In the summer of 1989, my friends and I lived and breathed baseball.
We had our heroes: Darryl Strawberry; Will Clark; the “Bash Brothers” of Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire (at this time, they were all still better known for their on-field exploits). Because he was from another generation, Pete Rose was not really one of them. By the time he was engulfed in his betting scandal earlier that year, he had been retired as a player for a few years and was managing the Cincinnati Reds.
Angelo Bartlett Giamatti had become the new commissioner of Major League Baseball earlier that year and, in one of his first acts as commissioner, initiated an investigation into recent allegations that Pete Rose had bet on Major League Baseball games.
Five months later, in his most consequential act as commissioner, Giamatti issued a lifetime ban on Rose from Major League Baseball. It was sensational. Pete Rose, “Charlie Hustle,” was kicked out of baseball for life.
Rose agreed to the conditions of the ban – in exchange for no formal finding of fact and not admitting guilt – mostly because he was indeed guilty.
Despite the topic’s prominence in professional sports commentary, we didn’t have too strong opinions about the investigation or what his punishment should have been. As 13-year-olds entering the 8th Grade, we found many other, surely less consequential things to argue about.
I came home one day in August and walked into the living room when my brother, Bobby, gave me his familiar, wild-eyed look; the kind of look he gave before he was about to shut off my lights, close my bedroom door and yell, “The Exorcist!”
“Pete Rose shot Bart Giamatti!” he exclaimed. I was stunned. It was only a week after Giamatti had issued the ban. Rose took revenge!
I walked closer to the TV and listed to the news anchor and as soon as the words “Giamatti” and “dead” hit my ears, I ran out the door and hopped on my “Open Road” Montgomery Ward brand bicycle and took off furiously down the street ready to shout like some teenage Paul Revere.
Around the corner of Julie Way to Fir Street, really only about five houses away, lived two of my best friends, Marcos and Justin, both of whom happened to be out front.
I remember it like I was Pheidippides, dramatically collapsing at their feet to deliver them news of the Battle of Marathon with my last breath, but the truth is probably closer to me just pulling up to them and saying, “Did you guys hear…!?”
Justin immediately called bullshit.
So we did what boys do and bet on it. Five dollars was not an insignificant amount of money those days to 8th graders. It would have bought exactly 15 packs of Donruss baseball cards from the Penny Candy store, giving one a decent chance at scoring a Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card.
The details of the ensuing events of how we sought to confirm the circumstances of Giamatti’s death, elude my memory. Probably because of embarrassment and/or one’s tendency to strike such humbling experiences from your own mind. But suffice to say, we shortly determined that, no, Pete Rose did not shoot Bart Giamatti. The chain-smoking 51-year-old actually had died of a heart attack.*
To this day, I haven’t paid Justin, and he dutifully reminds me of that whenever we play poker, pay dues in our fantasy sports leagues, or really whenever cash appears in our presence.
One is tempted to find in this story life lessons for adolescence: Develop a healthy dose of skepticism toward news, especially of a sensational nature; Evaluate and verify information through corroborating sources; Control impulses that drive one to recklessly seek social validation; Or (perhaps most ironically) recognize the dangers of betting.
No. No, it’s definitely none of those.
The lesson here is that older brothers can be assholes. That’s it. There is nothing more to it than that.
I could fertilize the San Joaquin Valley for the next millennium with all the shit that my brother has given me over the years and so could any other younger brother. So as far as I’m concerned, Robert Joseph Bridges owes Justin Guzman $5. And if Bobby pays up soon, I’ll take down any embarrassing pictures of him trying to dance that I may have accidentally posted here.
Today, due to Giamatti’s untimely death, his 5-month tenure as MLB commissioner remains the shortest in history and his enduring decision to ban Pete Rose has only become more controversial. Transgressions of many other players have since arguably eclipsed Rose’s and resulted in far more lenient punishment.
In his 2004 autobiography, after almost 15 years of denials, Rose finally copped to the betting on baseball, and he continues his efforts – unsuccessful through three subsequent commissioners – to be reinstated and admitted to the Hall of Fame.
Betting on your own baseball team is wrong. Betting that the guy who bet on his baseball team shot the guy who banned him for said betting, is also wrong.
But betting that an older brother would pass up an opportunity to make an idiot of his younger brother is just plain foolish.
* Or that’s what they want you to think…
Watering The Weeds 
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