Charley Hustle, Shoeless Joe And The Golden Calf — Part II
This is the second of a two-part series on sports and gambling. Part I traces the history of gambling and sports, focusing on how gamblers used players to fix games and how the leagues fought back when betting became an existential threat. Part I also discusses how the sports industry gradually discovered that legalized gambling offered too much money to pass up, and decided to ignore what was a cardinal rule: that sports should have no association with gambling and gamblers. Part II shows how lucrative and widespread sports betting is and how co-dependent the two industries are. It makes the case that sports leagues — baseball specifically — should own up to its self-serving hypocrisy, that it’s concerned about gambling but has it under control, and start by reinstating two iconic historical figures, Pete Rose and “Shoeless” Joe Jackson.
Sports Betting Is Not Going Away
And he…fashioned it with a graving tool, and made it a molten calf; and they said: ‘This is thy god…And when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it…And the Lord spoke unto Moses: ‘Go, get thee down; for thy people, that thou broughtest up out of the land of Egypt, have dealt corruptly..they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed unto it…
— Exodus 32.1–4
The gambling industry is now organized sports’ golden calf, its cash cow. Because that revenue stream is here to stay, no self-righteous pronouncements, no so-called safeguard will eliminate the inevitability of more betting scandals occurring in the future. The ubiquity of sports wagering assures it.
Regardless of how much officials and referees earn, there is more to be made from striking a deal with fixers and gamblers. Professional basketball refs earn $250,000 a year; MLB umpires slightly less. NFL refs make just over $200,000 a year. MLB scorekeepers collect just $35 an hour, about what computer programmers, elevator installers and financial analysts bring in. Which makes every one of those officials prime targets for a bribe when there’s $350 million riding on NFL games each week.
MLB deludes itself into thinking it’s erected a firewall to prevent future scandals. It hired Sportsradar, a company that collects and analyzes betting data to help preserve the integrity of games and matches. Bryan Seeley, MLB’s executive vice president for legal and operations told USA Today a few years ago that baseball had confidence that Sportsradar could prevent a conspiracy like the 1919 Black Sox Scandal from occurring today.
“Sportsradar is able to look at line movements across a large number of bookmakers in many different jurisdictions, both legal and illegal bookmakers,” he said. “[It] gives us alerts if there is any sort of unusual betting activity or unusual line activity that might cause concern or might require us to look more deeply into that.
“If someone were to try to do what was done in 1919 and influence players to reach a certain outcome in a game…Putting in a large amount of money in the betting market is likely going to move a line somewhere, and that’s how you can initially spot that something could be up.’’
A hundred years ago, Hugh Fullerton, sportswriter for The Evening World did precisely what Sportradar claims to do. He closely watched the betting line on the Cincinnati Reds balloon even though the White Sox were heavily favored to take the 1919 World Series. He even received a tip from gamblers that the Reds were a lock to win. That didn’t prevent the scandal from taking place.
In every Big League dugout, there are conspicuous signs warning players that betting on games is prohibited. Major League Baseball Rule 21 is prominently displayed on clubhouse walls. The rule states in part: “Any player or person connected with a Club who ….agree(s) to lose…or intentionally fails to give his best efforts towards the winning of any such baseball game…. shall be declared permanently ineligible.”
Those signs are not necessarily ignored, but they have become no more noticeable than wallpaper.
Pete Rose, Shoeless Joe, The Golden Boy and Alex Karras
There is so much hypocrisy in sports.
— Dennis Rodman
I’m going to explain how Pete Rose and Joe Jackson were permanently banned by Major League baseball, which also resulted in both men being barred from Hall of Fame consideration, because the Hall follows MLB’s lead. The HOF directors simply defer to MLB. If you are on the league’s ineligible list, you can’t be considered for the Hall.
I concede that there aren’t any meaningful mitigating circumstances for either Rose or Jackson. Rose bet on games. He violated Rule 21. So did Jackson, although Rule 21 hadn’t yet been promulgated.
