Welcome to the Shawn Mackey show. We are well, we're not deep into scandals, but started out talking about the top major league, well, the top baseball players of the 20th century. And we kind of diverted into the steroid scandal. And then we thought, hey, let's keep going with some scandals. We hit you with a couple of scandals early.

in Major League Baseball on the last episode. And if you're going to talk about Major League Baseball scandals, you have to talk about the scandal involving this next guy. It's a two for because he also comes in at number 25 on our top 100 baseball players of the 20th century.

Now this is a dude I remember seeing and watching play later in his career when I was about 10 years old. And I mean, the dude looked old as hell back then, but we know him as Charlie Hustle Peter Edward Rose Senior.

He comes in at number 25 on this list and his statistics would have allowed him to qualify for this list at four different positions. The dude played the game like nobody else played the game. I don't think we've seen anybody play the game in today's baseball.

the way Pete Rose played the game. So he played most of his life for the Cincinnati Reds in the 70s, and came up with that Big Red Machine. Their dominance in the National League in the 70s is well documented. Then he also plays for the Philadelphia Phillies, that's where he wins his third World Series championship.

So not only does Pete Rose lead all of baseball still to this day, I believe in hits, and I don't know if we'll ever see anybody break that record yet. So I don't even, I'm not even certain who is in second on that list.

To be honest, if numbers two through 10 are retired guys, we might not see that record being broken ever. So Pete Rose has like 4,256 hits or something like that. Yeah. And then number two on the list is Ty Cobb, then Hank Aaron, Stan Musial, Tris Speaker, another guy who is in the top 100 baseball. Well, I'm sure all these guys are on this list. So there's not a single active player anywhere within...the next 25, we're not gonna see this record being broken ever.

He's a 17 time all star. He makes the all star team at five different positions, second base, left field, right field, third base, first base. The dude is just a monster on the baseball field. His statistics, he ends his career with a .303 batting average. We talked about the 4,256 hits. Doesn't hit a lot of home runs, only hits 160 home runs.

and he bats in 1,314 RBIs, but you could count on this guy. Like one of the best clutch hitters in baseball got his nickname, Charlie Hustle. You'd walk him and he'd sprint to first base, And I don't know if I've ever witnessed it, but I guarantee you at some point during this long ass career, what did he play for like 63 to 86?

23-24 years something like that I'm pretty sure He sprinted to first base on a walk or something and saw the pitchers lollygagging or the catcher coming out to talk So guard was down and he just rounded first and took off the second. I know he did. He was very you know high on the IQ list and baseball intelligence so here's a guy who ends his career. He's a player manager, I believe for the Reds, retiring in 86 as a player. Let's see. Did he retire? He retired for the Reds in '86 as a player and he's the manager at the time. 

Here's the scandal. Dude basically gets busted for betting on baseball, In March of 89, he's outed by Sports Illustrated. This is the second time we've discussed in the podcast where Sports Illustrated has outed somebody in regards to a scandal or something,

And it says that he's betting on Major League Baseball games, including the Reds games. My God. So he gets questioned about his gambling activities by Peter Ueberroth. He's the outgoing commissioner at the time of Major League Baseball and A. Bartlett Giamatti, the National League President of Baseball at that time is going to take over as commissioner. And so they get John Dowd.

They retain him to investigate the charges against Pete Rose. And so like this thing is, you know, it's going. It's got some steam. It's moving along the tracks. So, the Dowd report as it's called, they're like, okay, Pete Rose bet on 52 Reds games in 1987.

And he bets like a minimum of $10,000 a day. So he's a player manager. still in baseball. Probably. I don't even know what he would have been making at this time. Is he, did he, did he continue to play in this era where his last contract was, you know, in the million dollar range? I don't know. I haven't really looked at it, but I do know that this whole Pete Rose thing has been hanging over Major League Baseball since 1989 and he just passed away, not too long ago, may he rest in peace, but they, I guess they lifted the ban on him. He was banned for life, for betting on baseball. But the thing is, he knows he's facing some crazy discipline, right? So he and his attorney they're like, hey guys, how are you doing?

