June 19, 2025 
Pete Rose was a 17-time Major League Baseball (MLB) all-star who was as renowned for his legacy on the field as he was for the vices that cut it short.
Rose won the World Series three times (1975, 1976 and 1980), playing for two decades on teams like the Philadelphia Phillies and the then-dominant Cincinnati Reds. It’s speculated that he won more regular-season games than any other MLB player in history—perhaps more than any other professional athlete.
But he also liked to gamble.
A Justice Department investigation uncovered that Rose had wagered on more than 50 Reds games in the late 1980s, while serving as the team manager. ESPN later reported that he had also wagered on baseball while he was a player, a fact Rose refused to admit. He was permanently banned from the sport in 1989.
In 1991, a ruling by the Baseball Hall of Fame dealt another blow to Rose, declaring that any permanently ineligible player couldn’t be considered for induction, something that’s come to be known as “the Pete Rose rule.”
Rose applied for reinstatement to the MLB in 2015, a move which, if granted, could have paved his way into the Hall of Fame. He was living in Las Vegas at the time, still (legally) betting on baseball, when his bid was rejected. That same year, former baseball investigator John Dowd made a bombshell claim that Rose was sexually involved with girls aged 12–14 during his career. The former Reds all-star died in September of 2024 with his second bid for reinstatement, filed in 2020, still on the Commissioner’s proverbial desk.
This May, the fate of Rose and several other disgraced MLB “greats” including “Shoeless Joe” Jackson and the Black Sox became inextricably linked when Commissioner Rob Manfred removed them and more than a dozen other deceased players from the organization’s permanently ineligible list.
The men will now be eligible for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame as soon as the summer of 2028. Manfred’s decision sets the stage for legacy washing of these athletes, reshaping public perception after a scandal or controversy by downplaying negative aspects of their actions. And it has implications far beyond their own sport.
Legacy Washing
Rose will never get to see the fruits of his good-name glow-up. But legacy washing will undoubtedly impact the way he is viewed by legions of fans for many years to come. The question is, to what end?
At a time when cancel culture remains a topic of hot debate, the notion of revisiting the legacies of “cancelled” individuals from generations past is particularly fraught. After all, legacy washing is, at its core, a way to rewrite the past—it almost always involves bias of one kind or another.
But that isn’t always a bad thing. “Revisionist history is a universal phenomenon,” wrote James M. Banner Jr., author of The Ever-Changing Past: Why All History Is Revisionist History.
“A democratic culture, in which different views and different ‘truths’ are allowed to coexist and share billing in the public forum of thought, ought also to be seen as a glorious storehouse of ideas, many of them cast off in one era yet always available for reuse in another.”
In other words, when done for the right reasons, there is nothing new or overtly political about reexamining the past through a kind of “come one, come all” contemporary lens. By its very nature, though, legacy washing comes with its own inherent pitfalls—and long reaching consequences. This is particularly true when the legacy in question is stained by allegations of sexual abuse, as is the case with Rose.
“Legacy washing can cause harm to victims of abuse because it centers the focus on the abuser’s accomplishments, accolades, and feats rather than the victims’ experiences,” said Michaela Callie, Executive Director of #WeRideTogether, a nonprofit working to eliminate sexual misconduct in sport.
“Legacy washing can also discourage future disclosures when misconduct and abuse are downplayed as ‘mistakes,’ pardoned by excuses like youth or ignorance, or omitted altogether.”
Rehabilitating Rose?
When it comes to Pete Rose’s gambling, it’s worth at least considering his transgressions in light of the evolving nature of sports betting. A landmark Supreme Court case in 2018 overturned the Professional and Amateur Sport Protection Act (PASPA), effectively paving the way for individual states to legalize sports betting nation-wide. And they did.
In the spring of 2025, ESPN reported that more than $502 billion had been bet with U.S. sports books since PASPA was struck down. In other words, the country’s view on gambling has changed—should we give Rose a pass?
According to Callie, three questions can help to provide a “gut check” as to whether a case of legacy washing will cause harm or good:
- Is revisionism minimizing or denying harm?
- Are victims being shamed or blamed for a perpetrator’s actions?
- Or, is revisionism bringing clarity and context, and highlighting maladaptive behaviors or behaviors that should not be normalized?
In his own book, Rose admitted, at least in part, to placing illegal bets on his own team while acting as a manager. And while this may have deceived his fans, it’s unlikely that they would feel shamed or blamed by his actions.
But if Rose’s gambling behaviors have been normalized by history, his admissions of a sexual relationship with a minor should not be. In 2017, a sworn statement in federal court from a Jane Doe accused Rose of statutory rape. At the time the abuse occurred, the plaintiff said she was 14 or 15; Rose was then a married father in his 30s.
