You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI A six forty.
Let's go beyond the box score with Jackie Ray, and let's talk about how President Donald Trump, going over to last week, has inserted himself into the world of sports once again.
He has said publicly quote.
Over the next few weeks, I will be signing a complete pardon of Pete Rose, who shouldn't have been gambling on baseball, but only bet on his team winning. He never betted against himself or the other team. He had the most hits by far in baseball history and won more games than anyone in sports history.
Close quote. First, good evening, Jackie Ray.
Second, I worked in sports media for a few years while this was happening, when Pete Rose specifically was banned from baseball. Before we go forward, I have to say, once again we are ahead of the curve talking about the President inserting himself into sports. We can't then turn around and say, hey, athletes, don't say anything political.
What say you?
Well, first of all, I want to say to young people who are in school, this is what happens when you don't do the reading. You get everything completely wrong. Because if you were confused. If you're like Moe and you knew about this when it was happening, this statement was very confusing at first because you probably had to google and say, was he convicted? Did he go to prison for gambling? He did not go to prison for gambling.
He went to prison for tax evasion. And it was only a few months at that, but it was well after his career. So when you're pardoning Pete Rose, you're not partying him for gambling. You're giving him a pardon for tax evasion. It's not the same thing. So there's a disconnect there for me.
First of all, obviously President Trump is angling for Pete Rose to be included in the Hall of Fame. Let me bring everyone up to speed on some of the facts. Major League Baseball and the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum are separate entities. The latter is is operated by a private foundation. As far as Major League Baseball goes, Rule twenty one is what determined Pete Rose's fate, and
it reads as follows. Quote 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 better has no duty to perform, shall be declared ineligible for one year.
Part two.
Any player, umpire, club, or league official employee who shall bet any sum whatsoever on any baseball game and connection with which the better has a duty to perform, like Pete Rose was a manager, shall be declared permanently ineligible. Permanently is not for life. Permanently is to the end of time. Now the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Museum has this latitude. If Major League Baseball removed Rose from the permanently ineligible list, it in no way binds
the Hall of Fame to also admit him. Let me recap very quickly, and I'll bring you back in, Jackie Ray. If you bet at all, it does not matter if you bet on your team, you bet on someone else's team. If you bet your team to win your team to lose, you are permanently ineligible. Let me also break it down. Just because you bet on your team to win does not mean that you're not.
Doing a game of disservice.
For example, let's say, if I bet a sum of money on this game tonight, and I'm the manager, I may use a picture that I didn't plan to use, and I may use him tonight, that means he's not to be used tomorrow because of any max I am impacting the game in a way which has to do with betting, not the good of the team, using a pinchhate or something. So there's no distinction made as to whether you are betting on your team or against your team.
It is illegal, and it's illegal for good reason.
Because now, if you were to pardon this, if this is the goal to pardon this situation, there sets a precedent. And we've been talking about this for a long time. This rabbit hole goes very deep as far as gambling. And if you set a precedent that says to people, oh, yeah, this is just going to be bad for me now, but it's not going to damage my legacy, because that's one of the reasons that should to prevent players from wanting to gamble, because it's going to damage your legacy.
But if it's just a slap.
On the wrist, and then later you can get a president to say, oh, you know, gambling is not that bad as long as your ga I'm always gonna bet on myself in life, you know. So that's kind of a ridiculous statement to me. And he's setting a precedent that I don't think anybody should pay attention to because what do we talk about all the time the integrity
of the sport. And if you want sports to have integrity, if you want the fans that watch the game to think that there is a level of integrity in the game, then you have to uphold these things, even if the President of the United States does not.
There's a distinction there, And I want to highlight the integrity of the game, which is different from integrity of the person. Oftentimes I hear this argument, well, Ty Cobb was a racist, so this person was an a hole, and this person had sex out side of marriage. It's not the integrity the person. You're talking about the integrity of the game, the sport itself, and betting anyone who plays baseball, professional baseball knows, rule to one it is
sacro saint. It is inarguable. There are no mitigating circumstances. That's why shoeless Joe Jackson is not in the Hall of Fame, and he still ain't in. When they say permanently ineligible, they mean permanently ineligible. Now, I don't know how much of a baseball fan President Trump is I get the sense that he doesn't know much about baseball, just being honest, because no one is disputing whether Pete Rose has the player resume to be in the Hall
of Fame. It's the all time hits leader and manager Charlie Hustle. I know his history, chapter and verse, but rule twenty one until it changes, and I read that a baseball commissioner is considering reviewing it until something happens. He should not ever sniff the Hall of Fame because the rules are presently as they.
