Pete Rose thread

From Wiki Gonzalez

Only one known Pete Rose thread of any consequence has turned up on Baseball Think Factory:

• August 12, 2003 - Baseball Prospectus - The Return of Pete Rose - Will Carroll and Derek Zumsteg cause a mainstream media sensation by reporting a secret Pete Rose reinstatement deal with the Commissioner of Baseball. Topics included Rose, Baseball Prospectus, Carroll, journalism, ethics.

Pete Rose threads used to massively proliferate in rec.sport.baseball in the early 1990s, when Rose's 1989 banishment from baseball for gambling on his team was still fresh in people's minds. The old r.s.b guard, some of whom would later found Baseball Prospectus, considered Pete the scum of the earth and rightfully kept out of the Baseball Hall of Fame for violating a cardinal rule of organized baseball. Newbies (which the Internet was chock-full of back then) and Rose sympathizers considered Pete a hard-working ballplayer and heroic performer in his playing days, who had been unjustly railroaded out of baseball and the Hall for transgressions that Pete denied ever occurred. The two sides forever failed to convince each other of the rightness of their opinions.

It could be said that the PETCO and performance enhancing drugs era of fruitless, contentious baseball-and-everything-else discussion threads was grandfathered by Pete Rose's banishment.