After sending the world reeling with a fight for the ages inside the White House’s Oval Office with Ukrainian President Zelensky and “The Instigator” JD Vance, Donald Trump managed to latch on to a wholly random and insane topic to take up on Truth Social. While the world wondered if Ukraine was now on its own – or, more likely, that the EU would take full control of the situation in Ukraine, Trump was focused on whether Pete Rose should be admitted to the baseball Hall of Fame despite being dead for years. This is totally on-brand Trump stuff. So much for inflation and world peace.
From his Truth Social account:
“Major League Baseball didn’t have the courage or decency to put the late, great, Pete Rose, also known as ‘Charlie Hustle,’ into the Baseball Hall of fame. Now he is dead, will never experience the thrill of being selected, even though he was a FAR BETTER PLAYER than most of those who made it, and can only be named posthumously. WHAT A SHAME! ”
“Anyway, over the next few weeks I will be signing a complete PARDON of Pete Rose, who shouldn’t have been gambling on baseball, but only bet on HIS TEAM WINNING. He never betted (sic) against himself, or the other team. He had the most hits, by far, in baseball history, and won more games than anyone in sports history. Baseball, which is dying all over the place, should get off its fat, lazy ass, and elect Pete Rose, even though far too late, into the Baseball Hall of Fame!”
Yes, except that he wasn’t supposed to be betting on sports at all, never mind baseball and never mind his own team even if betting to win. Once pro players start getting into a gambling hole, there is only one way to really get back out and that is to start throwing games. Thus it is that every league pretty well makes it against the rules to gamble at all – Michael Jordan excepted.
And baseball, unlike Donald Trump as of yesterday, seems to be doing just fine. It continues to sign players to $500 million dollar deals and make its money on ticket sales and television revenue. It may now be a niche sport in many ways (Compared to the NFL) but it is a money-maker. They banned Pete Rose for life. Yes, he is dead. Yes, I guess they could induct him to the Hall of Fame, but why on earth would Donald Trump want to drag all that out on the night of the weirdest dogfight in Oval Office history?
I know. It would be better than talking to Putin. The big loser yesterday was Putin. Trump was so over the top against Zelensky that it’s a near certainty that the EU will write the Trump administration off and just go all in and dictate terms in the war itself. Putin surely wanted Trump to play it low key and move the ball toward a settlement. That isn’t going to happen. So it does appear that Trump found something to do.
People want relief from inflation. Meanwhile, Trump is trying to shame MLB into putting Pete Rose into the Hall of Fame.
— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes.bsky.social) 2025-03-01T12:56:46.272Z
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Hmm, how do you spell CORRUPTION?!?
T-R-U-M-P, but in Canada and England we add the “U”, so it’s M-U-S-K.
Of course, the most correct spelling of “corruption” is the unique situation of the courts being completely on the take, (at least for a country that used to be part of the “first” world), so the truest variant of the spelling of that word is C-L-A-R-E-N-C-E _T-H-O-M-A-S.
Does this help?
And by the way Jason, the one thing no one has EVER said about Pete is that he bet AGAINST the Reds, or when he was with us, the Expos. And while there’s no one on earth who has more respect for Abe Bartlett Giamatti than me (my friend went to Yale and talked with him often) in the matter of Pete Rose, he was just plain wrong. Pete retired in /86 after 24 years with 67 more hits than Cobb who played 22 years. So if Cobb had played 24 years there’s a good chance he woulda had more hits. But of today’s players, there’s no one even remotely CLOSE to Rose’s 4256 hits. No one even in the same ZIP code. Rose IS the greatest hitter of all time. If that doesn’t warrant him being in the HOF in a place of honour, then NO ONE does! It is Pete’s place – period. (ok, I would accept an asterix.)
And as for Trump yesterday, after the afternoon he had really screwing over Putin (you’re 100% right about that) he needed to get his teensy weensy mind onto something he actually understood. I forgive him for segue-ing to baseball.
Who CARES that Rose has more hits than anyone else or that “there’s no one even remotely CLOSE” to Rose’s numbers? There should be SOME minimum standard of behavior that is absolutely unacceptable in sports when it comes to the Hall of Fame.
Also, there is “Rule 21” and Rose VOLUNTARILY agreed to accept being place on the permanently ineligible list in exchange for MLB’s NOT making any final report on Rose’s betting. I’d be curious as to what Rose was afraid at the time might be made public. Sounds almost like a kind of plea bargain a criminal accepts to get a lesser sentence rather than risk the death penalty. And, Rose finally ADMITTED (“confessed” might be a better word?) in his autobiography that he DID bet (a clear violation of “Rule 21”). So, if you’re willing to “overlook” that inconvenient truth, then why not just go all the way and endorse Trump and everything he’s done? Either the rules apply to all or they don’t. Trump believes the rules don’t apply to him and you’re basically saying, “Well, Pete was such a good ball player, the rule against betting shouldn’t matter.”
Sorry but no. Rose’s career batting average was .303 vs. Cobb’s .367. Neither was a home run hitter but Cobb played in the ‘dead ball’ era so his slight lead on that metric would have been increased otherwise. It should also be noted that Rose’s production fell off notably in his final years. Because of his name recognition and ticket sales (love him or hate him he sold tickets) he got to keep playing and it was well known he only got to keep doing so because he wanted to beat Cobb out for number of hits. Ownership was afraid of backlash over moving on to a more productive player. When you look at the whole picture what really jumps out is the WAR (wins against replacement) value between the two. ALL the data for both entered into the system shows Cobb with a number almost DOUBLE that of Rose!
I won’t deny that Rose had a great career. Or that assholes have been voted into the HOF. However Rose richly deserved his lifetime ban. He brought great shame on the game and as I’ve noted even his having the most number of hits is a suspect stat. If you don’t believe me when it comes to comparing the two then check this out:
https://stathead.com/baseball/vs/ty-cobb-vs-pete-rose
Dimwit Donny.
Making the world safe for corruption.
Even posthumously.