We all want to believe Shohei Ohtani. We all wanted to believe Pete Rose, too

The invisible line for professional sports was drawn on Aug. 24, 1989, when the remaining innocence to it all was buried, and the reality of our “heroes” was exposed.

That was the day Major League Baseball suspended Pete Rose for life because he bet on Major League Baseball games. These sentiments belong to author Keith ‘O Brien, who has written a fantastic new book that is the definitive account about the exiled hit king, “Charlie Hustle: The rise and fall of Pete Rose, and the last glory days of baseball.”

It is a coincidence that as O’ Brien’s book is released MLB is dealing with a potential scandal involving its biggest star, L.A. Dodgers pitcher/hitter Shohei Ohtani.

The first and obvious comparison to be made with Ohtani is Rose.

Two weeks have passed since MLB announced it is investigating Ohtani for his relationship with his ex-interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara. Ohtani fired Mizuhara after he reportedly stole $4.5 million from the international baseball star to help cover a massive gambling debt.

If Ohtani knew about any of this, and there is even a sentence to suggest he was aware that his BFF was putting money on games in which he was playing, there must be consequences.

Some of the reported particulars thus far are confusing, and suspicious. Ohtani said in a statement that he’s never bet on sports, or “willfully sent money to the bookmaker.”

I believe him, just as I believed Pete Rose back in 1989.

“(MLB) believed him,” O’ Brien said in a recent interview of Rose telling MLB officials he would not bet on baseball because he “wouldn’t be that stupid.”

People bought it until the stacks of evidence said Pete was indeed that stupid. Or arrogant. Or both.

Whereas Pete was guilty of betting on just about anything that ever had a leg, Ohtani may just be at fault of trusting “a friend,” and never bothering to look at a bank account full of endless zeroes.

“We’re jumping the gun on the details, for sure,” O’ Brien said. “The initial allegations that Pete Rose faced in 1989 are not the initial allegations that Shohei faces now. There are some similarities here. It was men in Pete’s inner circle who were placing the bets with the bookies.

“What we are about to find out, again, is whether there is any connection to Shohei and baseball gambling. We’re about to find out what kind appetite the public, the fans and baseball itself has for a lengthy investigation into its most famous player. The Pete Rose investigation took the entire season, and it destroyed the 1989 season.”

That investigation destroyed not only the 1989 season for the Cincinnati Reds, but for all of MLB.

The differences in the eras are vast, beginning with a consuming public that may not believe any report released by MLB. We have more information available at our fingertips than ever before, and we trust so little of it.

In 1989, gambling was still a Las Vegas, Atlantic City, or back room bookie thing. In 2024, gambling is available in most states, and betting on ball games is readily accessible.

In 1989, our sports heroes were worthy of statues and worship. In 2024, our sports heroes or often covered in mud, their blood streams full of performance enhancing drugs, and their personal lives sometimes an array of unflattering misdeeds.

In 1989, the MLB commissioner was a former Yale English professor, A. Bartlett Giamatti, who deeply loved, and idealized, the game of baseball. In 2024, the MLB commissioner is Rob Manfred, a lawyer whose priority is to win contract negotiations, and expand profit margins for the owners.

In 1989, the majority of sports media was independently funded with the money, drive, and man power, to exhaustively cover anything. In 2024, the sports media is a shell of what it once was as sports leagues “report” the news, and the demand for independent sports journalism decreases.

It’s sometimes hard to tell if fans want the type of sports journalism that forced MLB to look into, and ultimately ban, Pete Rose. What The Athletic’s report in 2019 of the Houston Astros’ sophisticated sign-stealing measures is that there is still room in our day to consume these sorts of infrequent realities.

Despite America’s evolving, out-of-the-closet relationship with gambling, no league wants any part of an allegation that its consumers are watching a “fixed match.” Profit margin is the 1A priority, but closely behind that is the integrity of the product.

That is why MLB must look it its biggest superstar player. In our digital age, all of the records will be available to review. Shohei may be as he says; innocent, a victim of trusting someone who took advantage of his naivete.

August 24, 1989 and Pete Rose’s lifetime ban offered so many lessons, up to and including the reality that baseball won’t stop with the news that one beloved, celebrated, accomplished player was a lying, arrogant fool.

Because, “The one constant through all the years has been baseball.

“America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.”

Whatever happens, baseball will go on. It may be bruised, but it won’t stop.

We all want to believe Shohei.

We all wanted to believe Pete Rose, too.