The Ungrateful Dead: Pete Rose, ‘Shoeless’ Joe Dying To Get Back Into Baseball
Is this heaven? No, it’s hell. Now that you're dead, welcome back to the Big Leagues. Makes a guy want to disappear into an Iowa cornfield.Is this heaven? No, it’s hell. Now that you're dead, welcome back to the Big Leagues. Makes a guy want to disappear into an Iowa cornfield.Pete Rose reinstated as eligible for Hall of Fame — but new rule will revive MLB's darkest era
The commissioner of Major League Baseball decided that former player Pete Rose will be eligible for Hall of Fame induction moving forward.
Rose played from 1963 to 1986 with the Cincinnati Reds, Philadelphia Phillies, and Montreal Expos. He has the most hits (4,256), most games (3,562), and most at-bats (14,053) in MLB history. Rose died in September 2024 at 83 years old.
However, in 1989, Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti banned Rose from MLB activities and therefore from the Hall of Fame for allegedly gambling on games, including those of his team, the Reds.
Now, MLB commissioner Robert D. Manfred Jr. has decided to institute a policy that allows Rose to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
'He's said what he said publicly. I'm not going beyond that.'
Manfred issued the policy after the family of Rose filed an application that MLB said "made it incumbent upon the Office of the Commissioner to reach a policy decision" on whether or not deceased individuals will remain on the list of those permanently ineligible for the Hall of Fame.
In a letter to Rose's attorney, Manfred said that while it is his preference "not to disturb decisions made by prior Commissioners, Mr. Rose was not placed on the permanently ineligible list by Commissioner action but rather as the result of a 1989 settlement of potential litigation with the Commissioner's Office.
"My decision today is consistent with Commissioner Giamatti’s expectations of that agreement," Manfred wrote.
At the same time, baseball analyst and podcaster Gary Sheffield Jr. pointed out that while Manfred may be finally making a decision, he fought for years to keep Rose out of the Hall of Fame.
"Manfred led the defense to keep Rose out since 2015," Sheffield told Blaze News. "It's embarrassing."
In 2015, Manfred denied Pete Rose's application for reinstatement. In 2020, Manfred said Rose "violated what is sort of rule one in baseball" and added that the MLB would continue "to abide by our own rules."
The commissioner said the league has declared that permanent ineligibility "ends upon the passing of the disciplined individual."
As a result of this policy, 17 people were affected, eight of whom were part of the infamous Black Sox scandal.
In that 1919 ordeal, eight Chicago White Sox players, including "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, accepted bribes from gamblers to intentionally lose games. All eight players were indicted for conspiracy and, despite acquittals, were banned for life by then-Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis.
In April, Manfred said he met with President Trump and specifically discussed Rose and his eligibility.
"I met with President Trump two weeks ago," Manfred said. "One of the topics was Pete Rose, but I'm not going beyond that."
"He's said what he said publicly. I'm not going beyond that in terms of what the back-and-forth was."
Some of Trump's public comments involved a claim that he would sign a "complete pardon" for Rose, who he said "shouldn’t have been gambling on baseball, but only bet on HIS TEAM WINNING."
Trump continued on Truth Social, "Baseball, which is dying all over the place, should get off its fat, lazy a**, and elect Pete Rose, even though far too late, into the Baseball Hall of Fame!"
Rose originally denied betting on baseball, but eventually admitted to it in a 2004 interview.
"I bet on baseball in 1987 and 1988," he told ABC.
In his book, "My Prison Without Bars," which was released in the same time frame, Rose also admitted to betting on his own team.
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Frenchman who saw through pollsters' failure and media's skew makes fortune betting on Trump
A mystery trader identifying himself only as Thèo secured an estimated $48 million in profits betting that the 45th president would be elected the 47th president.
The trader, a Frenchman with a financial services background who has been dubbed the "Trump whale," reportedly used four anonymous accounts — Theo4, Fredi9999, PrincessCaro and Michieon — on the crypto-based betting site Polymarket to bet on President Donald Trump to win the popular vote as well as most battleground states.
Thèo suspected that establishment pollsters and the mainstream media had overestimated support for Kamala Harris and once again underestimated Trump's support.
Thèo told Visegrád 24 prior to Election Day, "The polls are really different from the predictive odds in the predictive markets. It calculates something totally different. One is calculating what are the intentions of the people to vote. The other are bets made by real people with real money about who they believe the winner will be."