Are, and I think the commissioner should not consider this. And the reason why I say that is because when we're talking about fans again, we have these rumors circling every single season about every single sport that something is rigged. And the only way that you can give the illusion that that is not true is if you prevent gambling by the players who play the game. And so again,
you don't want to set that precedence. And to your point, I don't think President Trump knows anything about many sports because of the way that he talks about it, not that he has to. You're the president of the United States. You're supposed to be supposed to be good at that. You're not supposed to be good at knowing what's going on in sports. But if you want the fans to have faith, even the President of the United States saying this should be reconsidered, should have no precedents and how
you move as a league. So I really hope that this is something that they just completely throw out the window.
And there are a lot of folks who are Johnny cum Lately's who really don't even know the history of this. If they want to relitigate it. Pete Rose agreed with Major League Baseball on a permanent ban in nineteen eighty nine. He said, yes, okay, I'll sign here, and he also admitted to betting on baseball and betting on his own team in his memoir he did by himself.
And a man that does this, let's be clear, a man that is going to bet on the sport that he plays suddenly telling you, yeah, but I only bet on myself. If you take that verbatim, then that's a you problem. You can't trust anything at that point. This man, his integrity has been questioned and he has admitted to that.
So you can't.
Even though the president is saying he only bet on himself. You're just taking his word for it, and there's no proof of that. So this band has to stay indefinitely, in my opinion, for.
The sake of the sport itself.
Now, if you want to get into the politics of it all and the optics of it all, yes, Rose is a celebrated American figure, and there are those who want to disregard his personal shortcomings which I haven't even gotten into, as well as his gambling shortcomings. And if you're a fan of the sport of baseball and you're knowledgeable about the rules, pass go do not advance to boardwalk when it comes to rule twenty one until that rule changes, heat Rose is permanently ineligible, which is not
the same as for life. It means forever, forever, ever, forever, ever, forever ever. And once again, here we are. We're back with sports, gambling and also politics. It just seems like they lay this stuff out here for.
Us because politics affect people, and who plays sports.
Say that again, Say that again.
Affect people, and people play sports.
That's why eventually they're gonna start listening to us, Jackie Ray, They're going to start listening to us.
And when we come back let's stay right here with baseball.
Did you know that baseball is right now testing technology that could render umpires obsolete. They are testing automated ball strike systems to be used at least right now in the minor leagues, and it might be in the major league. So talk about that. Will we come back. It's Later with Mo Kelly. I'm joined by Jackie Ray as we go beyond the box Score. We are live everywhere the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Later with Mo Kelly on demand from KFI A six forty.
It's Later with Mo Kelly, and we're still going beyond the box Score with Jackie Ray and still live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Well, you can't say that robot umpires are here in major league baseball as we continue to talk about baseball, but a version of an automated strike zone is being tested right now during spring training, and the ABS Challenge System as it's called, is being implemented.
The system will be in place at thirteen stadiums and in more than sixty percent of spring training games across Arizona and Florida. Let's get to the real issue here. Baseball has been very slow to change, and part of that slowness is due to the fact that baseball likes to pride itself on tradition and history from its stats, and now the game is played where it's pretty much the same today as it was seventy eighty years ago. But with the advent of technic aology, they've been really
really slow. Basketball was quicker to adopt replay. You had tennis and soccer and hockey adopting more complicated, more sophisticated technology. As far as determination of line violations and goals, Baseball has always hung on to the idea of there's acceptable human error. I've never agreed with that. I would rather have the call correct. Where do you come out on this.
I'm somewhere in the middle. I understand this that the instant replay has been a huge deal.
Obviously, you need that.
