Pete Rose is dead

With a team arguably less talented than the ones that fell short a few years earlier.

 

Is there blue font missing?

I don't think a weak hitting 1B got them there.

 

The interesting part to the Hall of Fame discussion:

This is the year that he would be eligible for a committee ballot, which is normally announced in the next two weeks so something drastic would have to change. The next opportunity to put him on a ballot would be 2027

 

this part:
Does the catch he made in Game Six 1980 when the ball popped out of Boone's glove count in that article?

That play is the crux of Rose’s time in Philadelphia.

He was a below average hitter in 1980. His fielding was poor. If you look at the overall team stats, the Phillies during the regular season, weren’t that good. It was basically Carlton and Schmidt carrying the team. Marty Bystrom and Tug McGraw were the September spark that pushed them into the playoffs.

But then came the WS and game six. Who else but Rose makes that play? Who else but Rose ends all of the playoff frustrations. To legions of Phillies fans, that was the magic of Pete Rose.

Now, if you ask Bob Boone…he has a much different look at the play.

 

This as good a place as any to share one of the more odd offseason decisions in MLB history that never happened because everyone realized it was bad and fixed it.

The Phillies needed a second basemen in the 1978 season. It was a black hole offensively in 1978 for them, and apparently management wasn’t high on Jim Morrison to break on through to the majors.

What the Phillies wanted was Pete Rose because he was a winner and would help them get to the series.

Pete Rose was second basemen turned corner outfielder turned third basemen at that point and one hell of a hitter.

What’s the solution?

Put Rose at first. Move Hebner (who had a very good year offensively in 1979 and had a better ops than rose) to third. Schmidt went to second.

What happened next is hard to say what is the real story. One version has it Schmidt was hurting his arm making the throw to second. Another is that Hebner was such a downgrade defensively at third, it was ridiculous to move Schmidt. A third was this was all a smoke screen as the Phillies shopped in secret for a second basemen, which of course became Manny Trillo. Who BTW had a higher OPS in 1980 than Rose.

 

If they have Hall of Fame careers and aren't in the Hall of Fame because of choices they made, that's their own fault.

 

What is the criteria for "choices they made?"

Racist? No problem. Woman beater? No problem. Tax cheat (Duke Snider)? No problem

Hell, Cobb and Tris Speaker were implicated in game-fixing schemes.

That's the problem when you don't just look at what happened on the field. Hundreds of voters, all with different views of morality, are letting moral views cloud their judgment. Don't like staggering drunks? Then you're not letting in Paul Waner, Hack Wilson or Grover Cleveland Alexander.

 

Do you think there aren't guys who used PEDs in the Hall of Fame? Where is the line?

 

But you aren't grasping the key point there. This isn't about them. This is about the Hall of Fame, and the fact that it isn't what it could be.

 

Was there a sign in every big league clubhouse that read "No Drinking"?

And the upstate tourist attraction everyone takes so seriously gets to decide its own rules for inclusion.

 

Right. And there are, logic would suggest, plenty of others who gambled, but just weren't as dumb about how they went about it as Rose. And now we have the holier-than-thou sanctimonious set which believes nothing, least of all an activity that is now pretty much legal for everyone, is forgivable and baseball is some divine world that nobody can ever smudge. So people like Rose, Shoeless Joe, all the roiders and even Albert Belle can't get in the hall of fame, which would better be described as the Hall of Dudes a Bunch of Dorks who Vote Liked.