Mike Schmidt on Pete Rose and the Hall of Fame: ‘There will always be a cloud’

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It was just a few weeks ago, a major-league source told The Athletic, that the commissioner of baseball, Rob Manfred, got on a Zoom with some men you may have heard of: Johnny Bench … and Mike Schmidt … and a small group of iconic Hall of Famers and former teammates of Pete Rose.

Given the events of this week, you can probably guess the topic: a fellow named Pete Rose.

Rose’s death last September, at age 83, had unleashed yet one more chain reaction that had landed in the commissioner’s already overcrowded lap. So was this the right time, he had been wondering, to reinstate Rose and find an escape hatch of sorts from this debate? It was a question worth raising with these men who knew Rose so well.

The fact that Manfred held this conversation at all gives us important insight into how thorough and deliberative a process he embarked upon before making one of the most momentous decisions of his tenure — to remove Rose and 16 other deceased people from baseball’s permanently ineligible list.

And once the commissioner launched that process, how could he not include Schmidt, Rose’s one-time teammate in Philadelphia who has long credited the Hit King with changing the arc of his career?

When reached Tuesday night by The Athletic, Schmidt declined to confirm that he’d talked with Manfred. But Schmidt spoke eloquently about the consequences of Manfred’s decision — a moment he’d convinced himself might never arrive.

In a statement released Tuesday by the Phillies, Schmidt had called Rose’s newfound eligibility for the Hall of Fame “a great day for baseball.” But Schmidt is well aware that not everyone in baseball agrees. When asked by The Athletic if he thought this decision would lift the cloud over Rose’s head, Schmidt acknowledged that he sees the other side of this issue as clearly as the rest of us.

“No, I think Pete is always going to have a cloud following him around, God rest his soul,” Schmidt said. “You know, Pete’s no longer with us, but there will always be a cloud above any discussion about Pete Rose.”

In his Hall of Fame speech 30 years ago, Schmidt openly campaigned for Rose’s election to the Hall. As he stood at the podium in Cooperstown, N.Y., that day, he revealed that the Hit King was his grandmother’s favorite player. So “I join her, and millions of baseball fans, in hoping someday soon — someday very soon — Pete Rose will be standing right here,” Schmidt said, to rousing applause.

Mike Schmidt campaigned for Pete Rose’s election to the Hall of Fame during his induction speech in 1995. (Mark D. Phillips / AFP via Getty Images)

But now that he can see a future in which the Hall’s Classic Baseball Era Committee could be voting on Rose’s candidacy as soon as December 2027, Schmidt isn’t convinced that the debate about the Hit King has changed a whole lot, even after Manfred’s decision.

“I think the Pete Rose question is always going to be divided, 50-50,” Schmidt said. “Even in terms of the Hall of Fame, I think if you posed the question to all of the living Hall of Famers right now, I think it would almost be 50-50. That’s my guess.”

He knows he is viewed as one of Rose’s biggest cheerleaders. So it was surprising to hear Schmidt say: “I don’t have any hard-core feelings on either side.”

“I see both sides,” he said. “I see that he squandered so many opportunities to change his life and go forward and do what commissioner (Bud) Selig asked him to do (in a then-secret 2002 meeting arranged by Schmidt and the late Joe Morgan).

“There wasn’t remorse there,” Schmidt continued. “He didn’t show any atonement for his admission to betting on baseball. But at the same time, Pete Rose is one of the greatest players in the history of baseball, without question. Statistically and for what he did in his career, he would be a unanimous Hall of Famer.”

But now, even after all these years, there is nothing remotely unanimous about the way any group in baseball views Rose. So the same heated Hall of Fame debate, which has been lurking for three decades, has now roared back to life. And it is certain to rage again when the members of the Classic Era Committee assemble to likely vote on him and others in 2027.

So Schmidt was asked if he thinks those 16 committee members will be able to step into that room that day, forget about all the other Rose plot lines and just vote on Pete Rose, the baseball player. Schmidt shifted his gaze out into the future — and even he couldn’t convince himself that was where this is leading.

“Absolutely not,” he said. “No, I don’t think that can happen. Let me just say no to that (question). There’s a cloud. There’s always going to be a cloud. There’s always going to be the issue of Pete Rose off the field. You could debate this until you’re blue in the face, and it’s really hard to find a pat answer to this. It’s very difficult. I’ve never really found one myself in the thousands of times I’ve been asked this question.”

And what about the living Hall of Famers? If Rose’s Induction Weekend were to arrive in 2028, how would they look at that induction?

“I think I’d draw an analogy to the whole steroid issue,” Schmidt said. “I think it’s very similar. Because I think the Hall of Fame members are divided down the middle on that issue, too. … And that’s just another question that most members really don’t want to get involved with. They don’t want to incriminate anybody. They don’t want to mention names.

“And in Pete’s case, it’s much the same. I think we’re divided down the middle — in terms of the area you played in, and the people you knew, and the people you played against, and who was your friend. I mean, there are so many tentacles to this thing, it’s unbelievable.”

“I think the Pete Rose question is always going to be divided, 50-50,” Mike Schmidt said.  (Mitchell Leff / Getty Images)

It’s now 46 years since Rose became a Phillie and took it upon himself to give Schmidt a jolt of confidence that would elevate him to another level in his career. Schmidt hasn’t forgotten any of that.

But it’s now 36 years since commissioner Bart Giamatti ascended the stage, in a ballroom in New York, and announced that Rose had agreed to a lifetime suspension from baseball — after an investigation found he had bet on his own sport while he was managing in Cincinnati. Schmidt hasn’t forgotten any of that, either.

So he continues to wrestle with decades worth of Hit King storylines that never seem to get less complicated. And all these years later, Schmidt said, he’s still wrestling.

“I get two questions everywhere I go: Who’s the toughest pitcher you ever faced? And should Pete Rose be in the Hall of Fame?” Schmidt said wistfully. “I’ve got a pretty good answer to the pitcher part of it. (That would be Nolan Ryan.) But the Pete Rose question is a tough one. And I still don’t have an answer.”

(Top photo: Mike Schmidt and Pete Rose in 2002: Al Behrman / Associated Press)

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