Pete Rose Colored Glasses

There has been a lot of good, smart discussion about Pete Rose since the most recent revelation that he bet on baseball while a player, and therefore, has never stopped lying. If the door was ever cracked to Rose's return to Baseball, that loud shudder you heard yesterday was the room shaking in the shadow of a slam.

For those still clinging to sympathy for the hit king, the argument against is tough to oppose. Rose is now in league with those inveterate liars -- Lance Armstrong, Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Braun, Bill Clinton, et. al. -- who treated the truth as a strategy to be employed only when effective. MLB did then and does now exhort players endlessly about its absolute prohibition -- and the consequences if violated -- against gambling of any kind.

So therefore, goes the argument, Pete Rose, a 17-time All Star, .303 lifetime hitter, three-time batting champ, 15-time MVP candidate, and contributor of 79 lifetime WAR, that guy should be banned from the game and hence from the Hall of Fame. Smarmy creep. Lying bastard. And all that.

It's a convincing argument. Screw Pete Rose.

But how about me? How about you?

We want Pete Rose in the Hall of Fame because we want the Hall to mean something about baseball. We grew up with a Hall of Fame that welcomed Ty Cobb's virulent racism and Tris Speaker's KKK membership and Babe Ruth's serial infidelity and Mickey Mantle's raging alcoholism and Joe DiMaggio's mob ties and Gaylord Perry's career-long cheating and on and on. Now we're being asked to accept the exclusion of all-time great players like Rose, Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, Alex Rodriguez and perhaps others.

It doesn't make sense. It's not just that he Hall shouldn't exclude those wanting in character; it's that it hasn't.

I say screw Pete Rose too. And Bonds, Clemens and the rest of them. But induct them into the Hall of Fame because it's not their Hall of Fame; it's mine. And I want the best players enshrined in Cooperstown.