“Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” It’s the catch phrase from the 1970 tear-jerker movie, Love Story. And while it may have worked for Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neal, it doesn’t always work in real life; in relationships that matter.
For Pete Rose loved baseball, and baseball wanted to love him in return. But because he never fully said he was sorry; because he never fully resolved his association with gambling, he denied baseball and his fans the opportunity to fully celebrate his career, and the energy that made him one of the greatest players of the game.
There are certain rules of life, nature, relationships, and boardooms that are inviolate. Commandments, codes, principles, and understandings that are sacrosanct and not to crossed. Betting on your own team is one of them. It violates the integrity of the game; it corrupts the purity of the product; it shatters the confidence of the fans.
Major League Baseball’s Rule 21, is simple and straight-forward:
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.
That’s right. “Permanently ineligible”. One strike and you’re out. Not particularly forgiving.
A 1989 outside counsel report prepared for Major League Baseball acknowledged that Mr. Rose denied under oath ever betting on baseball. But it nevertheless concluded “that Pete Rose bet on baseball, and in particular, on games of the Cincinnati Reds Baseball Club, during the 1985, 1986 and 1987 seasons”. He was banned for life in 1989 by then Commissioner Bart Giamatti (who died a week later). While Rose later confessed to then-Commissioner Bud Selig that he had indeed bet on baseball (and the Reds), the ban was maintained by Selig and his successors.
The concern always appeared to be grounded in Mr. Rose’s seeming lack of remorse and for his actions; a sense that he was more interested in commercializing his infamy than making contrition for it. As a result Rose flittered on the periphery of the game but was never readmitted to it. One of the greatest players ever never entered the Hall of Fame.
Would this tragic arc have changed had Rose more publicly taken responsibility for his actions, and admitted their harm? To have said he was sorry? It’s a question that organizational leaders of all stripes, not just those in baseball, should be asking. As Rose biographer Kostya Kennedy observed, “What is the price of sin? And what price is just? Should forgiveness be granted only to the contrite?”
For no one – from the board room to the assembly line – is truly perfect. Inviolate rules do get violated. Commandments, codes, principles and understandings are breached. That’s why codes of conduct and ethics exist. Should the organizational response different if an apology is made? Can reconciliation occur if true remorse is demonstrated? Perhaps so, depending on both the circumstances and the conditions.
Much depends on whether the organization is truly served by a reconciliation (e.g., retaining otherwise valued employees, executives and/or board members). Would it send a positive message to corporate constituencies (e.g., fairness and equity, or favoritism and lack of awareness)? Would there be consequences for future violations (e.g., self-executing action for reoccurrence of the problematic conduct)?
On one level, the Pete Rose tragedy might serve as a reminder to organizational leaders that we’re essentially a forgiving society; that we’re a people who believe in contrition-grounded “second chances”. On another level, though, it’s a reminder of the importance of genuine demonstrated remorse for the harm caused to an organization, its reputation and its constituents. And that some breaches are too egregious to be reconciled with organizational mission.
Perhaps genuine love, and commitment, to a mission or an institution – if not also to a person – does mean having to say you’re sorry. And being sincere about it. But perhaps an organization can be confident enough to move on, without it. It’s a call often too close for any umpire to be sure of.