Negotiation: What Not to Do
Pete Rose died a few weeks ago. Normally, the obituaries, social media, and news - sports and mainstream - would have centered on what an electrifying baseball player he was. How he loved the game. How he had an almost photographic memory of baseball history. Or how, in extra innings of the classic sixth game of the 1975 World Series, he stepped out of the batter’s box, turned to the Red Sox catcher, Carlton Fisk, and said, “This is some game, isn’t it?”
Instead, of course, all the news, all the noise was about his banishment from baseball for betting on baseball while he was the player-manager (then manager) of the Cincinnati Reds.
Rose’s MLB ban in 1989, followed a year or so later, just before he was eligible for election, when he was declared ineligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame, was the conversation. To the point where is his standing as the man with the most hits in baseball history was virtually an afterthought.
Within hours of his death, the Internet exploded with renewed debates about Rose’s ban and calls for his immediate election to the Hall of Fame.
The overwhelming sentiment was (and still is, it has hardly gone away) is pro-Rose. His many fans, the generations who grew up with Pete Rose as the avatar of the all-out baseball player, are invested in re-litigating the entire Rose saga.
Who was responsible for Rose’s 34-year+ banishment from baseball was an overriding theme. Which of the four Commissioners of Baseball that handled the Rose case did what and when are part of the debate, along with the almost inevitable 'why didn’t any of them work with Pete to end the thing'.
Here’s where we stress that while we don’t do any criminal defense work, we do believe in redemption at some point for most people. Usually that would mean jumping in with both feet on the ‘Selig or Manfred (Commissioners from 1992 to today) should have paroled the man who had more hits and played more games than anyone in history’ bandwagon.
Negotiation, Mediation, Litigation
But as business law attorneys who engage in litigation, mediation, and negotiation a great deal of the time, we will lead with this: everything that happened to Pete Rose from the moment he was suspected of gambling on baseball games as a player-manager in 1986 is on Pete Rose.
Why? Because not once, but twice, Pete Rose was offered a chance to negotiate with a commissioner and work out a deal that would have put an end to this thing years – decades – ago. Deals that would have benefited Rose and Major League Baseball. Both were, in retrospect, amazing deals considering the time, publicity, and circumstances. Rose and his representatives, however, blew them up - once by sheer arrogance, once by pure stupidity.
An Unambiguous Law
First, the law. Consider this Rose’s shareholder agreement with the MLB. Not only is it in the rule book, it’s considered so important it has been prominently posted in every Major League clubhouse since 1927:
Rule 21 (d): GAMBLING. (1) Any player, umpire, or Club or League official or employee, who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has no duty to perform, shall be declared ineligible for one year.
(2) Any player, umpire, or Club or League official or employee, who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has a duty to perform, shall be declared permanently ineligible.
Gambling Rumors and an Initial Deal
When rumors that he was gambling on baseball arose in the mid-1980s, Rose vehemently denied them. When those rumors hit Sports Illustrated, the MLB was obligated to investigate. That investigation was handed over to a new commissioner, Bart Giamatti (who had to question why he resigned as President of Yale to walk into that mess). Before the investigation got too far along, Giamatti made a few overtures to Rose, making it fairly clear that he very much hoped Rose would quickly admit to gambling on baseball, take the one year suspension, and they all could all move on with their lives.
Rose refused. His lawyer went public with a not-quite-accurate interpretation of the unofficial proposal. It was reported years later that Rose told his friends and lawyer that he was untouchable, baseball needed him too much to ever act against him.
At the time, that may or may not have been true but it soon became academic. With his legal team, Rose launched on a vicious campaign, attacking Giamatti in the media, denying everything while still managing the Reds, going to federal court to try to injunct MLB from continuing the investigation.
Instead of continuing to engage, even indirectly, Rose and his legal team went scorched earth.
A Second Round of ‘Negotiations’
While that was happening, it started to slowly became clear that Rose had bet on the Reds while he was managing them. It was all over. Rose tried to salvage something by ‘agreeing’ to accept the lifetime ban while specifying that he ‘always bet on the Reds to win.’ Shortly after, Rose was also banned from the Hall of Fame.
Flash forward twelve years: Rose’s former teammates and Hall of Famers, Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench, and Mike Schmidt arranged a secret meeting between Rose and Bud Selig. In the meeting, Rose professed his willingness to do whatever was needed to end the ban. Selig proposed that he publicly admit to betting on baseball and the Reds, apologize, address his gambling addiction, and in general clean up his act.
Rose agreed, happily. He left the meeting for an appearance gig - at a Las Vegas casino where he held an impromptu news conference and denied he had ever bet on baseball.
To recap: an hour after agreeing to (a) admit he gambled on baseball and the Reds; (b) apologize; (c) address his gambling, Rose spectacularly stomped the ‘understanding’ to death. Very publicly.
As business law attorneys we try to work out disputes before they go nuclear and end up with a judge and/or jury making the decision. That takes, of course, a careful study and deep analysis of each party’s positions and the law. Followed by a careful and thorough discussion on the realities of their position with our client.
Would this approach have helped Rose avoid his ban? Would he be in the Hall of Fame? Would his ego still have overruled the legal advice?
We’ll never know, but . . .
Quick Note: Regarding the Hall of Fame – we’ve long thought that any Hall of Fame that includes figures like Cap Anson, Charles Comiskey, Rogers Hornsby, and Tom Yawkey (among many others) shouldn’t be banning anyone.
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