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Pete Rose: To Be or Not to Be Pete Rose deserves to be in the Hall of Fame along with the other great players from Major League Baseball because of his on field credentials and because there is no concrete evidence that he bet on baseball while managing the Cincinnati Reds. A. Bartlet Giamatti suspended Rose based on circumstantial evidence, which is not fair to Pete Rose or his fans. Current baseball commissioner, Bud Selig, is the only person with the power to reverse the decision laid down by Giamatti but chooses not to do so. Pete Rose may be one of the greatest players in Major League Baseball history. The records, alone, that Pete Rose holds are enough to justify his entrance into the Hall of Fame. The most astonishing record owned by Rose is his record for hits in his career. Pete Rose compiled 4,256 total hits in his career, making him one of only two people to get more than four thousand hits along with Ty Cobb. In Roses twenty-four seasons he set the Major League Baseball record for games played with 3,562. This meant that rose averaged more than one hit per game throughout his career. Pete Rose also holds the record of 23 consecutive seasons with a hundred hits or more and ten times had two hundred hits, another Major League Baseball record. From June fourteenth until July thirty-first in 1978 Rose hit safely in 44 straight games, a national league record, and second only to Joe DiMaggio’s 56. Another record that rose holds in terms of hitting streaks is that he had consecutive game hit streaks of 20 games or more seven times. Some other records that Rose holds are the record for most at bats in a career, 14,053, most wins in a career with 1,972. And he is the only player in league history to play more than 500 games at each of five positions (Cosmic Baseball Association). Pete Rose was banished from being inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1989 when baseball commissioner A. Bartlet Giamatti concluded that Rose had bet on baseball games, including his own team, the Cincinnati Reds. Hall of Fame rule five designates that inductees should be honest, have integrity, and good character more than his playing ability. Giamatti thought that Rose did not qualify because he did not meet these guidelines. Baseball should be honest with itself and delete the character and integrity requirements of rule five. If rule five is so important than why are players like Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb and Gaylord Perry allowed in the hall of fame, while Pete Rose, who was never proven to have bet on baseball, is kept out of the Hall of Fame? “He played the game the way it was meant to be played. Hard-nosed and hustling all over the field”(quoted in Lahman). Says Oakland Athletics’ Dave Parker, describing Pete Roses style of play throughout his twenty-four year career. His stunning statistics can be attributed to his incredible work ethic on the field and in games and off the field during spring training and personal workouts. When most hitters settled for singles, Rose would stretch his hits into doubles or even triples. Most of the players in the Major Leagues respected the way he played. He was known to wake up early in the morning to take jogs in the brisk Cincinnati winter during off-seasons so he would not be out of physical shape when spring training arrived in March.
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