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Originally Posted by Rainger99
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There was evidence that Rose placed bets involving the Reds both when he was their player-manager, and also later when he was their manager. Though I don't know if there is any evidence that he bet AGAINST the Reds, or engaged in any overt actions as a player or as a manager that could be construed to make a score closer or to actually have the Reds lose a ball game, he DID admit that he'd consider it.
"Janszen (Paul Janszen, a friend of Rose's who ran bets for Rose) claimed Rose said he would consider throwing a game if a large enough bet was placed on it, and said he'd check with managers before games to ask about the health of opposing players before placing bets on their teams." ("Pete Rose's gambling scandal, explained: Why MLB's hits king is banned for betting on baseball", Edward Sutelan, The Sporting News, 10/1/24). Add to that the fact that there is evidence that Rose's gambling amounts were close to or possibly even in excess of his salary: He never earned more than $1 million dollars in one year, either as a player or manager, and during one three-month stretch of time (can't remember the year) his losses totalled over $450,000.
Rose's accomplishments puts him the the same league as Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson, Ty Cobb, and Henry Aaron. Nevertheless the harm that a player could conceivably do to the game by gambling on their sport, particularly as Rose knew full well that what he was doing was totally forbidden, outweighs anything else.
Banning him was the right decision. Sad as that may be.