Pete Rose was a 17-time Main League Baseball (MLB) all-star who was as famend for his legacy on the sector as he was for the vices that reduce it brief.
Rose received the World Sequence thrice (1975, 1976 and 1980), enjoying for twenty years on groups just like the Philadelphia Phillies and the then-dominant Cincinnati Reds. It’s speculated that he received extra regular-season video games than some other MLB participant in historical past—maybe greater than some other skilled athlete.
However he additionally preferred to gamble.
A Justice Division investigation uncovered that Rose had wagered on greater than 50 Reds video games within the late Eighties, whereas serving because the group supervisor. ESPN later reported that he had additionally wagered on baseball whereas he was a participant, a truth Rose refused to confess. He was completely banned from the game in 1989.
In 1991, a ruling by the Baseball Corridor of Fame dealt one other blow to Rose, declaring that any completely ineligible participant couldn’t be thought of for induction, one thing that’s come to be generally known as “the Pete Rose rule.”
Rose utilized for reinstatement to the MLB in 2015, a transfer which, if granted, may have paved his approach into the Corridor of Fame. He was residing in Las Vegas on the time, nonetheless (legally) betting on baseball, when his bid was rejected. That very same yr, former baseball investigator John Dowd made a bombshell declare that Rose was sexually concerned with ladies aged 12–14 throughout his profession. The previous Reds all-star died in September of 2024 along with his second bid for reinstatement, filed in 2020, nonetheless on the Commissioner’s proverbial desk.
This Could, the destiny of Rose and several other different disgraced MLB “greats” together with “Shoeless Joe” Jackson and the Black Sox grew to become inextricably linked when Commissioner Rob Manfred eliminated them and greater than a dozen different deceased gamers from the group’s completely ineligible record.
The lads will now be eligible for induction into the Baseball Corridor of Fame as quickly because the summer season of 2028. Manfred’s resolution units the stage for legacy washing of those athletes, reshaping public notion after a scandal or controversy by downplaying unfavourable facets of their actions. And it has implications far past their very own sport.
Legacy Washing
Rose won’t ever get to see the fruits of his good-name glow-up. However legacy washing will undoubtedly influence the best way he’s seen by legions of followers for a few years to come back. The query is, to what finish?
At a time when cancel tradition stays a subject of scorching debate, the notion of revisiting the legacies of “cancelled” people from generations previous is especially fraught. In spite of everything, legacy washing is, at its core, a technique to rewrite the previous—it nearly all the time entails bias of 1 variety or one other.
However that isn’t all the time a nasty factor. “Revisionist historical past is a common phenomenon,” wrote James M. Banner Jr., writer of The Ever-Altering Previous: Why All Historical past Is Revisionist Historical past.
“A democratic tradition, by which totally different views and totally different ‘truths’ are allowed to coexist and share billing within the public discussion board of thought, ought additionally to be seen as a wonderful storehouse of concepts, lots of them solid off in a single period but all the time obtainable for reuse in one other.”
In different phrases, when finished for the fitting causes, there’s nothing new or overtly political about reexamining the previous by way of a sort of “come one, come all” modern lens. By its very nature, although, legacy washing comes with its personal inherent pitfalls—and lengthy reaching penalties. That is significantly true when the legacy in query is stained by allegations of sexual abuse, as is the case with Rose.
“Legacy washing could cause hurt to victims of abuse as a result of it facilities the deal with the abuser’s accomplishments, accolades, and feats moderately than the victims’ experiences,” mentioned Michaela Callie, Government Director of #WeRideTogether, a nonprofit working to eradicate sexual misconduct in sport.
“Legacy washing also can discourage future disclosures when misconduct and abuse are downplayed as ‘errors,’ pardoned by excuses like youth or ignorance, or omitted altogether.”
Rehabilitating Rose?
With regards to Pete Rose’s playing, it’s price no less than contemplating his transgressions in mild of the evolving nature of sports activities betting. A landmark Supreme Courtroom case in 2018 overturned the Skilled and Beginner Sport Safety Act (PASPA), successfully paving the best way for particular person states to legalize sports activities betting nation-wide. They usually did.
Within the spring of 2025, ESPN reported that greater than $502 billion had been guess with U.S. sports activities books since PASPA was struck down. In different phrases, the nation’s view on playing has modified—ought to we give Rose a cross?
In response to Callie, three questions may also help to offer a “intestine verify” as as to whether a case of legacy washing will trigger hurt or good:
Is revisionism minimizing or denying hurt?
Are victims being shamed or blamed for a perpetrator’s actions?
Or, is revisionism bringing readability and context, and highlighting maladaptive behaviors or behaviors that shouldn’t be normalized?
In his personal e book, Rose admitted, no less than partly, to putting unlawful bets on his personal group whereas appearing as a supervisor. And whereas this may increasingly have deceived his followers, it’s unlikely that they might really feel shamed or blamed by his actions.
But when Rose’s playing behaviors have been normalized by historical past, his admissions of a sexual relationship with a minor shouldn’t be. In 2017, a sworn assertion in federal court docket from a Jane Doe accused Rose of statutory rape. On the time the abuse occurred, the plaintiff mentioned she was 14 or 15; Rose was then a married father in his 30s.
Rose did concede that relationship, which spanned years, however mentioned they hadn’t left the state of Ohio and that he thought Jane Doe was 16—the then age of consent there. The Philadelphia Phillies, who had been planning to confess the previous participant to their very own Corridor of Fame that season, didn’t chew; they introduced the cancellation of Rose’s induction two days after Jane Doe got here ahead.
At a press convention for a Phillies celebration years later in 2022, a reporter requested Rose in regards to the cost. “No, I’m not right here to speak about that,” Rose famously mentioned to her. “Sorry about that. It was 55 years in the past, babe.”
Whatever the MLB’s resolution to reinstate Rose, or the truth that he’s discovered a steadfast supporter in President Trump—a person who has, himself, has confronted a number of accusations and has been discovered liable in court docket for sexual abuse—Rose fails Callie’s legacy washing litmus take a look at.
His potential Corridor of Fame induction would absolutely decrease the hurt he did to Jane Doe, whereas additionally opening her as much as disgrace amongst his legions of followers, who now really feel emboldened to excuse Rose’s previous actions whereas embracing his ethical exceptionalism.
Apparently, Baseball Corridor of Fame voters can even be required to think about Rose’s integrity, sportsmanship, and character as a part of a possible induction course of, one thing which will or might not finally weigh on their resolution to confess him.
Hero Wash-Up
In baseball, as in equestrian sports activities, there’s a tendency to view star athletes as “too large to fail.” One want look no additional than Fb for proof.
The outcry in opposition to numerous establishments, together with the media, which happens within the feedback part of a put up highlighting—as an illustration—a high rider or coach’s SafeSport suspension are hardly dissimilar from these discovered within the “Pete Rose needs to be within the Baseball Corridor of Fame” Fb group.
The frequent denominator? Typically vitriolic help for a fallen hero.
“Individuals typically wrestle to just accept that unhealthy folks can do good issues, and good folks can do unhealthy issues,” mentioned Callie, who characterizes these eventualities for instance of cognitive dissonance.
“Sadly, the reality is messy. And the nuances of abuse and misconduct don’t often go viral. As an alternative, folks typically attain for easy and comfy explanations—like, ‘This can be a witch hunt.’ Or ‘They’d by no means do this, I’ve identified them for years,’” Callie defined.
“It could possibly really feel like a betrayal to acknowledge the dangerous actions of a perpetrator when the perpetrator is idolized, revered, and cherished.”
A first-rate instance of this rhetoric might be discovered within the feedback part of a put up by EquestrianCoach after the loss of life of Bernie Traurig’s pal, rider/coach Robert Gage, by suicide in June of 2019. Gage was banned by SafeSport for sexual misconduct involving a minor and took his personal life the day earlier than a scheduled attraction listening to for his case.
SafeSport, for his or her half, launched an announcement following Gage’s loss of life clarifying that his completely ineligible ban was “reserved for probably the most egregious circumstances” and that it was issued “…following an exhaustive investigation, and resolution course of, that discovered sexual misconduct involving various minors.”
Gage’s suicide, nonetheless, rocked the equestrian group, with Traurig’s put up inspiring some 200 feedback. A transparent majority of them mourned his loss, whereas many others railed in opposition to SafeSport’s perceived “lack of due course of.”
When one commenter stepped in to protest “the help of abusers and shaming of victims on this thread,” she was focused for harsh assaults by a number of people. Of equal concern, nonetheless, is the sharing of an obituary for Gage on the put up which particulars his begin within the business “…underneath the tutelage of Present Leaping Corridor of Fame Coach Jimmy Williams.”
One yr earlier, in Could of 2018, Williams (who died in 1993) was publicly accused of abuse by a number of people, together with two-time Olympic silver medalist Anne Kursinski, who mentioned she was 11 when she was raped by Williams for the primary time.
Williams was formally voted out of the Present Leaping Corridor of Fame in 2022. However, seen on this context, his inclusion in Gage’s put up utilizing the small, passive line, “Present Leaping Corridor of Fame Coach”—with no point out of his victims, abuse, or its penalties, regardless of their names already being a part of the general public document—speaks volumes.
Williams’s ironic cameo, in a tribute for one more coach whose popularity was completely marred for related crimes, is a tangible instance of equestrian legacy washing in real-time.
It’s price noting that, 5 years since Gage’s loss of life, many equestrians have gained a fuller understanding of his and Williams’s legacy, and in addition of SafeSport’s processes. And but posts commemorating the lives of those credibly accused pedophiles nonetheless flow into yearly on Fb with little or no point out of their prison indiscretions.
Usually, we want to view our sports activities heroes by way of a sort of glam picture filter, casting their finest options within the good mild, whereas blotting out the blemishes. With regards to legacy washing, athletes, coaches, and trainers needs to be judged on a case-by-case foundation and with nuance. However in guarding in opposition to the pitfalls of legacy washing in sport, our mission is evident.
“We’ve got to do not forget that our responses to abuse and misconduct as people and as a society play a key function within the short- and long-term well-being of survivors, in survivor disclosures, and within the effectiveness of future abuse prevention efforts,” Callie mentioned. “Legacy doesn’t have to be erased—but it surely have to be full. Assume, ‘sure, and….’
“We’ve got to work on our uncomfortable cognitive dissonances to make sure victims usually are not being silenced or discarded. And forestall historical past from repeating itself.”
Be taught extra in regards to the sufferer expertise and sexual misconduct prevention in sport at weridetogether.right this moment.
