MLB commissioner Bud Selig mulling pardon for hit king Pete Rose

BY Bill Madden
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER



COOPERSTOWN - Thanks to the behind-the-scenes lobbying from some of the most influential Hall of Famers, commissioner Bud Selig is said to be seriously considering lifting Pete Rose's lifetime suspension from baseball.

The tip-off that Selig may now be inclined to pardon baseball's all-time hit king was Hank Aaron's seemingly impromptu interview session with a small group of reporters in the lobby of the Otesaga Hotel on Saturday. In declaring for the first time that he would want an asterisk put on the achievements of any steroid cheats elected to the Hall of Fame, Aaron brought up Rose, who, in August of 1989, was given a lifetime ban for gambling on baseball, saying: "I would like to see Pete in. He belongs there."

It is no secret that Selig considers Aaron one of his closest friends and values his opinions over perhaps all others. It was also learned by the Daily News that in a meeting of the Hall of Fame's board of directors at the Otesaga later on Saturday, two of Rose's former teammates on the board, vice chairman Joe Morgan and Frank Robinson, also expressed their hope that Selig would see fit to reinstate Rose.

Said another Hall of Famer familiar with the situation: "I think a lot of the guys feel that it's been 20 years now for Pete, and would lean toward leniency and time served. If he had admitted it in the first place and apologized way back then, he'd probably be in the Hall by now."

According to another source, the behind-the-scenes lobbying process began five years ago, but stalled because Selig was still not satisfied that Rose was "reconfiguring" his life, as the late commissioner Bart Giamatti had instructed for him to do when he initially placed him on baseball's permanent ineligible list. In addition, the source said, Selig's conditions for any reinstatement would be stiff. Rose likely would need to make another public apology and he would be prohibited from managing.

If Selig does reinstate him, Rose then would become eligible for the Hall of Fame, but on the Veterans Committee ballot, as his 15 years on the Baseball Writers ballot expired during his time on the ineligible list. He would thus have to be elected by his peers, the 65 living members in the Hall of Fame, not all of whom agree with Aaron, Morgan and Robinson that Rose has done his time. It's hard to say if he would get the necessary 75% for election. "I know there are still guys who feel strongly against him," said one Hall of Famer, "and I don't know if that would change even if Selig clears him."

Former Yankees, Mets outfielder Rickey Henderson, Red Sox great Jim Rice lead Hall of Fame class

The former left fielders were inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday along with the late Joe Gordon, and Henderson, baseball's all-time leading base stealer, was briefly overcome before evoking some hearty laughs.

"My journey as a player is complete," Henderson said. "I am now in the class of the greatest players of all time, and at this moment I am very humbled."

Born in Chicago on Christmas Day 1958, Henderson moved with his family to California when he was 7 years old and became a three-sport star at Oakland Technical High School. Football was his forte and he received numerous scholarships. He was persuaded to turn them down for a shot at baseball.

"My dream was to play football for the Oakland Raiders," Henderson said. "But my mother thought I would get hurt playing football, so she chose baseball for me. I guess moms do know best."

Henderson led the AL in steals 12 times and holds the record for steals with 1,406, runs scored with 2,295, unintentional walks with 2,129, and homers leading off a game with 81.

He said he owed much of that to a trick played by his former Babe Ruth coach, Hank Thompson.

"He tricked me into playing by coming to pick me up with a glazed donut and a cup of hot chocolate," said Henderson, who played for nine teams during his 25-year career. "That was the way he would get me up and out of bed."

Henderson said a high school counselor who needed players for the baseball team provided even more spark.

"She would pay me a quarter every time I would get a hit, when I would score or stole a base," he said. "After my first 10 games, I had 30 hits, 25 runs scored and 33 steals. Not bad money for a kid."

Henderson was drafted by the Oakland Athletics on the fourth round in 1976 and made his major league debut with Oakland in late June 1979. It was a day Henderson said he would never forget.

"That was the most thrilling time of my life," Henderson said, remembering former As owner Charlie Finley. "Charlie, wherever you're at, and that donkey, I want to say thank you for that opportunity."

