Pete Rose Ruled Ineligible for Induction into Skee-Ball Hall of Fame
Cincinnati, OH – The National Skee-Ball Hall of Fame and Museum made some serious waves in the sporting world today when it ruled that Pete Rose, one of sport’s all-time great players would be denied induction into their hall of fame.
The ban stems from a recent incident at a Cincinnati area Dave & Buster’s arcade, in which Pete allegedly took the tickets he won playing skee-ball, redeemed them for more tokens, and used those tokens to play video poker and “Deal or No Deal” the arcade game. Both games are considered to be acts of gambling, and therefore illegal in the sport’s bylaws.
As a skee-baller, Rose’s numbers are unquestioned. His career started in 1989 at the Aladdin’s Castle in Cincinnati’s Beechmont Mall. According to then manager Bobby Hahn, “Rose stopped in out of sheer boredom a few days after he was done managing the Reds. He casually strolled in, changed a couple bucks into tokens and walked over to the skee-ball machine. Though he had never played before, he proceeded to throw five perfect games in a row [900 points / game]. He was on fire, just hitting 100 pointer after 100 pointer. To this day, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Rose was predictably furious over the decision, saying, “This is absolutely ridiculous, I’ve done nothing wrong. All I did was take the tickets I had earned, and use them to try and win more tickets. I wanted to win the whoopee cushion, the paddle-ball set, the spinning top, and the superball, but to win that many tickets solely from playing skee-ball would have either torn my rotator cuff or resulted in my needing Tommy John surgery. I wasn’t about to risk that, so I moved over to the video poker and the ‘Deal or No Deal’ machines. With the right moves, those things pay out ridiculously well. However, that’s not gambling, it’s just common sense and shouldn’t be considered a violation of skee-ball rules.”
The governing body of skee-ball, however, seems to disagree. Despte the fact that early reports of the incident were unfounded rumors started by arcade regulars, Skee-ball commissioner Steve Giamatti took the matter seriously enough to hire local attorney Ron Dowd to investigate. During his investigation, in which he interviewed many of Rose’s associates at the arcade, Dowd turned up proof that not only did the incident occur, but Rose had committed a similar act some months previous when he was trying to win a Stretch Armstrong doll and a water noodle.
As a result of the investigation, Giamatti told reporters he had no choice but to take drastic action. “The credibility and future of our sport were in jeopardy, and I did what I had to do to save it.”
