Wake Up, Look Up

Hello, everyone. Thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weihrauch. And in today's episode, we're talking about Pete Rose, and we're asking the question, are we just making it up as we go? Now this is prompted by an article I read in The New York Times this week by Michael Baumberger, but it's really more so about the news coming out of baseball that Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred has removed Pete Rose from the permanently ineligible for the hall of fame list.

Now if you don't know the background here, Pete Rose is a legendary former baseball player. He's now deceased for the Cincinnati Reds, an all time great player and later a manager of the Reds who was thrown out of baseball for gambling, and not just gambling on baseball, but gambling on his own team. In 1989, he was permanently banned from both baseball and potential admission into the hall of fame because of his gambling. And from 1989 till 02/2025, that has held firm, including up into and through Pete Rose's death. That's because the original commissioner at the time in 1989 believed that what Pete Rose had done was irreparably harmful to the game of baseball.

Players and managers are gambling on the outcomes of their own games. It calls into question the integrity of their decisions, the integrity of their play, and the integrity of the sport. Rob Manfred, however, I guess, disagrees and believes that because Pete Rose has since passed away and maybe also because gambling has now been legalized in our country, it's time to move on. But I wanna challenge that because I actually think Manfred's decision to take Rose off of the permanently banned list is indicative of a culture drifting to moral relativism. Here's what I mean.

Justice requires consequences. The whole idea of justice is that as a society, we are naming things as wrong and identifying those that are harmed by that wrong. Isaiah five twenty says, woe to those who call evil good and good evil. It is actually foundational to a culture to say that cheating is wrong. And when we begin to pretend that it isn't, when we begin to minimize its consequences, we are opening the door for a slow and steady degradation.

Pete Rose's ban was about saying that the integrity of baseball matters. Has that changed? No. What's changed is whether or not we care anymore, and that's indicative of a society that just doesn't hold on to capital t truth anymore. That's actually my second point because truth doesn't change over time.

If it was wrong to cheat on baseball and manipulate the outcome of games in 1989, it is still wrong today. The Bible reminds us that this is who God is. Hebrews 13 tells us Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Consistency and constancy are true landmarks of righteousness. You you are righteous and noble today and tomorrow and in the future.

This decision is about truth getting slippery. Who's to say Pete Rose was wrong? Who's to say that the integrity of the game was challenged? It was a different time. It was a different season.

It was a different way of thinking. That's the kind of language that comes from a culture that is rejecting truth. Now you might say, well, Zach, hold on. Shouldn't we forgive? Absolutely.

But the Bible teaches, and this is my third point, that forgiveness follows repentance. First John one nine says, if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us. This decision is not prompted by Pete Rose's repentance. Pete Rose, who by the way, up until the, the mid two thousands, wasn't even admitting that he had gambled on baseball, let alone gambled on his own games. This is not about forgiveness.

This is about whitewashing a complicated history of the integrity of the sport. And the fourth thing here is that integrity matters, and it matters more than profit. A lot of cynical journalists believe that Major League Baseball wants the support and even benefit of a positive relationship with the Trump administration. President Trump has been a long time believer that Pete Rose should be in the hall of fame. People are connecting the dots.

Is Manfred's decision really about the economics of being positively aligned with the White House? Well, if so, then that's just another way of saying the bottom line is more important than integrity. And listen, I understand baseball is a business, but these things are more about our culture, more about us than they are about business. Decisions like this signal to everyone, including future generations, that everything, including our integrity, has a price. It's just another reminder that without God, all truth is relative.

This echoes the book of Judges where everyone did what was right in their own eyes. Listen, there is a God who brings consistent righteousness, who defines truth, who brings justice with consequences. This is just baseball, but it points to something greater. Without God, we really are just making it up as we go.

Hey, thanks for watching this episode of Wake Up, Look Up. If you enjoyed it, please help us get the word out by sharing it with someone you think might benefit from it. And while you're here, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to get further content or even download the CCC app where you'll find even more resources to help you grow in your faith and relationship with Jesus Christ.

Have an article you’d like Pastor Zach to discuss? Email us at wakeup@ccchapel.com!