Kuff is a bit put out: Baseball Prospectus reports that Peter Edward Rose will be reinstated by Major League Baseball.
Assuming the report true, I'm troubled by another example of people choosing to bend rules rather than change them. Is MLB deciding to change rule 21 - to lift the sanctions against gambling? That doesn't seem likely - yet perhaps they've decided that the rule doesn't apply to players who have collected 4000+ hits.
"Peter Edward Rose is hereby declared permanently ineligible in accordance with Major League Rule 21 and placed on the Ineligible List." I'm not sure the Ineligible list has ever meant anything more than "until the commissioner chooses otherwise", so perhaps this is all consistent.
But the sour taste in my mouth reminds me of a legislative branch that cedes its authority to the executive. We've got rules, and we have a system in place for changing those rules. If the rules are broken, or outdated, step one is to revise them.
Ah well, let's not pretend that baseball actually matters.
August 12, 2003 9:29 AM
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