Rose did concede that relationship, which spanned years, but said they hadn’t left the state of Ohio and that he thought Jane Doe was 16—the then age of consent there. The Philadelphia Phillies, who were planning to admit the former player to their own Hall of Fame that season, didn’t bite; they announced the cancellation of Rose’s induction two days after Jane Doe came forward.
At a press conference for a Phillies celebration years later in 2022, a reporter asked Rose about the charge. “No, I’m not here to talk about that,” Rose famously said to her. “Sorry about that. It was 55 years ago, babe.”
Regardless of the MLB’s decision to reinstate Rose, or the fact that he’s found a steadfast supporter in President Trump—a man who has, himself, has faced multiple accusations and has been found liable in court for sexual abuse—Rose fails Callie’s legacy washing litmus test.
His potential Hall of Fame induction would fully minimize the harm he did to Jane Doe, while also opening her up to shame among his legions of fans, who now feel emboldened to excuse Rose’s past actions while embracing his moral exceptionalism.
Interestingly, Baseball Hall of Fame voters will also be required to consider Rose’s integrity, sportsmanship, and character as part of a potential induction process, something that may or may not ultimately weigh on their decision to admit him.
Hero Wash-Up
In baseball, as in equestrian sports, there is a tendency to view star athletes as “too big to fail.” One need look no further than Facebook for proof.
The outcry against various institutions, including the media, which occurs in the comments section of a post highlighting—for instance—a top rider or trainer’s SafeSport suspension are hardly dissimilar from those found in the “Pete Rose should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame” Facebook group.
The common denominator? Sometimes vitriolic support for a fallen hero.
“People often struggle to accept that bad people can do good things, and good people can do bad things,” said Callie, who characterizes these scenarios as an example of cognitive dissonance.
“Unfortunately, the truth is messy. And the nuances of abuse and misconduct don’t usually go viral. Instead, people often reach for simple and comfortable explanations—like, ‘This is a witch hunt.’ Or ‘They would never do that, I’ve known them for years,’” Callie explained.
“It can feel like a betrayal to acknowledge the harmful actions of a perpetrator when the perpetrator is idolized, respected, and loved.”
A prime example of this rhetoric can be found in the comments section of a post by EquestrianCoach after the death of Bernie Traurig’s friend, rider/trainer Robert Gage, by suicide in June of 2019. Gage was banned by SafeSport for sexual misconduct involving a minor and took his own life the day before a scheduled appeal hearing for his case.
SafeSport, for their part, released a statement following Gage’s death clarifying that his permanently ineligible ban was “reserved for the most egregious cases” and that it was issued “…following an exhaustive investigation, and decision process, that found sexual misconduct involving a number of minors.”
Gage’s suicide, however, rocked the equestrian community, with Traurig’s post inspiring some 200 comments. A clear majority of them mourned his loss, while many others railed against SafeSport’s perceived “lack of due process.”
When one commenter stepped in to protest “the support of abusers and shaming of victims in this thread,” she was targeted for harsh attacks by several individuals. Of equal concern, however, is the sharing of an obituary for Gage on the post which details his start in the industry “…under the tutelage of Show Jumping Hall of Fame Trainer Jimmy Williams.”
One year earlier, in May of 2018, Williams (who died in 1993) was publicly accused of abuse by multiple individuals, including two-time Olympic silver medalist Anne Kursinski, who said she was 11 when she was raped by Williams for the first time.
Williams was officially voted out of the Show Jumping Hall of Fame in 2022. But, viewed in this context, his inclusion in Gage’s post using the small, passive line, “Show Jumping Hall of Fame Trainer”—with no mention of his victims, abuse, or its consequences, despite their names already being part of the public record—speaks volumes.
Williams’s ironic cameo, in a tribute for another trainer whose reputation was permanently marred for similar crimes, is a tangible example of equestrian legacy washing in real-time.
It’s worth noting that, five years since Gage’s death, many equestrians have gained a fuller understanding of his and Williams’s legacy, and also of SafeSport’s processes. And yet posts commemorating the lives of these credibly accused pedophiles still circulate annually on Facebook with little or no mention of their criminal indiscretions.
Often, we wish to view our sports heroes through a kind of glam photo filter, casting their best features in the perfect light, while blotting out the blemishes. When it comes to legacy washing, athletes, coaches, and trainers should be judged on a case-by-case basis and with nuance. But in guarding against the pitfalls of legacy washing in sport, our mission is clear.
“We have to remember that our responses to abuse and misconduct as individuals and as a society play a key role in the short- and long-term well-being of survivors, in survivor disclosures, and in the effectiveness of future abuse prevention efforts,” Callie said. “Legacy doesn’t need to be erased—but it must be complete. Think, ‘yes, and….’
“We have to work on our uncomfortable cognitive dissonances to ensure victims are not being silenced or discarded. And prevent history from repeating itself.”
Learn more about the victim experience and sexual misconduct prevention in sport at weridetogether.today.
