IMHO Pete Rose made his own bed now he is sleeping in it and deservedly so.
That's just it, though, he really didn't make his own bed. Getting banned from baseball, yeah, he made that one, but being ineligible for the Hall of Fame
because he has been banned from baseball, newp, they screwed him on that one.
The Hall of Fame eligibility rule that states anyone who has been permanently banned from baseball is ineligible for induction into the Hall of Fame is affectionately known as
The Pete Rose Rule. All the time that he way playing, and all the time he was managing and betting, that rule did not exist. Once you leave the game, there is a five year waiting period before you can be included on the ballot for HoF voting. It was
after Pete Rose left the game, and
before his five year waiting period was over, that the Hall of Fame put that rule in place. They knew, based on an informal poll of voters from the BBWAA, that if there were no such rule, that Pete Rose had about a 95% shot at getting into the Hall on his first ballot. They couldn't stand the thought of that happening, so they invented the Pete Rose Rule. It's like putting up a stop sign at an intersection, and then giving people tickets for running it 6 months earlier. They changed the rules of the game after the fact, and made the punishment retroactive.
He bet on his team to win. How does that influence you to do anything but get your team to play hard?
If he bet the same amount of money on every single game, that would be a valid argument. But he didn't. He placed no bets on some games. That causes several ripples. One, when sports booking agents, say, in Las Vegas, see that Pete fails to put a bet down on a particular game, they assume it's because he doesn't think his team will win that game. That drastically changes the odds for many reasons, not the least of which is that Pete as the manager may hold back a particular reliever or position player and not play them in a game he doesn't think they'll win, and instead hold them back and have them well rested for the next game, a game in which he places a bet. The bookmakers see that, too, and the odds are again changed.
In a game in which he places a bet, but is in the midst of losing, in order to try and win that game he may use a player who should otherwise be resting, like a pitcher who has pitched in 4 or 5 consecutive games, or a player with a minor injury who should be taking a game or two off to heal. Not only is that detrimental to the players and thus the game, but it will have a dramatic effect on how he manages the upcoming games, and thus an effect on betting odds, as well.
The primary purpose of MLB, as stated in the Rules, is to win the game. If you manage to win a bet, instead, you aren't playing by the Rules, you aren't managing to win the game. You aren't managing in the best interest of baseball, you're managing in your own best interests at the expense of baseball and the players. It's a seemly business, and for that he absolutely should have been permanently banned from baseball. But he should still be eligible for the Hall of Fame.