Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 5, 1991 TAG: 9102050425
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Long
"4,256 hits, 2,200 runs - that's all I did," Rose said on that sunny March morning. "I'm a Hall of Famer."
Not in the eyes of the Hall of Fame.
The doors of Cooperstown slammed shut on Rose when the Hall's directors voted 12-0 Monday to bar the banned baseball star from its ballot.
While the rule adopted Monday does not specifically mention Rose, the former Cincinnati Reds player and manager is the only living person on the permanently ineligible list.
Rose, the career leader in hits and games, can become eligible for the Hall ballot only if the baseball commissioner reinstates him by December 2005. None of the previous 14 individuals banned from baseball were reinstated.
"The directors felt that it would be incongruous to have a person who has been declared ineligible by baseball to be eligible for baseball's highest honor," Hall of Fame president Ed Stack said. "It follows that if such individual is reinstated by baseball, then such individual would be a candidate for election."
Rose, who last month completed a five-month prison sentence for filing false federal income-tax returns, did not appear surprised by the decision.
"I'm not in control of that, so there's not much I can do about it," he said after leaving a Cincinnati elementary school. "I did my part."
Rose is working at the school and living at a Cincinnati halfway house for three months as part of his sentence.
He was placed on the ineligible list on Aug. 23, 1989, by the late commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti. The commissioner concluded after a six-month investigation that Rose bet on baseball games, including those involving the Reds.
Rose, a three-time National League batting champion and its Most Valuable Player in 1973, had been considered an odds-on favorite for first-year election until the investigation that led to his banishment. He would have been eligible for the first time this December.
However, former American League president Lee MacPhail and current AL president Bobby Brown last month proposed the rule to keep Rose off the ballot. No write-in votes are permitted under the rules of election.
"I had felt right from the start that if someone was ineligible, that person should not be considered for the Hall of Fame," Brown said.
Brown and MacPhail were supported at Monday's meeting by a group largely made up of present and former baseball executives. Stack, who voted against the new rule at the Jan. 10 committee meeting, changed his mind and voted for it on Monday.
Bob Broeg, a Hall director who is a writer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, agreed with the baseball executives. He said he didn't think it would be right for Rose to be alongside other Hall of Famers in Cooperstown.
"He'd go in the first year and the next year he'd be signing autographs somewhere else for pay," Broeg said.
Voting against Rose were Stack, Brown, MacPhail, Broeg, NL president Bill White, former NL president Chub Feeney, former commissioner Bowie Kuhn, former Montreal Expos president John McHale, Milwaukee Brewers owner Bud Selig, Detroit Tigers chairman Jim Campbell, Cooperstown Mayor Harold Hollis and Stephen Clark Jr., the son of the Hall of Fame founder.
Four directors did not attend the meeting: commissioner Fay Vincent, Hall of Famers Charlie Gehringer and Roy Campanella, and Boston Red Sox owner Jean Yawkey.
Vincent, who would rule on a request for reinstatement, is vacationing in Jamaica. He said that even if he had attended Monday's meeting, he would not have voted because of the potential conflict of interest.
The Baseball Writers Association of America, which votes for the Hall of Fame, said it would announce the number of write-in votes for Rose each year, even though they won't count.
"We feel a significant number of people will write in Pete Rose's name despite the decision," BBWAA executive secretary Jack Lang said. "We feel it is incumbent upon us to make those votes known."
Kit Stier of the Oakland Tribune, the BBWAA president, said the group would not decide on its reaction until its next scheduled meeting, which is during the All-Star break in July.
"I'll take all the suggestions and try to boil it down and send a letter out to the chapters saying these are our choices," Stier said.
Rose batted .303 in a 24-year career and set records for hits (4,256), games (3,562), at-bats (14,053) and singles (3,215). He was the NL Rookie of the Year in 1963, the World Series MVP in 1975 and won NL batting titles in 1968, 1969 and 1973.
Because the BBWAA may consider only those players retired for between five and 20 seasons, and because the veterans committee can't pick post-World War II players who failed to get 60 percent of the writers' vote in at least one year, Rose must come off the ineligible list by December 2005 if he is to gain election.
"If he can't get reinstated in that fifteen-year period, he would not become eligible," Stack said.
Monday's decision does not affect the Rose memorabilia already in Cooperstown.
"The Hall of Fame has two focuses," Stack said, "the Hall of Fame Gallery, where the plaques hang, and the National Baseball Museum, which is two large buildings containing many thousands of artifacts depicting the timeline of baseball history. There are many artifacts from Pete Rose's career in the museum itself and this is part of baseball history and this will always be, not to be removed or changed."
Ron Lewis, a collector who donated the uniform Rose wore when he broke Stan Musial's NL record for hits, asked the Hall to return the uniform because of the new rule. That request was denied Monday by the Hall's board.
\ PETE'S PERILS
THE RISE AND FALL OF PETE ROSE
Sept. 11, 1985: Pete Rose, in his 23rd season, gets career hit No. 4,192, against Eric Show, to break Ty Cobb's 57-year-old major-league record
Aug. 14, 1986: He gets his final hit, No. 4,256, against Greg Minton
Feb. 20, 1989: As manager of the Cincinnati Reds, Rose meets with Peter Ueberroth, baseball commissioner, and A. Bartlett Giamatti, commissioner elect, about betting allegations against Rose
March 20, 1989: Ueberroth's office announces it is investigating "serious allegations" against Rose, with John Dowd, a Washington lawyer, conducting the investigation
June 19, 1989: Rose sues Giamatti to prevent him from holding a hearing into betting allegations against Rose
June 22, 1989: During the hearing on Rose's request for an injunction, Dowdsays he has evidence Rose bet on baseball games, including Reds games, during the 1985, 1986 and 1987 seasons
Aug. 23, 1989: Rose and Giamatti sign an agreement that places Rose on baseball's permanently ineligible list without an admission or denial by Rose that he had bet on baseball games
April 20, 1990: Rose pleads guilty in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati to two felony counts of filing false tax returns stemming from failure to pay taxeson income from baseball card shows, memorabilia sales and gambling activities
Aug. 8, 1990: Rose begins a five-month prison term
Jan. 10, 1991: Special committee appointed by Hall of Fame votes to recommend that anyone on permanently ineligible list not be eligible for Hall of Fame
Feb. 4, 1991: Hall of Fame's board of directors unanimously approves the recommendation
by CNB