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(CNN) -- It's one of the great ironies in all of sports: Pro baseball's career hitting leader is not in baseball's Hall of Fame.
On Monday, 20 years to the day Pete Rose signed an agreement with Major League Baseball banning him from the sport, he is no closer to being reinstated.
I think the key phrase is "signed an agreement." Now he wants everyone to forget that he signed an agreement. Well, OK, he wanted that from Day One, too.
Rose was banned in 1989 and spent the next 15 years lying to the public about his guilt. He spent 15 years putting the knock on the the MLB officials who banned him. He spent 15 years marketing himself as a martyered innocent before finally deciding that this strategy wasn't working. So in 2004 he reasoned that he could finally admit that he did all that he was charged with doing, and there would be a sudden rush to forgive him and lift the ban. I'm confident that he has no understanding as to why this cynical ploy failed to work.
Hmmmm....why don't we go for simple justice and allow Rose's own behavior to be our guide? Since he lied to the public for 15 years, how about we allow the ban to stand for another 15 years retroactive to 2004 when he finally confessed? That would mean Rose may become elligible for the HoF in 2019. Rose will be 78 years old...if he is still alive...and we can afford to be charitable to him then.
Hmmmm....why don't we go for simple justice and allow Rose's own behavior to be our guide? Since he lied to the public for 15 years, how about we allow the ban to stand for another 15 years retroactive to 2004 when he finally confessed? That would mean Rose may become elligible for the HoF in 2019. Rose will be 78 years old...if he is still alive...and we can afford to be charitable to him then.
Have to say, that doesn't sound unfair, at all. And it has the added bonus of establishing work for an entire new generation of law professors at universities across the country: the concept of the Lying Limit. Your lie will only be held against you for the time you spent insisting on it. (Some interesting possibilities for dealing with politicians, too!)
Pete Rose did this to himself. Had he come clean in 1989 the ban probably would have been lifted years ago and he'd be a HOFer. But he chose to lie and only admitted guilt in order to promote a book. That being said the Hall has allowed racists,rapists,thiefs,liars and murderers into its hallowed Halls I think its time for rose to be let in with a fat asterisk next to his plaque.
Totally aside from Rose's final career numbers--#1 all-time in games played (3,562), at-bats (14,053) and hits (4,256); #2 all time in doubles (746); and a career batting average of .303 for 24 seasons in the majors--what I'm about to commit to writing will probably be looked upon as sacrilege by true Rose believers. Still, here goes...
He had a whole bunch of excellent seasons. Not knock-your-socks-off great, but excellent. His career stats are based on longevity, pure and simple. And so my irreverent question is: just because he played more than some other guy, and therefore had the opportunity to rack up more impressive numbers, does that merit Hall of Fame status? More than fourteen thousand at-bats, and the man hit a total of 160 home runs in twenty-four years. He was a doubles hitter. Granted, a better doubles hitter than anyone else, but a doubles hitter all the same.
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