Gambling is baseball’s Original Sin, the greatest possible transgression in a 150-year-old sport. You gamble on a game as a member of a team — player, coach or executive — you’re gone, no second chances.
Where, then, does sign-stealing fit in?
Pete Rose hurled himself back into the national baseball conversation Wednesday when he applied once again for reinstatement, seeking an end to his 31-years-and-counting ban from the game. Rose’s reasoning? His ban is “disproportionate” compared to the punishments levied against guilty parties in the far-reaching Astros-Red Sox sign-stealing scandal.
Rose laid out his rationale in a 20-page document first obtained by ESPN.