The Excommunication of Pete Rose

In the opening monologue of the Ron Shelton film Bull Durham, baseball groupie Annie Savoy proclaims her allegiance to the “church of baseball.” She explains, “I prefer metaphysics to theology. You see, there’s no guilt in baseball, and it’s never boring, which makes it like sex.” Such words could easily be imagined coming from the mouth of Pete Rose. In his 2004 autobiography, My Prison Without Bars, Rose described his relationship with baseball as “my religion.” After fifteen years of public denial, the disgraced all-star finally admitted in this book, without contrition, that he had bet on Major League Baseball games in which he was involved. Previously, in 1989, this alleged violation of MLB Rule 21(d): Gambling had resulted in an investigation and his voluntary permanent ban from the sport he “worshipped.” Eventually, repercussions of the ban made him ineligible for election into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.