The American Spectator

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Jeffrey S. Erickson br> Davidson, North Carolina /p>

Surfing for something else a few years back, probably a baseball game, I accidentally caught Pete Rose's ex-wife on a talk show and she summed up Charlie's hustle pretty well. Said La Rose, "As a human being, Pete Rose is a great ball player."

Exactly. (She also said, "The only book Pete ever read in his whole life was 'The Pete Rose Story,' and he skipped parts of that." But this needn't detain us here. No one ever said Pete was a scholar.)

Pete's confession and "apology" couldn't be less sincere if Pete had the services of the late Ron Ziegler to promote them along with his whiny-butt book. But who cares? And who expected anything else?

Pete wants to manage the Cincinnati Reds again. But we can all hope he never gets that chance. Baseball has good reasons to cast its gamblers into outer darkness. And Pete knew this when he gambled on baseball. Even those of us who believe in Christian forgiveness know when a life sentence should mean a life sentence.

But while we're punishing Pete Rose, let's not punish baseball fans at the same time. There's every reason to keep Pete our of a major league uniform forever, but no reason that makes any sense to keep him out of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Cooperstown is a little jewel of a shrine that baseball pilgrims take great joy in visiting. The Hall is there to recognize and celebrate excellence in playing baseball. Nothing more or less. As has been frequently pointed out, many of the enshrinees are hardly choir boys. Many lists of "100 worst humans beings in the history of the world" would doubtless include Ty Cobb. But who would argue that a lifetime .367 hitter doesn't belong in the Hall. Sadly, some of Cobb's Cooperstown colleagues were felons, wife beaters, drunks, thieves, or other varieties of scofflaws (also some of his colleagues were -- are -- princes, and most just regular guys outside of the fact they were extremely good at playing the best game God ever invented).

No one played baseball any better than Pete Rose. And it wasn't just the numbers he put up -- incredible as they are. He played the game with aggressiveness and an all-out flare that was always a joy to watch. If every major leaguer played the game like Pete did, America would accomplish nothing between April and November because everyone would be spending all their time watching baseball games.

p>Put Pete in the Hall for the enjoyment of fans who visit there (hell, put an asterisk on his plaque, but have a plaque there for him), but otherwise leave him on the porch. br> -- Larry Thornberry br> Tampa, Florida /p>

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