Pete Rose’s admission to gambling on baseball isn’t just big stuff in sports–it’s big in ethics.
At the heart of the Rose saga lie fundamental notions of human nature and the essence of repentance.
From talk radio to the seminary, many have observed that Rose’s acknowledgment that he once had a gambling problem appears not to be motivated by regret, but by ambition–to sell books and be cleared for entrance into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Whether his confession is accepted, experts say, can depend largely on how much it is driven by responsibility, regret and repentance.
Can this possibly be an act of contrition when it comes so late in the game, so close to the publication of his book, and as the chances for being enshrined in the Hall of Fame dwindle?
True repentance comes from the heart, not the wallet, and theologians and legal experts say that has cast a shadow over Rose’s quasi mea culpa. But in this decade of public confession, of Oprah Winfrey and Larry King, a long parade of flawed celebrities has seen the value of a well-timed apology to curry public favor.
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Rose, it would seem, is following the same tack.
In his bid to win public acceptance and a return to baseball, he confronts weighty subjects that have confounded theologians, judges and philosophers struggling with the eternal issues of right and wrong, redemption and damnation.
“I suspect Rose isn’t interested in undertaking the kind of change in his way of life that gave rise to the gambling in general,” said L. Gregory Jones, dean of Duke Divinity School. “He may know now that he better not bet on baseball. But the repentance isn’t going to be authentic if he thinks just having confessed is all it takes.”
Besides, Jones added, referring to Rose’s coming book, “a confession is a pretty good way to ensure good publicity and interest in the market.”
Those readers looking for more than a cursory apology from Rose for gambling on baseball will be disappointed. But Rose’s grudging attitude is in keeping with his bare-knuckle play that made him baseball’s all-time hits leader and earned him the nickname Charlie Hustle.
“I’m sure that I’m supposed to act all sorry or sad or guilty now that I’ve accepted that I’ve done something wrong. But you see I’m just not built that way,” Rose writes in “My Prison Without Bars.”
He adds, “I’m sorry it happened and I’m sorry for all the people, fans and family it hurt.”
In terms of sincerity, Rose’s tepid acknowledgment seems to rank right up there with a long list of botched admissions.
There was basketball player Latrell Sprewell after choking his coach: “Yes, I was wrong, but I didn’t kill anybody.” And there was Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding, who a decade ago Tuesday was involved in the knee-whacking of fellow competitor Nancy Kerrigan: “I would like to apologize for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and with the wrong people.”
If Rose is to be truly penitential, he needs to issue more than a slick “my bad,” experts say. The three key ingredients for genuine atonement are responsibility, regret and remedy, said Beverly Engel, a California psychotherapist and author of “The Power of Apology: Healing Steps to Transform All Your Relationships.”
“True regret is really humiliating. It means getting down on your knees and saying you screwed up,” said Engel, who has been counseling couples and companies on the subject for 30 years. “This is more of a shrug-your-shoulder adolescent thing.”
Religious experts, too, are in agreement that without some genuine contrition, Rose’s confession is nothing but an empty gesture.
“I was a kid when Charlie Hustle played on the Reds,” said Rev. Jeremiah Boland, pastor of Holy Family Church in Chicago. “If there is someone I want to make it, it’s him. He gave so much. I think people want to forgive Pete Rose. But if this book leads to denials and misstatements, it won’t go well. I would just love for him to come clean and be recognized as the baseball player he was.”
In Judaism, repentance comes over time, and it comes when those wronged are made right.
“It has to be more than lip service,” said Rabbi Ellen Dreyfus of Temple B’nai Yehuda Beth Shalom in Homewood.
The “cleanliness” of Rose’s confession is tempered by the timing, she said. “But it’s better to repent for questionable motives than not at all. Clearly, it would have been better if he hadn’t committed the sin in the first place.
“Once he lied, then to have denied it for so long, is regrettable, but one would hope that this will help turn him around … and not just help the sales of his book,” said Dreyfus, past president of the Chicago Board of Rabbis.
Islam, too, holds repentance in high regard, said Assad Busool, chair of Arabic studies at American Islamic College in Chicago.
“Repentance in Islam means you vow to God, you confess to God,” Busool said.
Busool said Rose’s motivation to confess “is between him and God.”
“You can’t judge him,” Busool said. “We can speculate. But we are human beings and we don’t know his motivation. The final judgment is to God, not to us.”
For better or worse, sports has ethics all its own. And by betting on baseball, Rose courted banishment for life.
In an era of sexual assault and steroid abuse, athletes’ betting on games may seem like a minor offense. But in sports, it’s a transgression that carries far more moral weight than it might elsewhere.
“In sports, gambling is the third rail that you just don’t touch,” said Allen Sanderson, sports economist at the University of Chicago. “We absolutely need to believe that the competitors are out there and trying to win. … “It’s the reason why we don’t have a major sports franchise in Las Vegas.”
Still, Sanderson believes that Rose’s star loomed so large that most Americans are willing to forgive a little tarnish. “I think most people can make the distinction between Charlie Hustle vs. Charlie Hustler,” he said.
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At one of the nation’s busiest courthouses, the Criminal Courts Building in Chicago, judges constantly try to discern the human heart.
Many of those judges were a tad skeptical about the ex-ballplayer’s recent declarations on gambling.
“The oath is `the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,'” Judge Stanley Sacks said. “I’m not sure Rose has gotten to that last part yet.”
Until he does that, author Engel said, all bets are off. He has to go back to the three R’s–responsibility, regret and remedy.
“For Rose, this is about expedience, not substance,” Engel said. “To be truly repentant he should sit down in a circle with his teammates, fans and others he let down. He still doesn’t understand how disappointed they all are.”