OPINION:
Three-time National League batting champion Pete Rose has fallen irrevocably from grace because, as a player and as a manager, he placed bets on the outcome of Major League Baseball games (“Pete Rose’s plea for reinstatement rejected by Rob Manfred,” Web, Dec. 14). Pete Rose remains unforgiven because, as your story states, he “continued to gamble even while trying to end his lifetime ban and would be a risk to the sport’s integrity if allowed back in the game.”
Poor Pete Rose. Had he excelled in football instead of baseball he might now be a hero instead of a goat. The National Football League’s financial and media apparatus openly promotes gambling on its own product in the form of “fantasy football.” Far from being banned from the game, any ex-NFL jock who publicly wagers correctly on the best player performances in a given week is celebrated, not denounced, on ubiquitous cable-TV sports shows.
GREGORY LEWIS
Baltimore
Please read our comment policy before commenting.