The Pete Rose and Decline of Major League Baseball
18 years after accepting a lifetime ban from Baseball - yet denying any wrongdoing for most of that time - Pete Rose finally admitted to betting on the Reds "every night"
( http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/6570162 )
Give the guy credit at least. He never gives up! Boy, he held out 18 years. He must be on some sort of slow disclosure schedule. Wonder what we'll find out on his deathbed. That should be good. Anyway, the point is I'm sure he was betting all that time because he just 'wuved his wittle weds so wevy wevy much.' I mean the guy was just so darn passionate about winning that he bet money on the chance the Reds would win every single night. After viewing his managerial record, I guess that's not a terrible bet - the Reds won 52.5% of the games Charlie Hustle helmed - not a bad betting percentage over the long haul, which I'm sure Good ole' Charlie knew a long time ago. Sure did Hustle, didn't he?
Nowadays he can be found camping outside Cooperstown selling signed balls.
Maybe we should just go ahead and let him back in. Forget about respecting the game. Forget about dignity. Forget about adhering to the last wishes of a dying man (That man would be Bart Giamatti - who, by the way, is the father of Oscar Nominated actor Paul Giammati. And if you haven't seen Sideways {or if you saw it awhile back and found it overrated} I recommend checking it out. It's quite good. That Alexander Payne sure knows what he's doing.)
Bart Giamatti: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._Bartlett_Giamatti
Sideways: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375063/
Anyhow, yeah. We should just reinstate Pete Rose now. It's gonna happen anyway eventually, right? It all happens in the end. Just look at naming rights on stadiums. No more Comisky Park, or Candlestick Stadium. Now it's all Gillette and Enron or whatever. As a Mets fan I was actually holding out, but yeah, welcome to CitiField in 2009.
So let's let Rose back in. And go ahead and let in Mark McGwire into the Hall while we're at it. That juicehead. That coward. No, Senators, he's not here to "talk about the past." Yeah, well then what were you there to talk about, Mark? How your retirement's going? Catching many fish these days, buddy? Whatta jackass.
Oh, and then there's Sammy Sosa. How well do you think he's gonna do this year? I'm willing to bet a paycheck (the phrase Tom Glavine used convincing Mets rookie Phillip Humber how Humber was sure to help the team in some way this year - nice, right? My paycheck ain't as hefty as Tommy G's, but it's still a nice sentiment) - So I'll bet a paycheck that the following things will happen:
1. Slammin Sammy will have a major physical breakdown cutting his season short only...
2. after he starts the season slowly, never getting his BA over .220 and he will...
3. disappear and we won't hear from him again till his 5 year waiting period is over and his Hall vote comes up. (which, now that I mention it, is probably a good idea for this "comeback" in the first place. He probably figures - or at least his handlers have told him - that in five years from now all this sterioid hoopla will have come and gone and a guy with 588 HRs is a definite Hall of Famer. Well, guess what Sammy? I'll still be here! And I'll remember! You broke my heart, pal**. Me and millions of other kids who lived and died with that great homerun chase of 1998.
So any takers on the bet? Rose, whattaya say? Come on, Chucky, it's a lock!
**I remember it well. I had an internship with a Communications Company up in Buffalo, NY - okay, I wasn't exactly a "kid", so what. The weird there was this secretary there telling me how she was rooting for McGwire over Sosa because it wouldn't be right if a 'spaniard' broke Maris's record. I didn't quite have the heart to tell the prejudiced pig to eat her words and ask her just who the hell she thought she was assuming I was as racist as her (and not to mention that Sosa was from the DR, not Spain) but I let it slide, because the homerun chase gave me and this ignoramus something to talk about - it created a bond between us that we'll always have. That's what sports do. That's what baseball does. So what if they were cheating? So what if kids all over the country are starting to use steriods now like it's smoking freakin pot. So what if we're saying, "it's okay to cheat -as long as you make the most money for everyone involved" Let em all in, I say! Just make sure you turn off the lights on your way out - of Hewlett Packard Park, or whatever the hell they're calling it now.