We've seen several calls, no matter if you're a football fan or a basketball fan, we've seen you had to reverse calls. It was I think it was Joel somebody just got to ejected from a basketball game and they had to go look at the replay, like, nope, just bring it Joel and b Yeah, bring them back. So these kinds of things really help the integrity of the sport and then lets you get it right. On the flip side. My coach used to always tell me, if it comes down to the call of a ref, you
already lost that game anyway. So it really doesn't make that much of an impact. But we've seen this, especially in the NFL. Yes, it does because if that game is closed, it can come down to it. So I understand both sides of it. I think that this is great that the baseball is trying to take a leap because, like you said, they've been really big on tradition, but traditionally we like to make our lives easier and we like to respect the integrity of the sport and know that it's right.
I do believe that's a little.
Bit of human error is fine, but coming down to affecting a lot of plays when their answer is right there is completely unnecessary.
So I think this is a good move. Let's talk about specifics.
During spring training, teams will get two challenges per game and will only lose a challenge if it is unsuccessful. Only a batter, pitcher, or catcher can challenge a call, not the manager, which they will indicate by tapping their head. They have to do so immediately after the pitch, without assistance from the manager or players in the dugout. It's called hawkeye tracking technology. It will be then used to display on the video board showing whether the pitch was
a strike or not. On average, the challenge at the Triple A level, which is one level below Major League level, has taken seventeen seconds to complete. But this is almost counterintuitive because they tried to speed up the game right with the pitch clock. I understand why they're testing, but it's just gonna show up umps. Why don't we just get to the end. This is where all this is headed. Why don't you just bring in the technology. Professional hockey,
the officials don't determine it. It's done electronically. Same with soccer as well. Professional soccer, and we know the lines in tennis, Yeah, they have a judge up, but it's technology that gets to determine it. I don't know why it's taking so long. Let's hurry up. You're only talking about let's say, I don't know, one hundred umpires. Just bringing the technology and move on.
I agree with that, just speed up the process. I get the wondering if it's going to slow down the game, but let's speed this up, because that's what we've seen work across other leagues. We've talked about it, and then we've tried it. We haven't talked about it and then tested it out in the G League or what we've talked about it, and then we've done it. And then when you do it, because here's in my opinion, there's
a level of well, we're just trying it out. So the urgency to get this right and get it to perform at a high level quickly just isn't there. So no, just get it done. Let's just move it right into the majors right now. Let's just get it done. That's one thing I do like about the NFL. It's much more nimble of a professional league.
In other words, we're going to change the kickoff rule, we're going to change overtime rule. They make it happen and keep moving and then they'll take it as they go.
Baseball not so much part of it. I do understand.
They're probably gradually bringing along their fandom to understand it and receive it. In the ways that they've disallowed the shift in the outfield, in the way that they've made. Change as far as how many pitching changes you can make in a given any how they change extra innings, starting a runner on second base.
Baseball has done better.
But this is the biggest change, which I think would be great for everyone.
Just get the right call.
I don't need someone behind the plate using their human judgment to do it. Just get the right call off as the striker or not. I can go into all the zone percentages and how be determined. That's neither here nor there. Just make it happy. We have the technology right.
And you know, I appreciate respecting and honoring the fan base and moving things slowly, but I can tell you right now the fan base is used to things moving quickly. Nobody in that fan base probably has the very first iPhone because technology just moves that fast. So we are in a society now where we're trained to move with the times. So all you have to do is move with the times and say, hey, we're moving into the.
Twenty first century. That's all you have to say.
People are going to go with it because they're trained to it, and if they're not, trust me, they will come around. Because at some point a robot is going to deliver food to them, and they're going to think the robot is cute. They're not going to say to themselves, I wish a human had brought mind. They're not going to say that. No, that's not the time that we live in. Capitalize that everybody is kind of technologically sound and we're moving forward, and how can we make our
lives easier. That's how we're all mentally that we all have that in common. We all understand that life is going to get very interesting with the advent of AI and things like that.
We all understand that.
So don't think that people are going to be slow to understand what's happening in their day to day lives anyway, that's not going to happen.
Jack Rays, good to see you. We'll talk soon, Talk too soon.
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty