Fay Vincent Remains Emphatic: Don't Let Pete Rose In Hall Of Fame

Fay Vincent doesn't want Pete Rose back in baseball

NEW HAVEN — The forgiveness argument, the society-of-second-chances argument, hasn't swayed Fay Vincent in 26 years, and he is not about to change his mind about Pete Rose.

"I've always thought it's not whether he deserves mercy, it's about the deterrent," said Vincent, the former commissioner of baseball, after a lecture at Southern Connecticut on Thursday. "The issue is, gambling in major league ball does not exist because the deterrent is so draconian. If you gamble on a game in which you have an interest, you're out of baseball for life and no one has ever been reinstated."

Rose, who was found in 1989 to have bet on games involving the Reds while he was managing the team, was banned for life by then-commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti, who died of a heart attack a few months later. Vincent, a close friend of Giamatti's, took over as commissioner during a stormy period in baseball history that included the earthquake that interrupted the 1989 World Series, and labor unrest. He was forced out by owners in 1992. But he has remained steadfast in opposition to reinstating Rose, or inducting him into the Hall of Fame.

Vincent's successor, Bud Selig, also held firm and remained in the job until this year, when Rob Manfred took over. Rose has been working this season as a TV commentator, and he met recently with Manfred, who has promised to make a decision before the end of this year on the application for reinstatement.

"For Manfred to reinstate Rose would be an enormous act of courage — and it would be wrong," Vincent said. "It would take courage because Manfred would, in effect, own Pete Rose. And I don't think Pete Rose is the kind of guy you want to own. I don't think he has shown that it's an appropriate step. My prediction is that Rob Manfred will not reinstate Pete Rose. I would be astonished if he does."

Vincent, who splits his time between Florida and Fairfield County, grew up in nearby Hamden. He spoke to SCSU students, and by satellite to students at Southern's sister school in Liverpool, England, about leadership and principles of management, and offered career advice. In an interview with reporters afterward, Vincent spoke out against Rose, gambling and the demeanor of the modern player, such as "dancing and prancing" after hitting a home run, or failing to run hard on every play.

"I think baseball stands for something," he said. "There has to be a standard, there has to be some things you can do that should disqualify you from being honored in this culture. But I'm having trouble thinking of many of them."

Accordingly, Rose's career record for hits, 4,256, should have no bearing on his status, Vincent said.

"Tom Seaver once said to me, 'Do you mean to tell me that if I'm a 300-game winner I can bet on baseball because I'm so good, I can play by my own standards?' " Vincent said. "Of course not. Tom Seaver got it. ... Under the rules of the Hall of Fame, you have to be reinstated first. Nobody can be elected to the Hall of Fame who is out of baseball.

"And if you ask the players, overwhelmingly, they would vote 'no' because they don't want gambling in baseball and they're not enamored with Pete Rose. I remember Johnny Bench was asked, when should Pete Rose be reinstated? And Johnny Bench had a great answer, he said, 'When he's innocent.' It's a perfect answer. When Pete Rose is innocent, you reinstate him. Not gonna happen.

"There is a tendency to view the issue in terms of, what's a nice thing to do for Pete Rose? That's the way Pete Rose would like the issue to be presented. But the issue is, what's right for baseball? If baseball were to reinstate Pete Rose, what would it say? It would say, 'We have a rule against gambling but we really don't mean it.' … Either you have a rule or you don't."

Vincent also had no sympathy for those caught up in the steroids era, saying it was cheating and illegal. "I don't think baseball should be honoring or putting into the Hall of Fame people who are basically doing criminal acts," he said.

As for players only suspected of using steroids, Vincent said: "There is no good answer. How do you deal with a guy who won't admit it, but everybody assumes and is pretty sure he was doing it? If you elect him, and then he says, 'I'm going to write a book, like Pete Rose, for a million dollars and tell everybody I did it,' how do you feel then? Can you vote him out? I think the better course is wait. I'd wait 50 years. If he's going to write a book, he'd write it within 50 years."

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