If the Hall of Fame truly wanted to show they were independent from MLB, they never would have changed their rules years ago right after Rose was banned and made him ineligible for the ballot. Since that's now their rule, it wouldn't make sense to keep him ineligible from being on a future ballot.

Being banned from baseball-related activities is perfectly reasonable.

Being banned from the museum about baseball history never made any sense whatsoever.

People like Jackson and Rose should have been in immediately, but their plaques should have described their time in baseball -- the good and the bad -- and let the fans/museum patrons decide how they feel about it.

I still don't think Rose is likely to be elected. As the documentary on him showed, he really doesn't have very many friends in baseball. The voters have kept Bonds, Schilling and A-rod out. I don't feel like Rose had a better relationship with baseball than they did.

May depend on who is voting.

I don’t know what voters think or who will be voting but I wouldn’t think Rose has a lot of fans in the people who are currently voting. He is recently deceased and from what I remember from the documentary during his visit to the Reds stadium when he was welcomed back he had a hard time finding friends to join him.

Well since you really want to know....

A pox on all those whose main interest in their rookie cards is profiting from them.

:mad:

Funny thing is, many on this board are perfectly willing to throw serious money at Shoeless Joe cards to get their Black Sox fix.

Brian

^ This! And a pox on the Hall of Fame for the hypocrisy of claiming to be independent of MLB yet acting as MLB's lapdog.

:mad:

I believe Pete Rose was guilty of far greater crimes than betting on baseball.

Still another 6 hours to go for 5/13/25 and already 30 - 1963 Topps Pete Rose rookie cards sold on eBay today. This compares to the typical 1-2 daily. At least this time nobody died but how crazy/sick are we collectors? And these are all 4-figure cards, not everyone can afford one.

I agree with you, but NBA teams purposely lose games toward the end of each season when they're out of contention, simply to try to get a better draft lottery position; and I'm sure the same thing is going on in the other pro sports. What about players on those teams?

Steve

-
We've come a long way from Bowie Kuhn, motivated by a desire to distance Major League Baseball from any trace of gambling, banned retired superstars Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle from working for both major league clubs and gambling casinos at the same time. And they were just shaking hands and kissing babies in their roles at the Casino.

The Black Sox and Joe Jackson were acquitted in a 1921 court, it was Chicago so you can't put a lot of stock in that decision but acquitted none the less. Kennesaw Mountain Landis chose to ban them to send a message to "Gambling" that baseball was off limits.

And now we have Sportsbooks in over a dozen Stadiums with more to come, owned by Fanatics, DraftKings, and FanDuel, to name a few, the same fine folks that lined the pockets of congress to change the gambling laws in this country.

MLB and Manfred have embraced gambling to the point that the ESPN commentators and play by play guys, are quoting betting lines.

It's insidious. Gambling ruins lives, families, and futures. There's a reason Kuhn and Landis took such a hard line on it.

I don't think gambling should be any part of baseball, including advertising, but if baseball is going to cozy up to the gamblers then Joe Jackson should by all means be the first voted in the Hall. Hell, they should retroactively induct him in the 1936 class and make it the first 6 instead of the first 5.

Back in the day such things, I don't think, were viewed as seriously, particularly if a famous athlete was involved.

Yes, and it's really sad to see a whole cohort of younger fans who literally cannot enjoy a game without making at least one bet from their mobile phones.

Dunno that Jackson was better than Lajoie or Speaker who made the second class. I think his notoriety has made him perhaps greater in people's minds than his actual numbers.

It’s bullshit , it’s a chickenshit power move. MLB deemed him undesirable and unworthy but when it comes to making a dime let’s ride him , he made some bad decisions for sure but he bust his ass for 25 years playing baseball and MLB wants to benefit from his efforts - how cute .
A Bunch of amorals in a think tank wondering how to increase revenue - “ how about that Pete rose fella he’s dead now he can’t do nothing about it , we throw his family some peanuts and make a killing “
He was unworthy while he was alive but now that he’s dead he’s welcome - Did MLB’s perception of a change ? of course not but now he’s a cash cow .

Yeah we all like to say how great things were back in the day, but the level of shielding female high schoolers from older predatory males was not one of those things. Pete could’ve been Wander Franco … except Franco was much younger.

Checked. His actual numbers are pretty damn good.

Is that you Marty Brennaman?

Who said they weren't? It's still my belief his valuations which have gone off the charts reflect his notoriety as well as his player value. Had he been plain old Joe Jackson and not Shoeless Joe, and had he just sustained a career ending injury in 1920 and not been part of the Black Sox, I don't think you would see the astronomical numbers.