When Finley hired Billy Martin as manager in 1980, Henderson had the perfect partner in crime. "Billyball" - the aggressive attack Martin relished - helped catapult Henderson to stardom.

Just the thought of that time forced Henderson to halt briefly in his speech when remembering Martin, who was killed in a car crash on Christmas 1989.

"Billy always got the most out of me," he said. "Billy, I miss you so much and I wish you were here today."

As Hall of Fame call arrives, former Yankees, Mets outfielder Rickey Henderson steals show



COOPERSTOWN - The most anticipated Hall of Fame speech ever was worth the wait - and not because Rickey Henderson delivered it in Rickey-esque third-person, disjointed fashion. Leave it to Henderson, baseball's all-time base thief and run man, to give us the unexpected, which, in his case Sunday, was being both eloquent and humble.

Say what?

Indeed, was that really the same slap-happy, card-playing, oblivious Rickey we've come to know over the past quarter-century, standing up there at the podium for the Hall of Fame inductions, elegantly garbed in a Good Humor Man white suit and white tie, speaking slowly and concisely, deftly injecting both humor and inspiration into what will go down as one of the most remembered Hall of Fame speeches of all time? In the end, he left them laughing all right, not at him, but with him.

"I want to say to all the kids out there: 'Follow your dream and believe in your dream because dreams do come true,'" Henderson said. "Think of a kid like me who came from the inner city and played the game with all his heart and never took the game for granted."

It turns out the ever-carefree Henderson really took this speech thing seriously. After being elected to the Hall by the Baseball Writers Association along with Jim Rice last January, Henderson was put in touch with Earl Robinson, the former Dodger and Orioles outfielder in the late '50s and early '60s who teaches speech at Oakland's Laney College.

"Speech and me don't get along sometimes," Henderson told the San Francisco Chronicle, but under Robinson's tutelage, he learned to slow down his delivery and pronounce each word carefully. The result was something quite extraordinary.

Talking about his youth in Oakland, Henderson credited his mother, Bobbi, sitting in the audience, for steering him away from his dream of playing football with the Oakland Raiders, "because she thought I might get hurt. I guess mom do know best!" He then launched into an anecdote about hanging out at the Oakland Coliseum as a youngster waiting to get an autograph from Reggie Jackson. Pointing to Jackson, who was sitting behind him with the 49 other returning Hall of Famers, Henderson cracked: "Reggie would come out and pass me a pen with his name on it! He wouldn't give me an autograph!"

Paying tribute to his first owner in baseball, Charlie Finley, and his first manager, Billy Martin, Henderson injected more humor and then a brief show of emotion into the proceedings. Of Finley, who signed him to an A's contract as a 17-year-old in 1976, he said: "Thank you, Charlie, wherever you are at with that donkey," drawing howls of laughter from the audience of approximately 21,000 spread out across the pasture. Then, looking skyward, his eyes moistening, he said of Martin: "He was one of the best managers anyone could ever play for and someone I looked up to the rest of my life, who taught me to compete. Billy, I miss you very much and I wish you were here with me today."

Henderson Enters the Hall His Way
Brian Snyder/Reuters



COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — He stole a record 1,406 bases in his career, and then, at his National Baseball Hall of Fame induction on Sunday, Rickey Henderson stole the show.


Wearing a cream-colored, 10-year-old, custom-made suit, Henderson spoke of his ambition to play football for the Oakland Raiders, not left field for the Oakland A’s.

But his mother feared that he would get hurt as a contact-loving running back and linebacker. “I guess Mom do knows best,” he told an estimated 21,000 fans at the Clark Sports Center in the unpolished, amusing, sometimes ungrammatical and fascinating style that is basic to RickeySpeak.

Not once did he refer to himself as “Rickey,” a habit that he denies doing, video evidence notwithstanding.

He described the bribery that turned him to baseball. A Little League coach lured him out of bed with glazed doughnuts and hot chocolate.

