In an indication of how far our culture has come in regards to sports betting, Pete Rose has announced that his daily picks for baseball and other sports will be available through a pick-selling website.
Rose’s picks will be available through Upick at upicktrade.com for $89 per month. The website, based in Mexico, offers daily picks on several sports for a subscription fee, and calls itself “a sports recommendation service company.” Upick touts that “Nobody knows baseball better than Pete.”
In recent years, Rose has made attempts to be reinstated by Major League Baseball. Previously, an association with a gaming site or casino would have been unthinkable for the man who was known as “Charlie Hustle.” But professional sports leagues are seizing opportunities to capitalize on the popularity of gambling, especially as online sports betting has spread to many new states. Rose lives in Las Vegas where he frequently offers his autograph for sale, and claims to watch 5-6 baseball games every day during the season.
Rose’s Legacy Was Tarnished by Gambling Controversy
In a 24 year MLB career, Rose set a record for hits with 4,256, and appeared in a record 3,562 games. He was a member of the famed “Big Red Machine” Cincinnati Reds, who won four pennants and two World Series titles in the 1970s. Rose later won another championship as a member of the Phillies, and he played in more winning games than any man in MLB history.
But in 1989, Rose was placed on MLB’s permanently ineligible list after an investigation by the league into his gambling activities while manager of the Reds. Rose accepted the ban in return for MLB agreeing to not formally find that he had bet on baseball. Rose seemed to believe that he would have a good chance to be reinstated after serving a year on the ineligible list, but his efforts to be reinstated have been unsuccessful, even after he publicly admitted that he bet on games while in the role of manager.
In recent years, MLB has embraced sports betting, and several teams now have retail betting operations in place at or near their stadiums. Other teams have entered into licensing agreements with sports betting operators, and the regional Bally’s Sports Network is another indicator that baseball is feeling much differently about gambling than it once did. In the late 1970s, baseball banned Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays from having any association with the game after the two former stars signed contracts as spokesmen for Las Vegas casinos.
According to the Upick website, Rose will be offering between one and six picks each day. They can be had for a monthly subscription fee of $89, or gamblers can purchase 6-month, 9-month, or full-year packages at special prices.
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