Nevertheless, it’s time for baseball to remove their names from the ineligible list. It’s time to lift their bans and allow both men to stand for Hall of Fame election.
Why? Simply put, even murderers become eligible for parole. On the basis of what they accomplish on the field, both Rose and Jackson belong in baseball’s Hall of Fame. And by not lifting the ban, baseball engages in the worst form of hypocrisy.
That observation, that the (mostly) men who run professional sports are hypocrites, should not have to come from Dennis Rodman, whose alcoholism, legal issues and off-the-court antics have kept him out of basketball’s Hall of Fame. Accepting bribes to throw games is the worst of all cardinal sins in sports. If organized sports can’t guarantee that games are honest contests, there’s no point in playing. I’m not saying Rose and Jackson should be forgiven. But they’ve paid the price for their transgressions. For baseball to continue to penalize them as it rakes in billions doing what Rose and Jackson did raises hypocrisy to a new level.
In 1989, Rose agreed to step away permanently from baseball. He retired following the 1986 season as the sport’s all-time leader with 4,256 hits. His hustle on the field made him a fan favorite. Rose had taken over as player/manager for the Reds in 1984 and he spent parts of six seasons as the Cincinnati Reds’ manager. It was during his time at the helm that he started betting on the Reds and other teams.
The league handed down a lifetime ban on Aug. 24, 1989. Rose and Commissioner Bart Giamatti signed a five-page agreement imposing the ban, although Rose didn’t admit to any wrongdoing. As part of the agreement, Rose was allowed to appeal after a year. He believed that after a year passed, he’d be able to convince the commissioner to reinstate him. Rose also served a five-month prison sentence in 1990 for falsifying tax returns. He was dumbfounded when, in 1991, the 12 members of the Baseball Hall of Fame’s board of directors voted unanimously to ban him from the HOF ballot.
Rose’s greatest problem is that he remained unrepentant about his habit, denying that he gambled on baseball, until he came clean in his 2004 autobiography, My Prison Without Bars. It didn’t help that baseball Commissioner Giamatti had a heart attack and died eight days after he barred Rose. Giamatti was a beloved figure, and his successor, Fay Vincent, was a close friend. Vincent vowed that as long as he lived, Pete Rose would never be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Vincent is 85 years old.
In 1999, Rose was named to the All-Century team, one of the top 100 players ever to play the game. It’s an embarrassment for him not to be in Cooperstown, and a greater embarrassment that baseball collects billions of dollars in casino and on-line gambling sponsorships while Rose remains banned for betting. My suggestion: induct him into the Hall, engrave all of his accomplishments and records on his plaque, but also call out clearly that in 1989, after an investigation, Commissioner Bart Giamatti banned Rose from associations with the game, explaining clearly that Rose bet on baseball games.
Rose is 81. Reinstatement would be right and merciful. It would also remove the taint of hypocrisy from MLB.
The case for reinstatement is far stronger for Joseph Jefferson Jackson.
Jackson’s abilities as a ballplayer are legendary. He only played 12 years before he was banned, but he’s remembered as perhaps the most gifted man ever to play major league ball. Ty Cobb admitted Jackson was the most talented player he’d ever seen. Babe Ruth copied his batting style. There wasn’t anything Jackson couldn’t do on the diamond. He’s been romanticized in literature and film as a victim and a tragic figure.
Jackson, the best ballplayer on the field during the 1919 World Series, was promised $20,000 from gamblers if he would make a few extra outs and muff some balls in the field. Still, his 12 base hits set a Series record that remained unbroken for 45 years and he led both teams with a .375 batting average. He committed no errors, but admitted before a grand jury that he intentionally failed to catch up to a few fly balls and blew some throws back to the infield.
Gamblers cheated him. Jackson received only $5,000 of the $20,000 he was promised in bribe money. But he had second thoughts and tried to return the money on multiple occasions. He was unsuccessful because pitcher Lefty Williams, a ringleader in the plot, repeatedly returned the bills to him, slipping the envelope filled with cash under the door to Jackson’s room. Jackson tried to blow the whistle on the plot but team owner Charles Comiskey refused to meet with him. He was banned by Commissioner Landis even though he was acquitted by a grand jury in 1920.
