Thursday, January 18, 2007

Barry, Mark and Pete - Mr. Bonds Give His Two Cents on McGwire and Rose


Well, Barry has given his two cents on his thoughts pertaining to the Hall of Fame. He’ll be there one day, but the announcement of this amphetamine use came the day after Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn were elected to the Hall of Fame

Barry Bonds opines: "I congratulate Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn for their induction to the Hall of Fame because they were great ballplayers," Bonds said Wednesday in the Dominican Republic. "But I also think McGwire and Pete Rose should be in Cooperstown."


Huh? Well, Cal and Tony are a given. Those two men are class acts & who played the game right.

Lying is always the easy way out of not facing up to your misdeeds. Too often, we see it happen in America.

As I have said in the past, Mark McGwire should be in the Hall for his exploits, numbers and his contribution to the game. He only got 23.5% of the vote and a lot of it was due to his drug allegations and performance on Capitol Hill in March 2005. Merit-wise, he deserves to get in; however, now perhaps I’d feel comfortable if he’d let the skeletons of out the closet, admit if he did anything, and keep his word about speaking out against drug use.

Pete Rose? Sorry, but no way in hell. The only way I see him getting in the Hall of Fame is either on his death bed or posthumously. Yes, McGwire did perhaps use performance enhancing drugs, but baseball had no rules against it and furthermore it has not been proven he did so.

However, there is no doubt Rose gambled on baseball. When you gamble on your own team while managing it, you have destroyed the integrity of the game.

America is a very forgiving society, and unless you have committed murder or ruined the lives of many people, most do forgive celebrities for their misdeeds. In the case of Peter Rose, no matter what he says or does now, he won’t get in. People will forgive those who have sinned, but not those who continuously lie and only find repentance when it’s convenient for them.

Furthermore, he has capitalized on his infamy by selling baseballs inscribed “I Bet on Baseball” and selling it for a tidy profit, as well as a book that garnered him numerous media interviews.

And he wants in on the Hall of Fame while making money off his misdeeds?

As we know, he was given a lifetime ban from baseball in 1989 for betting on the sport and spent time in prison for tax evasion. Although he is the hits leader with 4,256, his name will never be on a ballot as long as he is banned from the game.

Being truly sorry is showing you are and taking steps towards forgiveness. Pete Rose has done anything but, and for that he’s paying the price.

It’s funny that Barry Bonds decided to chime in on the topic, as for he too is accused of compromising the game via the use of drugs and will face the voters to decide whether he’s part of the Hall of Fame club. Although, I don’t consider Barry’s misdeeds as grave as Pete Rose’s, if he wants to get into to Hall of Fame and truly relishes the honor, he, like Pete Rose need to admit their wrongdoing and make amends for it.

2 comments:

J. Mark English said...

I love the blog that you have. I was wondering if you would link my blog to yours and in return I would do the same for your blog. If you want to, my site name is American Legends and the URL is:

www.americanlegends.blogspot.com

If you want to do this just go to my blog and in one of the comments just write your blog name and the URL and I will add it to my site.

Thanks,
Mark

Unknown said...

Mark, I already spoke with David and we've already exchanged links...

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