Baseball : Here Is One Hall of Fame Vote That Pete Rose Won’t Get

When the news conference was over, after baseball Commissioner Bart Giamatti declared Pete Rose permanently ineligible, reporters from more than half a dozen publications tapped me and others on the shoulder, asking the same question.

Friends called long distance to ask.

The maid dusted off my word processor and asked.

OK, OK.

I will not vote for Rose’s inclusion in the Hall of Fame--and that hurts.

No one retains more appreciation for Rose’s playing ability and accomplishments. No one more enjoyed sitting in Rose’s clubhouse office and filling a notebook after only one question. No one would like to shrug and dismiss Rose’s conduct in regard to this whole gambling mess more than I.

But there is a responsibility inherent in wearing a major league uniform that goes beyond performance, and Rose, on the basis of the evidence, violated it. Hall of Fame voters are instructed to give players’ “character and integrity” the same consideration as the player’s statistics and team value. There, Rose doesn’t measure up.

True, this isn’t a question of sainthood. There are Hall of Famers who dirtied their morals as well as their uniforms, but at issue is one of baseball’s principal codes. As Dave Parker of the Oakland Athletics said the other day: “From the day you sign your first pro contract, Rule 21 is drilled into you. It’s the Bible.”

Gambling, as noted by Giamatti and apparently pursued by Rose, is indeed a covert act that can affect the integrity and approach of the gambler--be he watching from a living room couch or the dugout at Riverfront Stadium.

Rose denies that he gambled on baseball and the Reds, but an enormous array of evidence suggests that he is blatantly, arrogantly lying.

Indeed, his six-month pattern of delay, contradiction and obfuscation--demonstrated again in his news conference Thursday--has seemed to destroy the sympathy and support most would like to offer.

It’s as if Rose thought he could crash through Giamatti the same way he crashed through an All-Star catcher named Ray Fosse, as if he could outrun the game itself.

So now, Rose will do time without admitting the crime, and the shame is that he could have made it so much easier for himself by conceding from the start that he made mistakes, that he has a problem, that he needs help.

Denial, however, is a symptom of addiction, and there was Rose Thursday, saying he doesn’t have a problem and doesn’t need help, showing no indication that he intends to “reconfigure” his life as Giamatti said is necessary if Rose is to be reinstated.

Sadly, the way I re-figure it, Pete Rose doesn’t deserve to be in the Hall of Fame.

Baseball Rule 21 (d), by which Rose was declared permanently ineligible, is not mentioned specifically in the agreement between Rose and Giamatti. A mention of that specific clause would have represented a formal finding that Rose bet on the Reds. There is only a general reference to Rule 21, which also covers other forms of misconduct.

There has been some confusion on that, as well as Rose’s ability to apply for reinstatement after sitting out a year. That was not a negotiated item but is in accordance with Rule 15 (c).

It is noteworthy that while Rose continues to deny betting on baseball and insists that the agreement does not represent an admission of guilt, Point 4 of the agreement reads in part:

“Peter Edward Rose acknowledges that the commissioner has a factual basis to impose the penalty provided herein . . . “

A final thought: On the day after he became the first pitcher to register 5,000 strikeouts, Nolan Ryan was following a two-hour workout regimen that he pursues daily, except when pitching. He stretches with light weights, swims laps, jogs, tosses a football to unlimber, then tosses a baseball lightly in the outfield.

Both on the day before and the after he was suspended for life, Rose appeared on a cable shopping network, hawking memorabilia.

Seems there’s a lesson in that somewhere.

As the world turns: The sniping hasn’t stopped since George Steinbrenner fired Dallas Green as the New York Yankees’ manager last Friday.

Green has since said that Steinbrenner doesn’t know anything about baseball, that he has surrounded himself with people who steal from him--a shot at Billy Martin, Lou Piniella, Clyde King and General Manager Syd Thrift--and that neither Bucky Dent nor anyone else can win with the Yankees’ current talent.

Steinbrenner responded by saying that Green always finds a way to blame somebody else, that he has no business being critical of people “who have been great Yankees” after he was with the club for only half a year, and that he no longer considers Green a friend.