On the other hand, no one's let Shoeless Joe, or any of those other cheaters from the 1919 'black sox' scandal, so maybe there is hope.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
thanks
MaWa
"I'd walk through hell in a gasoline suit to play baseball." Pete Rose
( http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/6570162 )
Give the guy credit at least. He never gives up! Boy, he held out 18 years. He must be on some sort of slow disclosure schedule. Wonder what we'll find out on his deathbed. That should be good. Anyway, the point is I'm sure he was betting all that time because he just 'wuved his wittle weds so wevy wevy much.' I mean the guy was just so darn passionate about winning that he bet money on the chance the Reds would win every single night. After viewing his managerial record, I guess that's not a terrible bet - the Reds won 52.5% of the games Charlie Hustle helmed - not a bad betting percentage over the long haul, which I'm sure Good ole' Charlie knew a long time ago. Sure did Hustle, didn't he?
Nowadays he can be found camping outside Cooperstown selling signed balls.
Maybe we should just go ahead and let him back in. Forget about respecting the game. Forget about dignity. Forget about adhering to the last wishes of a dying man (That man would be Bart Giamatti - who, by the way, is the father of Oscar Nominated actor Paul Giammati. And if you haven't seen Sideways {or if you saw it awhile back and found it overrated} I recommend checking it out. It's quite good. That Alexander Payne sure knows what he's doing.)
Bart Giamatti: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._Bartlett_Giamatti
Sideways: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375063/
Anyhow, yeah. We should just reinstate Pete Rose now. It's gonna happen anyway eventually, right? It all happens in the end. Just look at naming rights on stadiums. No more Comisky Park, or Candlestick Stadium. Now it's all Gillette and Enron or whatever. As a Mets fan I was actually holding out, but yeah, welcome to CitiField in 2009.
So let's let Rose back in. And go ahead and let in Mark McGwire into the Hall while we're at it. That juicehead. That coward. No, Senators, he's not here to "talk about the past." Yeah, well then what were you there to talk about, Mark? How your retirement's going? Catching many fish these days, buddy? Whatta jackass.
Oh, and then there's Sammy Sosa. How well do you think he's gonna do this year? I'm willing to bet a paycheck (the phrase Tom Glavine used convincing Mets rookie Phillip Humber how Humber was sure to help the team in some way this year - nice, right? My paycheck ain't as hefty as Tommy G's, but it's still a nice sentiment) - So I'll bet a paycheck that the following things will happen:
1. Slammin Sammy will have a major physical breakdown cutting his season short only...
2. after he starts the season slowly, never getting his BA over .220 and he will...
3. disappear and we won't hear from him again till his 5 year waiting period is over and his Hall vote comes up. (which, now that I mention it, is probably a good idea for this "comeback" in the first place. He probably figures - or at least his handlers have told him - that in five years from now all this sterioid hoopla will have come and gone and a guy with 588 HRs is a definite Hall of Famer. Well, guess what Sammy? I'll still be here! And I'll remember! You broke my heart, pal**. Me and millions of other kids who lived and died with that great homerun chase of 1998.
So any takers on the bet? Rose, whattaya say? Come on, Chucky, it's a lock!
**I remember it well. I had an internship with a Communications Company up in Buffalo, NY - okay, I wasn't exactly a "kid", so what. The weird there was this secretary there telling me how she was rooting for McGwire over Sosa because it wouldn't be right if a 'spaniard' broke Maris's record. I didn't quite have the heart to tell the prejudiced pig to eat her words and ask her just who the hell she thought she was assuming I was as racist as her (and not to mention that Sosa was from the DR, not Spain) but I let it slide, because the homerun chase gave me and this ignoramus something to talk about - it created a bond between us that we'll always have. That's what sports do. That's what baseball does. So what if they were cheating? So what if kids all over the country are starting to use steriods now like it's smoking freakin pot. So what if we're saying, "it's okay to cheat -as long as you make the most money for everyone involved" Let em all in, I say! Just make sure you turn off the lights on your way out - of Hewlett Packard Park, or whatever the hell they're calling it now.
On the other hand, no one's let Shoeless Joe, or any of those other cheaters from the 1919 'black sox' scandal, so maybe there is hope.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
thanks
MaWa
"I'd walk through hell in a gasoline suit to play baseball." Pete Rose
posted by mathias at 4:47 PM
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