Angels manager Mike Scioscia: Baseball will never survive gambling

Los Angeles Angels manager Mike Scioscia said the game of baseball survived the PED scandal but will never survive players or manager who gamble on the sport

Los Angeles Angels manager Mike Scioscia said the game of baseball won't survive if players or managers gamble on the sport.

On Monday, ESPN’s Outside the Linespublished a story showing documents that all-time hits king Pete Rose bet on baseball as a player while with the Cincinnati Reds, a claim he has denied for the better part of two decades.

The documents were copies of notebook pages seized by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in October 1989 from the home of former Rose associate Michael Bertolini, just months after MLB commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti banned Rose for life for betting on baseball.

Scioscia was then asked if Rose belonged in the Hall of Fame.

Report that Pete Rose bet on games as player should surprise no one

“Well, I think the one thing that’s different from a lot of the guys who, you know, I’ve heard the argument about PEDs and things that are kind of, I think, holding people now from being voted into the Hall of Fame,” Scioscia said, according to the Long Beach Press-Telegram. “We’ve survived PEDs. This game will never survive gambling, will never.”

Rose applied for reinstatement in March under new MLB commissioner Rob Manfred. Rose released a statement through his attorney Ray Genco, refusing to comment on his possible reinstatement.

“To be sure, I'm eager to sit down with Mr. Manfred to address my entire history—the good and the bad—and my long personal journey since baseball. That meeting likely will come sometime after the All-Star break,” the statement said. 

Scioscia said that the gambling rule is clear and that Rose must be punished if the new allegations against him are proven true. 

"If there’s an illusion that anybody in this game is making bets on performance, whether it’s pro or con, baseball will just unravel," Scioscia said. "That’s why the penalties are very stiff and if all the allegations are true against Pete, that’s the price he has to pay.”

- Scooby Axson