“I am not asking for anyone to feel sorry for me. I am only asking that Topps and MLB not compound my punishment by deleting the truth of what I achieved.”
“Please believe me, I have suffered very much for what I did, but I need to respond when what I did fair and square in baseball is taken away from me too. That is neither fair nor honest.”
There is nitpicking, there is pettiness, and there is Major League Baseball policy, which is in a category by itself. There’s no other way to explain my reaction to what I just read.
TOPPS Baseball Cards, of which I have tens of thousands, banned Pete Rose from its 2013 set. Topps not only won’t have Rose’s picture on any cards, but also won’t put his name on the back in a feature called “Career Chase,’’ where a current player is listed to how close he is to the all-time record. Since Rose has the record with 4,256 hits – his name won’t be found.
Rose was banned from baseball for gambling on the sport, including on his own team, and because Topps has the exclusive right to produce MLB-licensed cards, Rose is ineligible to be listed. According to the letter of the contract, Topps is within its right to omit Rose, but this comes off as petty and vindictive by both the card maker and MLB.
“I never gave less than 100% as a player, and I worked hard for every hit and every record I accomplished. I ask that Topps/MLB recognize that my records were honestly earned and that that my punishment not go beyond what Commissioner Bart Giamatti directed.”
The object of the game is to hit the ball, and nobody did it more than Rose. It’s like when Stalin had his opponents’ names and pictures stricken from the Russian history books. Stalin had them killed and names erased, but it doesn’t alter the fact they existed. MLB and Topps can’t issue an edict on Rose otherwise.
Rose exists and excelled at his game. In the process, he generated millions of dollars in ticket sales, memorabilia and souvenirs for MLB. If MLB wants to ban Rose from holding a baseball job I have no problems with that. However, banning Rose from all things baseball is petty and cruel spirited.
The Hall of Fame is a baseball museum, and despite its strong ties with MLB, it is still a museum. History is not neat and clean, it is messy and tumultuous, and its characters not always emblematic of the best human stock. The Hall of Fame is loaded with those who drank, cheated on their spouses, were racists who never wanted Jackie Robinson in the game, and even murdered.
What will they do next? Eliminate Ty Cobb, spit-baller Gaylord Perry or how about strike all the names and numbers prior to 1947, the year of Robinson’s debut?
What Rose did was wrong, but enough is enough. Baseball is nothing without its history, and much of the lure is in its numbers and records. Rose has the career hit record and probably always will.
That can’t be stricken or denied by MLB regardless of what it does. Instead of being vindictive, MLB should honor its history and embrace Rose and his record.
If nothing else, put a notation on his Hall of Fame plaque saying he was banned because of his gambling. That’s a truthful recognition of history and we should expect nothing less from the sport whose essence is its history.
