For a while there, as Major League Baseball followed other leagues in embracing legal sports gambling, the line went that surely, they couldn’t keep Pete Rose banned. Not with a straight face. “How can you keep Rose out of baseball and have a sportsbook at the Reds stadium??” The logic behind this wasn’t coherent. Major League Baseball wasn’t telling Aaron Boone to bet on the Yankees. But like many incoherent things, it sounded great, and with Pete Rose’s absence from the Hall of Fame an absurd reality, it was an especially easy sell.
This week, we got a reminder of why Pete Rose’s lifetime ban will likely stand.
In the latest of a string of gambling scandals, Major League Baseball announced yesterday that Tucupita Marcano, a soft-hitting utility man, is banned from the league for life, having bet on Pirates games last year while on the Pirates’ injured list. In addition to Marcano, four other players received one-year suspensions for betting on baseball but not betting on games involving their own team. Meanwhile, an investigation churns on into David Fletcher, who’s reinventing himself as a knuckleballer somewhere in the Braves system. Meanwhile, Ippei Mizuhara pleaded guilty yesterday to bank fraud. Meanwhile, there is a strong probability more gambling violations are currently being committed, violations which will either never be unearthed or will next summer become scandals of their own.
What Pete Rose did was illegal, which is not intended so much as a criticism of Rose as it is a reminder that what Pete Rose did was logistically difficult. Rose had to find a bookie, communicate with that bookie, and maintain a relationship with that bookie despite ostensibly betting only on the Reds to win, something one would think would change that bookie’s odds, given the bets implied inside information on Rose’s part. Rose jumped through hoops to place these bets.
Marcano? Marcano, on the other hand, most likely downloaded an app on his phone. What Marcano did was perfectly legal. That’s at least part of why he did it! When sports gambling was less accessible, fewer people gambled on sports. Now, more people gamble on sports. Including players themselves.
What Marcano did was also cleaner than what Rose did. Marcano wasn’t affecting the outcomes of the games on which he bet. Rose’s job was to affect outcomes. He didn’t necessary manipulate them nefariously, but he had an impact on the outcome of the games on which he bet. Marcano did not.
Marcano did something much more innocent than Pete Rose. Marcano deserves the ban he’s received. This is not a favorable set of facts for Charlie Hustle.
Major League Baseball’s dual mandate, in the arena of sports gambling, is to 1) make as much money as possible through co-promotion with gambling and 2) keep the integrity of the game from being in any way affected by that gambling. Rose’s chance for reinstatement isn’t stronger because MLB has embraced betting by its fans. It’s weaker. Because now that the vice is so accessible, it’s more important than ever that MLB take hard stances on betting by its players and coaches. In 2004, this was all hypothetical. Now, there are real red lines which must be enforced. Rose still crossed one of those lines. Is it ridiculous to have a Hall of Fame without Pete Rose? Yes, and Rose should be in the Hall of Fame despite his ban. That part is silly. But unfortunately, the Hall of Fame piece is tied to the ban, and the ban itself makes perfect sense. If you’re going to ban Tucupita Marcano for life, it’s hard to see how Rose will get an exception before he dies.
Miscellany
- I’m very sorry for the absence last week and earlier this week. My belly stopped doing its thing and started doing a very different thing in its place, and I forgot what it takes out of you to take five pounds out of yourself in a 12-hour period. We’ll catch up on a few things in this section, but I’m sure there is plenty we missed. For example: We won’t be giving the Celtics their due just yet.
- The format is different here! This is intentional. One of the last things we were doing before I met my bathroom floor was sketching out a plan for a pivot towards shorter daily notes from Stu and me, accompanied by more topic-specific newsletter-style posts throughout the week. We’re launching and relaunching those newsletters as we speak, with the first edition of Disco Inferno up later today and Off the Lake coming tomorrow. Off the Lake is a Cubs-centric look at Chicago sports. More will follow over the next seven days. We’re hoping to have the kinks ironed out by the end of the month. Stuart has the current plan here.
- Ronald Acuña Jr.’s ACL has been torn so long I’m not sure it hasn’t been surgeried already, but as I’ve seen surprisingly few people mention: The last time Ronald Acuña Jr. tore an ACL, the Braves won the World Series. It doesn’t help that cause, but this is baseball. This was very different from Aaron Rodgers’s Achilles or Jimmy Butler’s MCL.
- Congratulations to Ángel Hernández for negotiating a settlement in such a way that everyone termed his departure from umpiring a retirement.
- I’ve been enjoying the French Open when I catch it. I’m still unclear on how the clay surface compares to the dirt of a baseball infield, though. Maybe I’m not tuning in early enough to broadcasts to get that tutorial. It was sad to see Rafael Nadal lose. Iga Świątek’s match against Naomi Osaka was one of the most compelling sporting events of the year. The changing of the guard on the men’s side highlights how long changings of the guards take in men’s tennis. The last year two majors were won by players other than Djokovic, Federer, and Nadal was 2016. That’s changing this weekend. That’s a big deal.
- In one of the more interesting Bronny James nuggets, Rich Paul (his agent) won’t agree to a two-way contract? I’d love more context on the reasoning behind that. Does he think going back and forth between the leagues hampers development? Because I’ve been under the impression that the James camp doesn’t mind the G League idea. Maybe that’s changed now that they’ve seen how far their media mouthpieces can carry perception.
