CLEARWATER, Fla. – You may have heard – or maybe you didn’t since Major League Baseball dropped this little bombshell late last Wednesday with little fanfare. It was almost as if they were embarrassed to announce that, beginning Opening Day, managers will be required to submit their lineup cards to the commissioner’s office 15 minutes before they are made public – so they can then be sent on to MLB’s new gaming partner, MGM Resorts, for the purposes of setting the betting lines on each game.

I’m not sure what to make of this development other than, when it comes to the issue of gambling, baseball has certainly come a long way from when then-commissioner Bowie Kuhn kicked Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays out of the game for the egregious offense of taking jobs as greeters in Atlantic City casinos. But these are changing times and when, on May 14, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed course on its 1992 ruling that forbade states from legally operating any form of sports betting operations, it opened the floodgates for states to take their own courses of action. Suddenly, legalized betting was about to be everywhere.

As a result, the various sports leagues, under the guise of wanting to “regulate” the betting and “protect the integrity of the games” moved quickly to partner up with gambling casinos. What it really was all about was creating another vast revenue stream for the clubs. In November 2018, MLB — which previously had partnered up with DraftKings, the daily fantasy sports operation — announced they had entered into a four-year deal reportedly worth $80 million with MGM Resorts. Under the partnership agreement, MLB is to provide MGM access to their “enhanced statistics” and now, as we learned last Wednesday, the daily lineups before anyone else. I think it’s safe to say, when it comes to baseball’s intolerance of all things gambling dating all the way back to the 1919 Black Sox scandal, all bets are now off.

So it should therefore come as no surprise that nobody is taking a more personal interest in this development than Pete Rose, who continues to serve his lifetime ban from baseball for betting on the game while he was the manager of the Cincinnati Reds back in 1989. Speaking by phone from Las Vegas the other day, Rose sounded consternated when informed of this turn of events involving baseball and gambling.

“I guess what it comes down to is baseball is now in bed with the same people who got me kicked out of the game,” Rose said. “They can say what they want but this is all about money. You’re telling me the managers have to submit their lineups to the league office so the casino can set the lines on the games? What happens if right before game time your starting pitcher has a cramp and has to be scratched? Is the manager gonna get blamed for that … for screwing up the line?”

Regardless of how MLB chooses to spin this — as a practical move on their part, brought about by a Supreme Court decision that was out of their control — Rose would be justified in saying they are hypocrites for cashing in on gambling while still keeping him out of the game and ineligible for the Hall of Fame because he bet on baseball. Now everyone can be betting on baseball and you can forget about those “No Betting” signs that used to adorn every ballpark

Yes, Rose knowingly broke what was then baseball’s cardinal rule and compounded it by lying about for over 10 years. And, yes, Rose has done (or has been accused of doing) some less-than exemplary things off the field, but when it came to baseball, unlike Barry Bonds and the steroids bunch, he never cheated the game and nobody played the game harder than he did. Every one of his record 4,256 hits is legitimate.

“Ever since I came clean,” Rose said, “I’ve been baseball’s best goodwill ambassador. I’m out here in Vegas, spending 4 ½ hours a day, four days a week signing autographs and all I do is talk up all the positive things about the game of baseball. Even when I was betting, I never managed a game I didn’t want to win. I spent 28 years in the game of baseball, most of them with my hometown team, the Cincinnati Reds, whose stadium is on Pete Rose Way and I have never been in that clubhouse in my life.

“I have nothing but respect for (Baseball Commissioner) Mr. (Rob) Manfred. But I would hope with all that is happening now in baseball in respect to gambling, he would look differently at my situation.”

This article is a reprint from BostonHerald.com.   To view the original story and comment, click here.