"Since mid-May, when Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred announced Pete Rose would be eligible for Hall of Fame consideration and explained his specious reasonings behind it, last week's Hall of Fame vote by the 16-member Classic Era committee carried with it a certain air of inevitability for Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds, the two greatest players currently not enshrined in Cooperstown."
"After Rose died in September 2024, Trump then won the presidency five weeks later and immediately increased the pressure on Manfred to end Rose's 36-year banishment despite the absence of any evidence suggesting Rose was any less guilty in death of gambling on the sport than he had been alive. Nevertheless, Manfred acquiesced to Trump, and in 2027, for the first time, Pete Rose will be eligible for induction into the Hall of Fame."
"That specter of that capitulation, the brutish application of power has defined both the current political and cultural moment. Integrity has been as much under assault as democracy it's a word for wimps and hand-wringers. Accountability is for suckers the ones too weak to get their own way, not man enough to take what they want. People feel numb, and with numbness comes surrender."
Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred announced Pete Rose would be eligible for Hall of Fame consideration, reversing a 36-year ban for betting. Donald Trump championed Rose and increased pressure after Rose's September 2024 death and Trump's subsequent presidential victory, prompting Manfred's acquiescence. Pete Rose will be eligible for induction in 2027. The capitulation exemplifies broader political and cultural decay: assaults on integrity and democracy, disdain for accountability, rampant pardons, erosion of stabilizing norms, oligarchic pillage, and growing public numbness. Sports face scandals from betting to NIL and labor, reflecting broader institutional failings.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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