Originally posted by: Lepard
Different circumstances for Rose. I do however, agree that he should be in the Hall of Fame. Same with Bonds. McGwire not so much. But, again Bonds was a Hall of Famer before the 2001 season.
Correct me if I am wrong (got this from a friend). Essentially Baseball was going to get taken down as a monopoly by the government because of the gambling and such. Essentially they were told to either take a hard-line anti-gambling stance, or get busted. The owners ran scared because they didn't want to lose the revenue, thus they agreed to become gambling nazis.
Rose came in after that and gambled on other games, ones he couldn't fundamentally change. Thus, his activities were no worse than any normal citizens. However, owners, fearing the government response and busting of their monopoly decided to make an example of Rose, effectively saying that nobody, not even a sure-shot HoF'er was safe.
It wasn't about the sanctity of the game, or the pureness of competition, it was about money and they smacked somebody so they could stay rich.
Now, in the last decade, people want to see HRs, so players juiced, attendance went up, owners were happy and revenue flowed in, thus nobody said anything. They instituted more policies after the hey-day and when the government started warning them again, but not a second before. Now that players are caught, they do nothing, because they still make money off of the "big guns".
While the two events are difference circumstances, one definitely harms the game more than another (especially on the player level, where Rose did nothing that bad, while bonds and such effectively cheated the game). It's a level of hypocracy only rivaled by our government.
