August 24, 1989, Thursday, 9 a.m. Giamatti, the commissioner of baseball, steps up to a microphone in New York City.

“One of the game’s greatest players has engaged in a variety of acts which have stained the game, and he must now live with the consequences of those acts,” he tells a packed room of reporters.

With that, Giamatti announces that Rose, baseball’s all-time hits leader and one of history’s greatest players, has been banned from baseball for life for gambling on baseball.

Wow…20 years ago the news that “Charlie Hustle” was kicked out of baseball was pretty staggering. Probably the greatest team in my childhood was the Cincinatti “Big Red Machine” Reds. Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Dave Concepcion and Pete Rose. I have always been a faithful Braves fan (even in those very lean years), but no one seemed to have more passion for the game than Pete. For years after baseball’s ruling, Rose was consistently strong in his denial of any wrong doing. And you know what? After a while you kind of believe him. But today, 20 years later, is Aug. 24, 2009 and Rose has not only admitted that he bet on baseball, but he also lied to everyone about it. Really makes you doubt things. Steroids in sports, cheating, points shaving. Probably a good reflection of our society. What will the future hold for sports? Well, there is at least one good thing…football starts soon.

        

This entry was posted by Eric Helms on Monday, August 24th, 2009 at 9:51 pm and is filed under Eric's Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.