And then they go sit down, they talk with everybody at Major League Baseball. And they're like, well, let's see, what can we do, right? So they come to this agreement in August, and this is where Pete Rose, he's like, all right, I'll take the lifetime ban. So he agrees to it. But in essence, Major League Baseball, the part that they agreed to was they're gonna make no finding of fact regarding the gambling allegations and they will stop all their investigations, right? Rose was not gonna, he's not admitting, he's not denying the charges and they actually told Pete that he could reapply for reinstatement after one year. So that happened in 1989.

Pete Rose at that time, he's still a big deal, He's the all time hits leader in baseball. He, he leads baseball in a whole bunch of other statistics and categories. He's like the third active or the third player in Major League Baseball to have a hit streak at 44 games. And he's like the last player to hit safely in 40 or more consecutive games. 

That's insane. He retires in 86. Think of that. Nobody since 1986 has hit safely in 44 games in more than 40 games. 

Giamatti comes in as commissioner and right off the bat he just throws Pete under the bus and he goes out on public record and he's like, yeah, I believe he bet on baseball games. Absolutely. No doubt about it. So we already know that Pete Rose doesn't have a fan in good old Bart Giamatti, right? And then,

Unfortunately, may he also rest in peace. A week later, Giamatti dies of a heart attack. So now baseball doesn't have a commissioner at this moment. Pete Rose doesn't have a friend in the commissioner's office at all. Baseball, because of Bart Giamatti's death, they appoint Fay Vincent as the new commissioner. And Fay Vincent's a big time friend of Bart Giamatti so Pete Rose still doesn't have an ally in that office. So the thing is that this is another instance where Major League Baseball, they kind of went to the Hall of Fame committee.

It was one of these deals where it was also like he's banned from baseball which means he's banned from the Hall of Fame now. The ban I guess was essentially lifted recently because of his passing. So does that mean the Hall of Fame is gonna go ahead and Put Pete Rose in there right I don't know. It's anybody's guess at this point so Eventually

We all know Bud Selig, he used to own the Milwaukee Brewers. He took over as commissioner of baseball in 1992 and Rose had already applied for reinstatement twice and it's a no-go both times. He applied in 1997, he applied in 2003.

and both times it's a no go,

He's not back in baseball. Bud Selig, who decides not to act on either of them, keeps the ban intact. And then Selig retires from baseball and Rob Manfred takes over and he denies the request, absolutely denies it about a year later.

Pete Rose's ban from baseball was essentially extended to the baseball hall of fame. Okay. The 12 members of the board of directors at the time voted unanimously to bar Rose from the ballot. They did allow him to be part of the all century team.

His celebration in 1999 since he was named one of the team's outfielders. So there we are. I mean, he's one of the top 100 baseball players of all time. Major League Baseball throws him a bone. They let them basically participate in that celebration. And so that was OK. But we continue to hear about Pete Rose on and off.

for the next 30 some odd years until his passing, right? So you can't really look at Major League Baseball scandals without looking at Pete Rose. And for, and I, it's hard, don't know. I remember watching this guy play and I'm gonna tell you what, man, if you could put a team together of nine Pete Roses,

With that desire and that hustle, you're gonna go places. And that's what I'm saying. The way baseball for me has kind of gotten with the salaries and the full-time year-round commitment, I think there's a lot of egos at play here. And I think a lot of guys are too big for their britches. And I'm not saying everybody, there are plenty of players in Major League Baseball that are humble and they know they're playing a kid's game and they're getting paid millions of dollars to do it. mean, essentially for anybody who makes it, unless you've absolutely dedicated your life to this, and yes, and look, don't get me wrong. When you're playing...

And you're coming up and you're like the best kid in T ball and then you're the best kid in coach pitch or whatever. And everybody's like, this guy's got to be on a better competitive team. And then you start taking the lessons and you start working out and then your parents are going on the travel circuit. Believe me, I understand. I've done it. I've done it with my daughter. So that's yes, you've absolutely committed your life to it. 

Until recently the women didn't have a pro league for softball now they do so that's awesome and then you you guys you kids you know you've dedicated your life but you also grew up and you had the baseball side of it but then hopefully and your parents who are doing everything for you so that you could chase the baseball dream instilled in you that sense like you still got your education maybe baseball

doesn't take you to the pros right away, but you can use it to get a college education and you have that career to fall back on. You have that extra life. There are some people who come from other countries who end up making it in baseball and that's literally they don't have the opportunities with the education. And so they just work their ass off honing their baseball skills. The only way that they know how and they make it and those ones Yes, absolutely dedicated to their life. 

