Sho Time for MLB to lift Pete Rose ban, and we empty our spring notebook | Press Box Wag

Looks like Pete Rose is going on the offensive when it comes to baseball’s latest gambling embarrassment and his own lifetime ban for his so-called sin against the game.

Is that the right move for Cincinnati Reds icon and hit king?

You bet.

Why?

Because you bet. And I bet. And he bet. And we all bet.

Because gambling is the American Pastime these days — a lot more than baseball ever was.

And baseball not only is good with that, but it’s also capitalizing on it wherever it can, says that’s why it’s OK that it’s in sponsorship bed with sports books and is encouraging one of its franchises to move down the street from Rose in Las Vegas.

Remember when Hall of Famers Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle were banned from baseball in the 1980s — after their retirements — because they were mere greeters for Atlantic City casinos?

These days, “I don’t see that Vegas is different than any other (city),” commissioner Rob Manfred says.

That was part of his response to a direct question from the Enquirer at last year’s All-Star game about how he reconciles Rose’s continued banishment for gambling when the Athletics have been approved for a move to Las Vegas, when baseball now welcomes lucrative partnerships with gambling outlets and when a brick-and-mortar sports book has been built into a corner of Wrigley Field — in the same city, just a few miles from where White Sox players were paid off to throw the 1919 World Series, creating MLB’s hard stance on the subject in the first place.

Now baseball’s staring a potentially massive crisis in the face if it discovers in its ongoing investigation that $700 million superstar Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers bet on baseball.

Ohtani’s longtime interpreter took the fall for funneling millions of dollars of Ohtani’s money to a bookmaker because of his own gambling habit, admitting publicly to stealing from Ohtani. Ohtani vehemently denied being involved or specifically gambling on sports. The Dodgers fired the interpreter.

Rose, in turn, fired his own shot on a recent podcast:

“Well, back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, I wish I’d had an interpreter,” he said. “I’d be scot-free.”

Instead, the 82-year-old Rose is 35 years into a lifetime ban from the game that has kept him out of the Hall of Fame.

Even as casinos and gambling on sports have become ubiquitous across the country. Even as MLB has intertwined its brand with brands in that industry.

MLB has no more high ground to claim in its decision to uphold Rose’s continued ban.

“We’ve always approached the issue of gambling from the proposition that players and other people who are in position to influence the outcome of the game are going to be subject to a different set of rules than everyone else,” Manfred said during that response last summer. “Pete Rose violated what is Rule 1 of baseball, and the consequences are clear in the rules.”

So what’s next?

What’s Major League Baseball going to do with Ohtani if its investigation determines he bet on baseball?

Ban the most internationally beloved — and marketable — player in a game for life? Ban him from a league long thirsting for that kind of attention and draw?

Don’t bet on it.

Meanwhile, a few things we had left in our spring training notebook before the Reds open what should be their most compelling season in years:

Uni Browsing

Chalk one up for unintended transparency.

Remember that new-uniform flap involving the lightweight, cheap look to the jerseys, the smaller lettering on the back and the see-through home white pants?

After weeks of complaints and a suggestion that the issues would be addressed by the start of the season, no fixes have arrived. The Reds and others are rolling into the new year with their pants down (or at least occasionally looking like it).

The only differences to the the Reds’ new unis were made during the countless hours put in by the clubhouse staff doing the custom-tailoring for individuals that the previous uniform maker used to do.

Hey, as long as MLB and its vendors can make a few extra bucks on merch with yet another uniform look, right?

He Said It

“The division has gotten a bad rap in the last few years. But all these teams are playing to win this year, that’s for sure. And you’ve just got to respect what they’ve done, what they’ve put into their teams, what they’ve added. It’s going to be a war. It’s beautiful.”

*Milwaukee Brewers manager Pat Murphy on the NL Central in 2024.

Buffalo Wild Spring?

Reds legend Joey Votto is staying back with the Toronto Blue Jays’ extended spring group in Florida as he finishes recovering from a sprained ankle and ramps up for a possible season debut with his hometown Jays, who signed him to a minor-league deal earlier this month.

Votto rolled his ankle stepping on a bat in his first spring game for the Jays, after homering on the first pitch in his only at-bat.

It likely means he’ll play at Triple-A Buffalo when he starts official games. And if he’s still there after a few weeks, the Bisons travel to Indianapolis for a five-game series starting May 1 — just an hour, 45 minutes from Cincinnati.

Tickets for the opener of that series were as low as $13 this week on the Indianapolis team’s website.