Bill James, for example, rates him 66 (and that's as of 2003 so would be much lower now presumably).

I agree with this 1st paragraph. The Bill James list is just ripe for debate though.

Oh, no question about that.

"Crimes"? :rolleyes: Don't be silly.

Which is why sexual mores including age of consent vary over time and across both cultures and jurisdiction. They're not by any means universal laws such as "Thou shalt not kill/steal etc."

I agree wholeheartedly with all of this!

The Sporting News rated Shoeless Joe Jackson as 35 way back in 1998.

Well, he's a convicted felon for tax evasion, for one.

Joe was already on the ballot, receiving 2 votes in 1936. And then 2 more in 1946.

Which we all know is the #1 crime in every government's eyes.

:(

I dunno, man. Maybe I'm a prude and a cultural philistine, but when you're a married 34 year old with kids and are accused of statutory rape -- and your best defense is (i) that the sex only started when the girl was 16 and (ii) the sex only occurred in a state where the age of consent happens to be 16 -- you're basically a douchebag. If they elect guys like this -- who were also banned for betting on baseball and convicted of tax evasion -- in the Hall of Fame, then they should also elect guys like Dale Murphy into the Hall.

So, I was curious how collectors felt about the news yesterday, minus the color commentary… if given a simple binary only choice regarding Rose’s eligibility for the HOF, would your position generally be:

“It’s about time, long overdue”

or

“Sad day for baseball, bad decision by MLB”

I am quite surprised that that the tally of these 2 options was so heavily weighted in one direction:

80% selected “overdue”

Of course, there is nuance between these choices and lots of comments followed below the choices above. But I was more curious directionally from the vintage collector community how “we” all felt.

I would have guessed much closer to even split - maybe influenced by our own Rose card collections and visions of value escalation??

I would vote against reinstatement to uphold precedent, but generally there are bigger things to get passionate about. Then again, that's from someone who places a disproportionate amount of focus on his own self-worth based on his horse betting returns and slow pitch softball performance.

I absolutely agree with this. Field of Dreams, cool nickname, Black Sox, legends and hearsay.. all those things have blown Jackson out of proportion in the hobby. Yes he was good, but his card prices arent in line with what he actually did on the field, IMO.

Things get a little tricky now.
They are all eligible to be on the ballot but
1.how many are really have a chance based on their career numbers? Espcially that many of them lost many years of their career that do not exist for their stats? would they have gone up or down? are they short on years of eligibility of 10 years etc?
2. Even though all are eligible how do the people on the committee view what they did. Ie Rose is accused of gambling on games vs Jackson and the others of throwing actual games and in a world series at that while William Cox was banned for trying to pay a player to throw a game.
Also Rose is current and many seen him play while others no one knows are seen them play

That he was married and had kids is largely immaterial. Most likely she was 14 years old, though you can see why he would want to argue it didn't start until she was 16 and only happened in Ohio given that Ohio had the lowest age of consent at the time and that it just so happened to be the same age he's alleging she didn't realize she was.

Agreed!

Yes you are. Me I have no problem with other peoples' sexual mores so long as the consent element is present. As a Libertarian I'm a laissez-faire individual and not just on economic matters.

Like I say, I'm not among those silly enough to care.

Why not? It's not the Baseball Hall of Honor; it's the Baseball Hall of Fame and these fellows are famous primarily for their exploits on the field. Other considerations just aren't relevant.

:confused:

My dude, are you choosing to die on the "okay to have sex with children" hill? What in the actual hell?

I've seen threads go off the rails here regularly, but wow...I don't even know where to start here.

Didn’t throw WS, check his stats for the series.

I don't think it's that tricky. Other than Rose and Jackson, who else really has an argument that they're Hall of Fame level? Maybe Cicotte, but he's borderline at best. The rest you can look at their stats and figure out they don't need to be considered for the ballot. It doesn't matter what they might have done if they hadn't been banned. They were banned so their stats are their stats.

The Eras Committe that would be voting on these players is made up of 16 people broken down from 3 areas: HOFers, Exceutives, and Veterans/Media

HOFers: Paul Molitor, Eddie Murray, Tony Pérez, Lee Smith, Ozzie Smith, Joe Torre

Executives: Sandy Alderson, Terry McGuirk, Dayton Moore, Arte Moreno, Brian Sabean

Media (this might have changed as they may rotate who gets to vote in this group): Bob Elliott, Leslie Heaphy, Steve Hirdt, Dick Kaegel and Larry Lester


A player needs 12 votes or more for election and at least 5 to stay on the ballot is my understanding

I think the players and executives change each time as well. Usually it's not announced who is part of the voting committee until around when they're meeting to vote.