Jackson never complained about his exile and died of a heart attack more than 70 years ago. His legacy is more complicated than Rose’s because he’s a far more sympathetic figure and because of the myth and folklore that’ve grown up around him.
For long dead players to gain entry to Cooperstown, someone has to step forward to forcefully and publicly advocate the player’s candidacy. For many years, Ted Williams, a member of the Hall’s Veterans Committee and an influential HOF member, took up Jackson’s cause and was close to getting the ban lifted. But Williams died in 2002. When Ted died, any chance that Shoeless Joe Jackson might gain entry died with him.
In 2015, the Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum in Greenville SC, where Jackson was born, formally petitioned Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred to reinstate Jackson on grounds that he had “more than served his sentence” in the 95 years since his banishment. Manfred denied the request, writing “…it is not possible now, over 95 years since those events took place and were considered by Commissioner Landis, to be certain enough of the truth to overrule Commissioner Landis’ determinations”.
That response was disingenuous and missed the point. Jackson’s guilt or innocence is no longer relevant. What is relevant is that Cooperstown continues to bar its doors to one of the greatest talents ever to play the game, long past any statute of limitations on his punishment has long expired.
In 1963, NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle suspended star Green Bay Packer halfback Paul Hornung for placing bets on horses and wagering on college and pro football games. It was well established that Hornung only bet on the Packers to win. By then, Hornung had led the league in scoring three times and was the 1961 MVP.
At the same time, Rozelle also suspended Detroit Lions defensive tackle Alex Karras. Karras was one of the league’s most savage lineman. He was part-owner of a Detroit bar frequented by gamblers. Karras also placed at least half a dozen bets on the Lions to win. When he refused to sell his interest in the bar, Rozelle suspended him. The commissioner imposed one-year ban on both All Pro players.
As Rozelle put it to Sports Illustrated at the time of the ban: “This sport has grown so quickly and gained so much of the approval of the American public that the only way it can be hurt is through gambling.”
Both men were reinstated a year later, predicated on a number of conditions. Neither could visit Las Vegas. Hornung wasn’t allowed to attend the Kentucky Derby or bet on horses as long as he played. Karras’ reinstatement came with similar restrictions, including the sale of his stake in the bar. During the 1964 season, an official summoned Karras to midfield for a pregame coin toss. “I’m sorry, sir,” Karras said dryly, “but I’m not permitted to gamble.”
Both men had to wait a long time to be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Hornung wasn’t inducted until 1986, his 15th year on the ballot, 20 years after his retirement. Karras, the less remorseful of the two, didn’t live to see his admission. It didn’t take place until 2020, 50 years after he retired and eight years after his death.
The penalties imposed on Karras and Hornung by Rozelle seem about right: a one-year suspension and a wait of decades before Canton rolled out the red carpet. In Karras’ case, the added penalty was posthumous enshrinement.
The announcement of Karras’ election to Canton was broken on the NFL Network — right after the Fantasy Showdown sponsored by DraftKings.
Baseball should stop fooling itself that gambling isn’t a social disease. The disclaimer on betting ads posting a toll free number is no help to the hundreds of thousands of men and women who are gambling addicts. That 800 number is cold comfort when you’ve lost your family’s rent and food money.
The sports industry’s alliance with the gambling industry is a zero sum game. Organized sports cannot insulate itself from corruption unless it erects a barrier between itself and the gambling industry, the imposing wall Landis built and patrolled after the Black Sox Scandal. That won’t happen again. Because the sports industry is in bed with the betting industry, players and officials will always be tempted by bribes.
It’s been 103 years since Jackson was tossed out of baseball and 34 years since Rose was banned. Baseball, and the rest of the organized sports industry, isn’t going to allow the golden calf to go untapped. But it can at least be forthright, end its hypocrisy, grant Rose and Jackson amnesty and give them their plaques in Cooperstown.
Time served.