Forget Me Not

Here’s your annual reminder that the Opening Day roster is a mere speck of a starting point for a 162-game season and often bears little resemblance to the version that winds up having the biggest impact on the season.

Exactly half the Reds 2024 active opening roster were not on last year’s opening roster.

Four of last year’s opening players were out of the organization before the end of the season: Joel Kuhnel, Kevin Newman, Wil Myers and Luis Cessa. Another four were cut loose since then.

Happy returns?

Add this one to the list of the many things sacrilegious and inevitable at the same time, right behind airline baggage fees, the designated hitter and non-alcoholic beer.

Reds Opening Day starter Frankie Montas was one of many pitchers this spring to take advantage of the flexibility of Cactus and Grapefruit League games that allows for re-entry for a pitcher who labors during a long inning with a lot of pitches.

“I do like that rule for sure,” Montas said.

Maybe enough to allow it during the regular season?

He laughed. For a second or two.

And then it was pointed out what that might do for the scarcity crisis in baseball of innings eaters.

As recently as 2011 — the last time a pitcher threw 250 innings in a season (Justin Verlander) — 36 pitchers threw at least 200.

Last year five pitched 200, and only 15 reached even 190.

Pitching staffs already have been increased to a new standard of 13 — half the size of the recently expanded active roster.

If a re-entry rule was instituted for the regular-season, those innings totals for starters would certainly go up, alleviating the crisis.

“True,” Montas said.

Remember, you read it here first.

The Big Number: 18

That’s how many franchises have won the World Series since the Reds’ last championship in 1990. The New York Yankees have won it five times since then; the Boston Red Sox, four; the San Francisco Giants, three; and five more teams won it twice each (Toronto Blue Jays, Atlanta Braves, Florida/Miami Marlins, St. Louis Cardinals and Houston Astros).

No Average Joe

The Reds initially rejected the A’s request for Joe Boyle in the deadline trade for lefty reliever Sam Moll last summer.

“They said no on Joe a couple of times until they finally came back and said yeah,” A’s GM David Forst said.

Until then, the Chicago Cubs believed they were close to finalizing their own deal for Moll, a team source there said.

“For us it worked out great,” Forst said.

Boyle had an impressive three-start debut last year and on Tuesday officially won the A’s fifth starter job to open the season.

No Red Alerts Needed

When the Ohtani-related gambling story broke this spring, Reds manager David Bell said the Reds organization needed no translator when it comes to baseball’s rules — which are reiterated each spring by MLB reps.

“Major League Baseball security does a very thorough education, a very explicit message,” Bell said. “It’s a lot of different topics, but gambling’s a big part of that. No gambling on baseball is the main takeaway.”

The Reds don’t have a policy beyond MLB’s or deliver any other messaging to their players on the subject, Bell said.

Maybe it’s enough that baseball’s octogenarian poster child for the consequences of such things is a franchise icon with a street that runs alongside the ballpark named after him?

That's What Friends Are For

Reds union rep alternate Lucas Sims, the reliever who also is the last player to go to an arbitration hearing with the club (he lost in 2022), reached out to teammate Jonathan India when it looked like India would face his own potentially contentious hearing last month.

“It’s uncomfortable at times, but it was all production-based. It was all on-the-field stuff,” Sims said. “It’s not fun to listen to, but in a way it’s kind of good to hear. In a way. It makes you think you’re not as good as you think you are, basically. You’re like, ‘All right, there are some things I probably need to improve on.”

In the hearing process, each side gets a brief, allotted time to make its case for the salary figure it submitted, after which a three-member panel decides which of the two figures to award the player.

“He just said, ‘Good luck,’ “ India said. “ ‘ It’s a tough process. You’re going to hear things that you’re not going to like. But you deserve everything you want.’ “

India agreed to a two-year, $8.8 million deal just ahead of his scheduled hearing.

Votto's Final Contribution

Infielder Santiago Espinal couldn’t have felt better prepped to go to a team that he didn’t know when the Reds acquired him in a trade last week from the Blue Jays — thanks to a spring dinner companion and old pal of the Reds.

“He’s interesting,” Espinal said of Votto.

“We went to dinner, and I was actually sitting right next to him,” Espinal said. “We talked so much about baseball. We talked to much about hitting. We talked so much about Cincinnati and his career here. Great guy. He loved it.

“As soon as I got traded he was the first one to text me. He was the first one to tell me, ‘Look, you’re going to be in a great place. This team is special.’

“I’m ready for it.”

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Pete Rose, Joey Votto and what happened with the unis | Press Box Wag