Hey, Pete Rose is back in the news! The beleaguered ex-big leauger appeared with Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann on their radio show yesterday where he slipped in this little nugget:
I bet on the Reds every night.
Wow. that settles it then, doesn't it? He bet on his own team, every night, to win. Therefore, all suspicion of any impropriety should be removed. Except....
What if he bet more money one night (say, when ace Mario Soto was on the mound) than the next night (with Bill Gullickson pitching)? Wouldn't that tip off the bookies and skew the lines, thus implicate Rose in "fixing" the game in some way?
I normally agree with much of what Olbermann says, but on this one I'm a little confused. Baseball has basically one big no-no to which one must adhere: No Betting on Baseball. That's pretty much it, unless you're stupid enough to take a supplement that shows up when MLB tests your urine, you can run wild. Nothing changes the fact that Rose, no matter how contrite he is twenty years after the fact, violated this one rule many, many times.
I think he'll eventually end up in the Hall of Fame, despite all this, as the furor over the transgression will eventually die down. It doesn't mean he belongs there.
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