The Major League Baseball Eras Committee for the Classic Baseball Era will meet in December 2027 to discuss players who were overlooked when they were eligible to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. The late Pete Rose will likely be discussed, since he is now off the Major League Baseball ineligible list.
Rose passed away on Sept. 30, 2024, at the age of 83. Nicknamed Charlie Hustle, he was relentless and unyielding on the baseball diamond, known for running to first base on walks. Anyone who saw him play in his prime with the Cincinnati Reds remembers his tenacity, whether it was beating out a throw for a hit or snagging a ground ball for an out.
This passion translated into statistics that no other player can imagine achieving.
Rose played in at least 150 games for 17 seasons, with 700 or more plate appearances in 15 of them. He amassed 4,256 hits, with 200 or more hits in 10 seasons. He scored 100 or more runs in 10 seasons and had more walks than strikeouts in his career, an uncommon feat. He was a 17-time all-star and amassed 20 awards during his career, including being named the 1963 National League Rookie of the Year and the 1973 National League Most Valuable Player. Rose was part of the Big Red Machine that won six divisional titles and two World Series.
Statistics like these are unquestionably Hall of Fame-worthy.
Yet as most people know, Rose had a penchant for gambling — in particular, gambling on baseball games. This led baseball commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti to enter into an agreement in which Rose would accept a lifetime ban from baseball, and baseball would no longer pursue any actions against him. Giamatti died unexpectedly on Sept. 1, 1989, just one week after the agreement was signed. No one knows how a short delay in Rose accepting the terms of the agreement would have played out. No baseball commissioner ever since offered to overturn the ban, until now.
Ironically, over the past 35 years since the ban, sports gambling has become legal in more than three-quarters of the states, following the Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling that the previous federal ban on sports gambling was unconstitutional. Numerous players have been caught in the sports gambling fray. By the standards of 2024, Rose’s escapades would have been pedestrian. Yet in the 1970s, there was no internet, no smartphones and no electronic betting. Rose’s escapades were likely done with bookies who knew all too well whose money they were handling, and perhaps the ramifications for them.
Compulsive gambling is a disease, according to the National Council on Problem Gambling. It bears many similarities to alcoholism, except the drug of choice is not alcohol but wagering.
Every compulsive gambler is addicted to their bets. Rose was likely no exception. If he could have tempered his gambling, staying away from betting on baseball, he would have. Yet his addiction drove him to take risks, much like the risks he took on the playing field that made him one of the greatest baseball players of all time.
If Rose had not bet on baseball, he never would have agreed to the lifetime ban proposed by Giamatti. He knew that he was on thin ice, and he accepted the consequences.
The ban served one purpose. It never gave Rose the accolades he would have garnered as an inductee into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Now that he has passed, however, his induction would serve two purposes.
First, it would recognize his accomplishments posthumously, which are massive. Whether he gambled or not, he still achieved performance statistics that will almost certainly never be matched. These statistics alone qualify him for a plaque in Cooperstown.
Second, he will not enjoy the pleasure of being honored during the induction ceremony. However, what he achieved will be. Because of his gambling, Rose will never enjoy the stage of being inducted, yet his gambling cannot diminish what he accomplished. Moreover, his induction would not soften the message that sports gambling is serious, and there are consequences.
Much like how sports writers who vote for players to get into the Hall of Fame have penalized those caught taking performance enhancing drugs, keeping them away from Cooperstown, gamblers are likely to suffer a similar fate. Yet these drugs show up in performance statistics, while gambling does not, drawing a clear distinction between the two.
The Eras Committee for the Classic Baseball Era should begin discussing Rose’s situation — and perhaps “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, who is also now eligible — so that when they next meet in 2027, their statistics and situations will be adequately vetted. Even the Contemporary Baseball Era Managers-Executives-Umpires Ballot could add Rose to its agenda in 2026, given that he managed the Reds over six seasons.
A baseball player with statistics like the ones Rose amassed deserves a place in the Baseball Hall of Fame. He did wrong, and it rightly cost him the honor while he was alive. He is now gone, and eligible. What he accomplished on the diamond should now be recognized and honored.
Sheldon H. Jacobson, Ph.D., is a computer science professor in the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. A data scientist, he uses his expertise in risk-based analytics to address problems in public policy.