Piniella, in a statement released through the club and, it is believed, ordered by Steinbrenner, pointed out that Green has another year left on a contract paying him $350,000 a season and said: “He came here with his eyes open, or at least he said he did. It’s time to stop pointing fingers and just go home and enjoy his early and deserved vacation . . . and take the money like the rest of those so-called thieves he alluded to.

“I’ve been here since 1974 as a player, coach, manager and general manager and have a special attachment to the Yankees. . . . Dallas worked hard and was dedicated, no question about that. But the bottom line is wins and losses, and all of us who have managed here have to accept that fact of life.”

Thrift is expected to be the next management figure fired by Steinbrenner. He and Dave Righetti are among five people on Steinbrenner’s latest hit list, according to Friday’s New York Daily News.

The emphasis was on what Frank Viola would mean to the New York Mets when the Minnesota Twins recently traded their Cy Young Award winner. In return, however, the Twins received four young pitchers who figured to help their beleaguered pitching staff.

But until David West beat the Seattle Mariners, 1-0, Saturday night, it hadn’t happened.

Rick Aguilera was winless after five starts, and West, long touted by the Mets as the most promising left-hander in baseball and an untouchable in their many trade talks, had been shelled for 16 earned runs in 8 2/3 innings with the Twins.

Manager Tom Kelly claimed the Mets had allowed West’s mechanics to deteriorate. “I can’t understand how they let him get in this position,” Kelly said. “It’s nothing that can’t be fixed, but we’ve got to get it right so he has a chance.”

If 1-0 is indicative, the Twins seemed to have got it right now.

In Thursday morning’s Atlanta Constitution, Paul Assenmacher, the Braves’ seldom used relief pitcher, was quoted as saying: “If (Manager Russ Nixon) is going to be here next year, it’s time for me to move on. There’s no way I can play for a guy who buries you after one game. I’ve tried to stay quiet and stick it out, thinking I’d be traded.”

Actually, Assenmacher was thinking right. A trade that had been discussed for several days was completed Thursday, with Assenmacher moving to the Chicago Cubs. That allowed Steve Wilson to move out of the Cubs’ bullpen and become the fourth starter in a rotation that has been without a regular one.

Manager Don Zimmer first went to the four-man rotation in early August. The Cubs promptly won 11 of 14 games, with Greg Maddux, Rick Sutcliffe and Mike Bielecki going 11-1.

Then the impact of losing that extra day of rest might have hit. Maddux, Sutcliffe and Bielecki did not get past the seventh inning as the Cubs lost six in a row.

Meanwhile, their fourth starters, Scott Sanderson, Jeff Pico and Joe Kraemer were a combined 0-5 since the switch to a four-man rotation, and the bullpen blew four leads and giving up 19 runs in 21 1/3 innings of the six consecutive losses.

Former Dodger R.J. Reynolds, batting .288 with 18 stolen bases through Thursday, was not appreciative of the trade in which his Pittsburgh Pirates acquired Billy Hatcher from the Houston Astros for Glenn Wilson.

Reynolds figured it will cut into his playing time, although he also figures to survive. “Every year we get a new right fielder,” he said. “Every year that guy comes and that guy goes and I’m still here.”

Hatcher’s arrival permitted the Pirates to drop Barry Bonds from leadoff to fifth in the batting order, satisfying Bonds’ wishes.

“All we’ve been hearing since Bonds got here is how he should bat lower because he drives in runs,” Manager Jim Leyland said. “Well, now we’ll find out.”

Said the San Francisco Giants’ Rick Reuschel, on comparisons to another senior citizen, Nolan Ryan:

“Anybody who talks about me and Nolan in the same vein has mush for brains. The only comparison between me and Nolan is that we’re both in our 40s.”

The Philadelphia Phillies have lost 75 games, but not their sense of humor.

After the Giants’ Ernest Riles hit a ninth-inning grand slam to beat them last Sunday, the Monday night trivia quiz on the Veterans Stadium message board was:

“Who hit the shot heard ‘round the world?

“A--Bobby Thomson

“B--Babe Ruth

“C--Ernest Riles.”