BASEBALL NOTES : Rose Fallout May Result in Hall Boycott

The recommendation to keep Pete Rose off the Hall of Fame ballot may result in a voting boycott by the baseball writers.

“I personally, as long as this kangaroo court decision is in place, will not mail in a Hall of Fame ballot -- nor will a number of baseball writers that I have already polled including Paul Hagan from my paper,” said columnist Bill Conlin of the Philadelphia Daily News. “They can go out and get the agents to vote for it, they can get the talking heads to vote for it, they can get ESPN’s SportsCenter to vote for it. I think they will have a hard time getting a group whose past credentials to conduct this kind of election match the writers.”

The Baseball Writers Association of America has voted on election to the Hall of Fame since the first election in 1936 -- from Walter Johnson to Gaylord Perry.

An official action regarding the decision by the special executive committee on Thursday will probably not come until the next scheduled BBWAA meeting in July during the All-Star break.

“I’m not surprised and I’m not happy,” said Kit Steier of the Oakland Tribune and president of the BBWAA. “What I propose to do in the next couple of weeks will be to get in touch with all the chapter chairmen of the association and see what action, if any, anyone wants to take. I’m sure that the membership will have some reaction to it.”

Steier was asked if the BBWAA might boycott future elections. “I think there’s that possibility, yes,” he said.

“The committee did what we all expected it to recommend,” said columnist Tim Sullivan of the Cincinnati Enquirer. “The only question I had is whether the committee would have the nerve to take on the mighty Baseball Writers Association of America and all the wrath it’s certain to produce over the next few weeks. I think there are many steps in this drama, the first of which is what our response as an organization would be.”

By a vote of 7-3, the committee recommended to the Hall of Fame board of directors that any player on baseball’s permanent ineligible list not be allowed to appear on the ballot. The board of directors is scheduled to meet in New York on Feb. 4 and it is expected to adopt the recommendation. In that case, Rose’s name will not appear on the ballot until he is reinstated by the commissioner.

“What bothers me the most is if he’s put on the ballot, I’m fearful many young writers would take the view it had nothing to do with his playing career, forgetting this thing was established (rules) way, way back because of problems with betting,” said Bill Broeg, a member of the board of directors and columnist with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “If he had been elected, the commissioner wouldn’t show, the National League president wouldn’t show, the American League president wouldn’t show and I had several Hall of Famers come to me and say ‘If Pete Rose is elected I’ll never come again.’ ”

Lee MacPhail, who proposed the change on Thursday, said he understood the concern of the BBWAA. “I’m sympathetic to the writers,” he said. “They’ve done a terrific job.

“In a way, we’re relieving them of that responsibility. They have a screening committee that would have had to come to grips with this problem. Perhaps it’s not fair to put this burden on the writers.”

Some writers have said they will write Rose’s name on the ballot. But even if Rose was written in on 75 percent of the ballots it would not count. In the rules for election to the Hall of Fame, there are no provisions for write-in candidates.

Rose was the 15th individual to be permanently disqualified from baseball. Eight players -- Shoeless Joe Jackson, Swede Risberg, Chick Gandel, Buck Weaver, Ed Cicotte, Lefty Williams, Fred McMullen and Hap Felsch -- were banned in the 1919 Chicago Black Sox scandal. Later, players Gene Paulette, Benny Kauff, Shufflin’ Phil Douglas and Jimmy O’Connell, coach Cozy Dolan and owner Bill Cox were thrown out of the sport.

Rose joined the list when commissioner Bart Giamatti barred him for gambling in August 1989. He would have been eligible for the Hall of Fame in the next election. One of the reasons Rose dropped his court actions and accepted the ban from baseball was to protect his place in the Hall of Fame.

Rod Carew, whose selection to the Hall of Fame was announced on Tuesday, thinks Rose should be there, too.

“I think if Pete is being banned because of probability of doing things that shouldn’t have happened, then I think you have to respect the committee,” Carew said. “But for any other reason -- time spent in jail for tax evasion -- you know you just can’t take it away from Pete. He’s Mr. Baseball. The guy has done so much for the game and someplace along the line there has to be some forgiveness. Pete is going to pay the rest of his life.”

Fleeting Fame: The support for Rollie Fingers in this year’s Hall of Fame balloting is bad news for relievers of the past, present and future who have desires for immortality. After all, if baseball’s all-time saves leader doesn’t make it, what other reliever will?