I think Pete Rose was humble. I mean, I know he was cocky. Yeah. And he would tell you what he felt and thought. But I think at the same time, you know, he honored the unwritten rules. He hustled and he played the game the way it was supposed to be. And now in this, this could end up being a whole nother show. But we're getting to this point where we're seeing the younger generation of baseball players coming up and we know

Life has changed all around us. So we're starting to see this. Damn it. Hell, I was going to go somewhere and now I'm just totally completely lost. And where we're going with these. the unwritten rules of baseball. Holy crap. You know, there's still some older generational guys who may be connected to the game, and kind of believe in those things. It's that whole you brush back our superstar, we're going to brush back your superstar. 

You hit you hit our guy. We're going to hit your guy type deal. But then there's also a lot of players and managers who don't really believe in that anymore. And they're like, that's bullshit. We got this bullfucking game that has evolved, you know. And hey, I get it. I understand. It's not an issue I've ever really dove deeply into. Where's it dived deeply into?

Well, that's what happens when you don't spend any more time in the English classroom after 20 years being away from teaching or so. No, 2019, so it's only six years. But I digress. Either way.

We don't baseball isn't the same game and Pete Rose is a throwback to the old-time baseball players We will never see anybody break probably any of the records Pete Rose holds I Don't know guys aren't playing 24 25 years anymore

Some of them are able to make it that long, but I feel with the grueling nature of the game as it is today, it takes its toll early for a lot of these guys. So I don't think you're gonna see people play long enough to break his records. Now, you've got a guy like Randy, what's his name? Randy Arozerena And then, there's that other guy. There's one other guy I'm trying to think of.

I mean, there's a couple of guys now in Major League Baseball. seems like they're just, they just constantly hit. They're just hitting .300 all the damn time. You know, it's amazing. Every time they're on TV, you listen to the announcers and everybody's fawning over them. If that holds up for them for their entire career, then maybe we see some guys get these type of hits and break some of Pete Rose's records.

But I think those guys are a few and far between. And I don't know if we'll ever see it in our lifetime. Pete Rose was just a different kind of ballplayer. So I don't know if.

The current baseball hall of fame decides to put Pete Rose in there. Maybe he doesn't need it. He is gone now. Again, may he rest in peace, but.

Everybody who's a fan of baseball is probably a fan of Pete Rose. And you might not have liked him when he was playing against your team. If he was on your team, you were a fan of the Reds and the Phillies. That might be a different story. after his departure from baseball.

If you're a fan of baseball, you have to understand, appreciate and respect what Pete Rose did for baseball purely in a baseball sense. I know he did some things of course with the gambling situation. Maybe some of you are thinking like, well, what you just said, what he got convicted.

Well, he wasn't convicted. They stopped their investigation, right? He agreed to the lifetime ban. Sure. We all know he bet again. He didn't come up in that time where they made a lot of money. Maybe he didn't make a lot of money, even managing the Reds. Maybe that's the reason why he was a player manager. He still wanted to play the game, but he felt like, fuck, give me a stipend. Give me an extra five grand and I'll manage too. Right. And I'll do a better job of anybody we've had here recently.

So maybe he has to make money. Maybe that's his way of trying to make extra money is gambling. Fucking gamble on football or basketball, bro. Not baseball, not the Reds, not the team you play for. So now you got a lot of the fans who don't respect you in that sense, who were fans of the Reds, who think that maybe you threw some fucking games so you could try to make a buck. So, you know, I get the whole situation. I don't know where people stand on Pete Rose.

I was a fan of baseball growing up. I liked the way he played the game. I do say, I would have to say I hated him every time he played against the Cubs, you know? I guarantee if I looked up statistically lifetime what Pete Rose did against the Chicago Cubs, I bet the numbers are just freaking astronomical. And I've never even looked it up. But I'd be willing to bet.

that he treated every team like it was his little child, you know?

That's Pete Rose. That's where we went this week on the Shawn Mackey show. That's our scandal.

Peace.