Pete Rose responded to the Philadelphia Inquirer's Alex Coffey on Sunday after he asked about allegations that he raped a girl in the 70s.
After a woman came forward and accused Pete Rose of having a sexual relationship with her when she was 14 or 15 years old, the Philadelphia Phils decided to honor him. Rose brought a defamation lawsuit against a former federal prosecutor who claimed that Rose had raped girls during Spring training in the 70s. Rose decided to drop the suit.
After the statute of limitations expired, Rose admitted that he had sex with the woman, but thought she was 16 years old. It is a terrible defense, but it is possibly an honest one from a guy who is rarely honest. When a 34 year old man has sex with a person under the age of 16 it is not a relationship.
Fans stood and cheered when Rose admitted to having sex with a child. They do it all the time. If you are good enough at a professional sport, there is nothing you can do to stop a woman from watching you play. We have seen men accused of violent sexual assaults, like Ben Roethlisberger and Kobe Bryant, all of whom have a lot of male fans ready to defend them. The allegations against them have been denied by them. Back to Pete Rose.
The gender barrier was broken in 1976. It was a time when women reporters had buckets of cold water dumped over their heads and players had dead rats sent to them. Rose thought this was the 1970s and referred to her as "babe" in his dressing down. He shut down the woman who dared ask the most important question, because he didn't want to answer it.
I don't know how many men stood up for her. How many people stood silently while she was dressed down?
Even after Rose behaved like a sexist, he was invited into the booth of the baseball team and proceeded to make fun of them.
How long will Pete Rose be celebrated? It's hard to say that someone is no longer deserving of our attention. There were so many defenders out.
At a time when it feels like women are constantly under siege online, at the voting booths, and even at our doctors' offices, baseball fans should say "we're not going to stand for this kind of behavior." Not from Pete Rose. It's difficult to divorce sports fans who care about the harm their heroes have done to women with Americans who don't care about the harm to women in society at large.
Many MLB fans don't want to admit that one of their heroes might be a bad person who hurts others, and they don't want to give a bunch of loudmouth women the satisfaction of knowing that. Why don't you? What is special about Pete Rose or Aroldis Chapman or Roberto Osuna that fans don't condemn the behavior that earned them suspensions or the lifetime ban for betting on baseball? The three people denied the allegations against them. There are a lot of athletes out there who treat others well.
Why is Pete Rose still invited to appear on radio shows? He is in the booth during a game. Fans are still standing and cheering for a man. He used to be good at baseball.
There is a group of people who don't want to think about politics when watching sports. I don't want to be forced to feel compassion for anyone but myself. Those who are black, women, members of the LBGTQ community, and who are part of any other marginalized group don't have that luxury. It is not possible for us to separate sports from society.
We walk away from someone who was good at sports but bad at life because we don't like them. What does it cost us when we don't want it?
It might be time to think about it.
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