Re: Rose, Jackson
 

A lot to unpack here. A few random thoughts:
1) Well said by Ima Pseudonym. The hall should be an accurate chronicle of baseball history; the good, the bad and the ugly.
2) Jackson is an immortal lock for the hall; Rose not so much. Even 30+ years on, the wounds are too fresh.
3) Understood that card values are already inflated due to the notoriety of the scandals. But those who collect only hall of famers will now need examples. That may result in some upward pressure on prices.
4) In the same vein, I don't see a steep decline in value for the other Black Sox. They will always be linked to that event.
5) What about Buck Weaver? Only played nine MLB seasons with a 21.2 WAR, most of defensively since he didn't walk at all. Will the hall waive the ten year requirement; and will he have enough support if they do?

In the end, I think collectors are, first and foremost, fans of the game. And, as fans of the game, it's really hard not to like someone like Rose. I think most fans are able to separate his on-field performance from his off-field foibles.

The players that didnt hit the 10 year mark I would assume are not eligible...sorry Buck Weaver fans, if his career continued it is very likely he would be a HOFer and the same could be argued for Lefty Williams and Hap Felsch and Lee Magee maybe.

Really to me there are only players on this list that are worthy of ballot placement and personally I think 2 are solid candidates and 1 is borderline

Good Chace
1. Rose
2. Jackson

Borderline
3. Cicotte

9 year players that should be considered if allowed but are Hall of Very Good Players
4. Buck Weaver - could argue Weaver is a borderline player
5. Chic Gandil - but he retired after 1919 so guess he wouldnt get any special consideration for a shortened career
6. Lee Magee

I personally would argue Cicotte is a HOFer as be basically invented the knuckleball and had solid peak years with a borderline win total and solid ERA...BUT he was a primary 1919 WS fixer that is not up for debate like Jackson's role is

14 year old children can’t give meaningful consent. The accusations against Rose go as low as 12. Astonishing this need be said and people want to debate it. Well maybe not astonishing, but disgusting none the less.

I think it's important to note the Hall's voting criteria (emphasis is my own):

Voting: Voting shall be based upon the player's record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.

In that vein, I think it makes perfect sense for the Hall to not elect a child rapist, regardless of his accomplishments on the field. Usually, having sex with children isn't a sign of great character.

Nice try, but I saw you palm that card. You know full well that the crux of this question is where does childhood end when it comes to sexual maturity and therefore where/how should the age of consent be defined? And that's a question that involves both culture and jurisdiction.

The age of consent right here in Canada was twelve until 1890 when it was raised to fourteen and then sixteen in 2008. Like I say, the question is cultural. A universal moral law it's not.

I'd suggest you not start with me at all. You'll lose any debate.

And if you think I'm going to be immediately cowed by "sensitive" topics such as this one (or race), you're wrong, very wrong. I'm too tough minded. I won't immediately fold my hand when these subjects are raised. I'll apply the same logical compass I use for any other question.

Like I say, I really don't give a damn about Pete Rose's sexual foibles. Any jurisdictional problems he may have as a result don't concern me.

Nor do I actually care whether he's in the Baseball Hall of Fame or not. It's no big deal. (As an aside Johnny Rotten referred to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a "piss stain" when he passed on attending his induction ceremony.) Hypocrisy though I'll condemn every time. It's called freedom of speech.

;)

Just curious what about Roberto Alomar who is in HOF and who is also on Baseballs Ineligible List???


In 2021, Alomar was banned from baseball by MLB following an independent investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct, dating back to 2014.[6][7] In April 2021, the Blue Jays also announced that Alomar would be removed from the Level of Excellence and his retired number banner would be taken down at Rogers Centre.[8] The Blue Jays have subsequently reactivated the uniform number 12, and it has been used by Jordan Hicks in 2023. He remains the only player in history to be a member of both the Baseball Hall of Fame and MLB's permanently-ineligible list simultaneously.

See above.

And let me remind you of the principle that a man IS innocent until and unless convicted in a court of law. So your insinuations are (at best) out of order.

Moreover you're treading a very fine line using the word "disgusting" in reference to any post of mine. I'll very happily dissect your every statement and toss every word back into your face. (It's what I do and I do it very well indeed.)

;)

You may not be done with this. I am. This is a matter that shouldn't have to be explained to a grown, mature adult.