Pete Rose Got Just What He Deserved

Pete Rose got exactly what he had coming to him. No more, no less. Pete Rose was wrong, wrong, wrong.

There are two commandments that must be obeyed at a game of baseball above all others, and every adult or child who wears a uniform must understand what they are. No. 1 is: Never touch an umpire. No. 2 is: Never, never touch an umpire.

I do not care if Dave Pallone poked Pete Rose in the face. Never bump an ump. Never touch him, brush him, jab him, stab him, stick him, kick him, kung fu him or poke him in the eyeballs the way Moe poked Curly. No physical contact. No flesh on flesh.

You can kick dirt on his pants cuffs, as a petulant 5-year-old or Billy Martin might. You can stand jaw to jaw, billowing Copenhagen breath into his face. You can insult his vision, say something bad about his mama, even ask if that’s his stomach in front of him or a baby kangaroo. Take your best shot. Just keep your grubby hands to yourself.

Pete Rose got 30 days. That is no more than he deserved. He’s lucky it wasn’t worse. If Pete Rose had gotten off lightly, been rapped on the wrist with a 5-day suspension or a $5,000 fine, it might not have registered. It might not have hurt.

A 30-day sentence, though, that stings. Guys will think twice from now on about laying a finger on an umpire. Precedent has been set. Next time, it’ll be 60 days. Or a whole season. Or banishment.

Pete Rose pulls anything like this again, he’ll be spending his summers selling station wagons at Marge Schott Chevrolet.

Umpires are so unpopular with the general populace, they get little sympathy. Either they become objects of public contempt--e.g., Don Denkinger after missing a call at the 1986 World Series--or they become comic figures, ridiculed and applauded even when they are struck with a foul ball.

No matter how often professional umpires have demonstrated what superb work they actually do, under considerable stress and under circumstances that require split-second decisions, they are scorned and vilified. It is part of baseball’s big joke, part of the “fun,” part of the tradition.

Let me tell you something, moms and dads, boys and girls. “Kill the umpire” is a phrase that has been around baseball for as long as wooden bats have, and it is the ugliest, nastiest, most reprehensible custom of the game. Maybe the actual words are uttered rarely these days but the attitude still exists. It implies that the umpire is an enemy, rather than a judge, and it is as vile a sentiment as yelling at someone on a skyscraper ledge to jump.

Ever see a riot incited? No, probably not. You go home, game after game, enjoying the gag of having hurled a crumpled beer cup toward the field, or having chimed in on the chanting of an 8-letter word that represents the stuff matadors scrape from their shoes. Well, one of these days or nights, a referee or an umpire is going to blow a call, and all hell is going to break loose. Europe and South America don’t have patents on stadium riots. It can happen here.

When Dave Pallone, hesitatingly, called a New York baserunner safe in a game at Cincinnati, permitting a run to score, Rose did what any typical manager or coach does in these modern times of ours. He threw a tantrum. He moaned and groaned and howled and growled.

Pete Rose is like so many of today’s role models who go out to youth clinics and camps to preach sportsmanship, then go to that night’s game to exercise a total lack of dignity and control.

Pete Rose goes forth to argue with an umpire because that’s the way it’s done. Any manager who does not charge out of the dugout to vent his rage is either too nice for his own good, as Steve Boros and others have been unfairly branded, or does not “go to bat” for his players, which is a total crock.

Sparky Anderson claims he sometimes goes toe to toe with an umpire, shouting in his face, because the players and customers expect it of him, except that occasionally what he is shouting at the umpire is something totally innocuous, something that merely looks angry from a distance.

Pete Rose is no fool. He has been around baseball his whole life. He knows how unruly crowds can get. He knows how sacred an umpire’s status is. If the manager pushes an umpire, then, hell, that umpire must be a monster, and we up here in the stands might as well throw our wienie wrappers and French fry cones at him, right? Our manager would never shove an umpire unless the son of a bee had it coming, right?

No, not right. Pete Rose was wrong as wrong can be, and so is anybody else who dares touch an umpire.

A short suspension of the Cincinnati manager would have made headlines for a day. A monetary fine levied against him would have meant little or nothing, unless it was an absolutely staggering amount, in which case the fans of Cincinnati probably would have taken up a collection, a “Pay Pete’s Fine” campaign in which private citizens donated five bucks apiece to bail out a millionaire.

The action taken by Bart Giamatti, president of the National League, was swift and necessary. It was punishment befitting the crime. It had repercussions, got people to talking, got everybody’s attention.

Sure, other managers came to Pete Rose’s defense, but those same managers will think twice before stepping within 3 feet of an umpire now. No matter how much they have snapped, believe me, they will not experience such a total loss of control that they will dare touch skin.

Pete Rose had time to think twice. He wasn’t that far out to lunch. He had time enough to decide to bump Dave Pallone with his arms. A truly enraged man would have hauled off and belted the other guy with his fist.

Even in his riled state, reacting to the umpire’s accidental poke on the cheek, Pete Rose had enough of his faculties to remember not to strike Dave Pallone. Instead, he gave him one of those ridiculous belly bumps, as we have seen before in other cartoonish arguments between umpires and managers.

Black Bart threw the book at Charlie Hustle. It did not matter if Dave Pallone was as unpopular as any umpire tends to be, or super-unpopular because of his reputation as a union-buster or as a grudge-holder who has feuded with other Cincinnatians. Totally irrelevant.

You obey life’s laws. You never touch a cop if you’re arrested, never strike a superior officer if you’re a soldier, never hit a girl if you’re a guy, never slap a pupil if you’re a teacher, never punch a civilian if you’re a prizefighter, and you never touch an umpire on a playing field except to shake his hand.

Take a seat, Pete. You want to hit something, come out of retirement.