The Frenchman noted in August, he began to realize that "media outlets are making the same mistakes they made in 2016 and 2020 underestimating the Trump vote. Why? Because, again, it's underestimating the shy Trump vote effect."
The Princeton Election Consortium indicated, for example, in November 2016 that Hillary Clinton had a 99% chance of beating Trump, projecting her to take 312 electoral votes. FiveThirtyEight, then Nate Silver's polling outfit, suggested that Clinton's had a 71.4% chance of winning. Polls conducted that year by the Washington Post, ABC News, Google Consumer Surveys, Ipsos, YouGov, Fox News, Selzer & Company, and other outfits were similarly way off the mark, all putting Clinton ahead by several points.
Thèo indicated that this time around, the New York Times/Siena College polls and others were making the same mistakes, noting that in one instance, a poll showing Harris ahead by 2 percentage points in North Carolina was actually "un-representative by 9.3 percentage points."
'Don't trust the mainstream media.'
Prior to Election Day, Thèo told a reporter at the Wall Street Journal who had taken an interest in the trader's enormous bets that RealClearPolitics polling averages showed Trump outdoing his swing-state polling numbers in the previous presidential election, which was particularly close.
Recognizing that the races would again be close in swing states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and factoring in the "shy Trump voter effect" — which the mainstream polling outfits apparently neglected to account for — the trader realized the Republican had upwards of a 90% chance of winning the day and a 65% chance of winning the popular vote.
The Frenchman took the addition step of commissioning a major pollster to conduct surveys to measure the "neighbor effect" stateside. Thèo noted that while the shy voter effect undermined the reliability of normal polls, neighbor polls — where respondents are asked which candidates their neighbors would likely support — would provide a better indication of voter preferences.
Thèo told the Journal that the results "were mind blowing to the favor of Trump!"
"Public opinion would have been better prepared if the latest polls had measured that neighbor effect," he added.
Bloomberg indicated that Polymarket bets on which candidate would become the 47th president produced almost $3.7 billion in volume this cycle.
Polymarket released a statement Wednesday morning, noting, "Last night, Polymarket proved the wisdom of markets over the polls, the media, and the pundits. Polymarket consistently and accurately forecasted outcomes well ahead of all three, demonstrating the power of high volume, deeply liquid prediction markets like those pioneered by Polymarket."
The company later shared a screenshot of an Oct. 22 Time magazine headline that read, "Don't Trust the Political Prediction Markets," commenting, "Don't trust the mainstream media."
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Can We Put Pete Rose In The Baseball Hall Of Fame Now?
Pete Rose’s life has ended. It's time for his lifetime ban to do the same.Gambling sites refuse to call an election winner, leaving hundreds of millions of dollars up in the air
While many can't wait for the election to be officially over, some people are extremely eager to know the final results of the 2020 presidential election because they are financially invested in the outcome. Gambling websites refuse to call a winner of the 2020 presidential election, holding up hundreds of millions of dollars up in the air.
Political bettors are fervently waiting on gambling sites to name President Donald Trump or Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 presidential election so that they can collect on their bets. While media outlets declared Biden the victor of the election on Saturday, overseas gambling sites, such as Honchos, are refusing to call the presidential race just yet.
Betfair, the biggest betting exchange in the world, booked nearly $600 million in wagers on the U.S. election, according to the New York Post. That's more than double the $258 million that was bet on the 2016 election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
The London-based Betfair stated, "We will only settle the markets when there is certainty around which candidate has the most projected Electoral College votes."
"We still have not graded a winner," Adam Burns, sportsbook manager of BetOnline, told the New York Post. Burns added that BetOnline is holding off on declaring a winner until President Trump has exhausted all of his legal options or the results are certified, which could take weeks.
"People who bet Trump say it is not over. People who bet Biden say it is," Burns said. "This makes for a tricky situation where we have to be sure. It's not like a football game."
One person hoping that Trump pulls out a win is an unnamed British businessman who bet $5 million on President Trump being re-elected. The amount is believed to be the largest political wager of all time. Another gambler bet $1.3 million on Biden and would stand to take home $2 million.
"If Biden comes in, it's a big win for us," Burns said, explaining that more bettors on the gambling site favored President Trump. "If Trump is declared the winner, we will take a bath. It will not be a happy day here."
Burns said that betting on this year's presidential election surpassed the Super Bowl, which is generally what garners the most action.
Last week's betting odds: Betfair and SkyBet were offering 10/1 for Trump, and PaddyPower and Betfred were offering 9/1.
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