It’s crazy to think about Rose’s situation from the perspective of the time period. The fear over the black Sox scandal must have been way more significant to people at the time. When I think of Pete rose I think the gambling is not that bad but I don’t feel the same fear that his generation understood. Makes it make more sense
The problem isn't just that Rose bet on baseball. He bet on games that he was managing a team in. There's no time, past, present, or future, and no sport, college, pros, or whatever, where a person in his position isn't going to have some very grave consequences for engaging in that kind of behavior. Plus, we have to remember that when questioned by MLB, he lied his ass off. He only came clean when he was confronted with undeniable evidence. Again, I have no sympathy for Pete Rose whereas I do for Shoeless Joe, a man who hit .375 in a World Series he supposedly helped fix.
Anyone in here remember Rick Neuheisel, former football HC at UW, and the gambling scandal that cost him his job? He wasn't really gambling, at least not what I think of as gambling where you bet on a horse or a team to win, give odds, point spreads, etc. It was a March Madness basketball pool, almost like a lottery, and a sport that he had no involvement in whatsoever. It's not just baseball and it's not just people from 100 years ago that had such harsh sentiments towards gambling.
One of the things that has changed about gambling is that it's mostly legal and the underworld is no longer an active influence in mainstream gambling like it was 50+ years ago, which is one of the reasons why I'm OK with the decision to reinstate Rose, Jackson, et al.