A high school counselor, looking for enough kids to fill a baseball roster, paid him a quarter for each run, hit and stolen base he recorded. “After 10 games, I had 30 hits, 25 runs scored and 33 steals,” he said. “Not bad money for a high school kid.”

He recalled how Charles O. Finley, the antic if parsimonious A’s owner, called him up to Oakland in June 1979. “Charlie, wherever you at, and that donkey, I’d like to say thank you for the opportunity.” Finley, of course, made a mule the team’s mascot.

On a day that threatened thunderstorms that never arrived, the well-traveled Henderson was inducted with Jim Rice, who played only for the Boston Red Sox, and Joe Gordon, who hit more home runs as a second baseman, 246, than any other American Leaguer, while playing for the Yankees and the Indians.

Boston fans outweighed the substantial contingent of Oakland rooters, with fans chanting, “Let’s go, Red Sox!” and “We love you, Jim,” to Rice.

Rice and Henderson took long and different paths to their induction.

Rice was elected in his 15th and final year of eligibility by the Baseball Writers Association of America.

Henderson played in 25 major league seasons; his nine-team sojourn, with four stops in Oakland, could be played to the tune of the Johnny Cash song “I’ve Been Everywhere.”

But he could have retired well before 2003 and still been the greatest leadoff hitter and most productive base-stealer in major league history. He said that his love for the game made it difficult to leave.

“I thought if Satchel Paige can start playing major league baseball at the age of 45, then with my dedication, hard work and desire, I could play the game until my body said to hang it up,” he said. (Paige was 41 when he pitched with the Indians, according to Baseball-Reference.com.)

Rice said that he did not think life could get better after he became a grandfather, but then he learned he would follow Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski, his predecessors in left field for the Red Sox, into the Hall. “After 15 years,” he said, “you get a call you thought you wouldn’t get” — news he received while watching “The Young and the Restless.”

He said the sensation was akin to hitting a game-ending home run.

“You say, ‘We made it! We made it! We made it!’ and you say, ‘Where’s my wife?’ ” What matters now, he said, “is I got there,” distancing himself from the frustration of falling short on the writers’ ballots for 14 years.

For Gordon’s daughter, Judy, the wait for recognition took more than a half-century, and beyond her father’s death in 1978. Late last year, the veterans committed elected him.

She recalled him as talented beyond his skills at turning a double play with Phil Rizzuto, and as the father who played the classical violin, taught her to ride a horse when she was 2 years old, roped calves, flew planes and could stay on a bucking bronco for eight minutes.

“He insisted against having a funeral,” she said. “As such, we consider the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum as his final resting place to be honored forever.”

The stage where the inductees spoke was filled with 50 Hall of Famers. One in particular, Reggie Jackson, reminded Henderson of a boyhood disappointment.

“I’d stand in the parking lot waiting for Reggie Jackson to give me a autograph,” Henderson said as Jackson listened, then doubled over in laughter. “Reggie, you used to come out all the time and I’d say, ‘Reggie, can I have a autograph?’ and he’d pass me a pen with his name on it. You never gave me your autograph.”

In his unscripted, rambling remarks in accepting the Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasting, Tony Kubek recalled, during his NBC days, standing in the Cincinnati Reds’ dugout in the waning moments of Game 6 of the 1975 World Series. With Carlton Fisk at bat, he said he heard Reds Manager Sparky Anderson ask the pitching coach Larry Shepard how many pitches reliever Pat Darcy had thrown.

Thirty-eight or 39, Shepard said.

“Ah, he ain’t gone that far all year long,” Kubek said Anderson told Shepard. “And when those words were coming out of his mouth,” Kubek added, “Pudge Fisk was sashaying down first base with one of the most dramatic homers ever in the game.”

Rickey was the most electrifying player I ever seen!!! But if Rice can go to the Hall then Andre Dawson needs to be there.

Andre Dawson: 1373 runs 2774 hits, 503 doubles 438 hrs 1591 rbi 314 sb 8 GG, 8 All Star

Jim Rice: 1249 runs 2452 hits 373 doubles 382 hr 1451 rbi 58 sb , 8 time all star

Case closed!!!! "The Hawk" is getting in.