Stephen A. Smith criticized Pete Rose’s MLB ban following the baseball icon’s death at the age of 83, saying “murderers have been freed faster” than he was.
Rose, MLB’s all-time hits leader, received a lifetime ban in 1989 after it was discovered that he had gambled on the Cincinnati Reds as a player and coach of the team.
That meant the baseball icon was never inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame before his death, and ESPN’s Smith raged against Rose’s treatment Tuesday morning.
‘People make mistakes. “The killers have been freed faster than Pete Rose,” he said on First Take, via Horrible ad.
‘And baseball wants to stand there with its high and mighty hypocritical self and literally denigrate this man. In 1999 he received a standing ovation in Atlanta during the World Series… they gave him a standing ovation! The American public said, “Stop all that, we want this man here!”
Stephen A. Smith Thinks It’s Ridiculous That Pete Rose Was Never Unbanned From MLB
Rose, who died Monday at the age of 83, was banned for life from baseball in 1989.
“We know what he did for the game,” he continued. ‘We know he got hurt. We know it wasn’t a good look, but it shouldn’t erase 23 years and they did it anyway. Smallpox in all your damn houses. They better not make any mistakes. They better not make any mistakes. Don’t forgive them all. Don’t forgive anyone in baseball who couldn’t forgive Pete Rose. None of them.
In his last interview weeks before his death, Rose admitted that he was still waiting for forgiveness.
“There’s nothing I can change about Pete Rose’s story,” he told the Texas television station. KLTV in an interview published on September 7.
“I keep convincing myself or telling myself, ‘Hang in there, Pete, you’ll get a second chance.'”
“This is the only country that gives you a second chance,” Rose added. “I keep hoping that one day I’ll get a second chance and I won’t need a third.”
The MLB legend spent 17 seasons in Cincinnati and won a World Series in Philadelphia
Notably, Rose was also accused of having an inappropriate sexual relationship with a minor in the 1970s, which coincided with his television role on Fox Sports in 2017.
In 2017, the Phillies canceled his induction into the team’s Wall of Fame after a Cincinnati woman said in federal court that she had a sexual relationship with the married Rose that began during his first stint with the Reds in 1973, when She was 14 or 15 years old. .
However, Rose has never been charged with statutory rape and the statute of limitations has expired.
Rose, who spent most of his career with the Reds, insisted that he believed she was 16 at the time of the affair, which is the legal age of consent in Ohio.