Rose handled his case about as poorly as it could be handled, the public forgave him years ago. The way he played the game seems to trump everything and anything. He was ‘Charley Hustle,” the guy who ran to first base on walks, who slid headfirst into bases, and who broke Ty Cobb’s record for career hits by sheer willpower and perseverance as much as talent.
Pete, #14
He was the media’s best friend. During rain delays, the writers often would congregrate around his locker because they knew he would fill their notebooks no matter whether the topic was the science of hitting, the pennant race, or baseball’s salary structure. Nobody knew the game as well as Pete, and nobody shared that knowledge more generously.
On Sunday, where the stadium is located on Pete Rose Way, he surely will be showered with affection and praise by dignitaries and the public. In his playing days, the swells in the suites and boxes loved him, but he really belonged to the guys in the cheap seats, the blue-collar fans who came from working-class, beer-and-a-shot neighborhoods like the one in which he was grew up.
When it comes time for the ceremony, I hope Pete will truly appreciate the moment and not try to use it to lobby for reinstatement or induction in Cooperstown. Maybe that will come, and maybe it won’t, but Rose at least will have the honor and satisfaction of being honored by the fans who have known him the longest and loved him despite his mistakes.
In other words, I hope his induction into the Reds Hall of Fame means as much to Rose as Ralph Beard’s induction into the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame meant to him. Like Beard, Rose may want more and he may deserve more, but what he will get Sunday should not be dismissed lightly.
It’s an opportunity for closure, of sorts, and for No. 14 to be recognized for his contributions and accomplishments, no strings attached.
