MLB's Stubborn Attitude Towards Rose Sends the Wrong Message

Another year, another failed attempt at reinstatement by Pete Rose. It's an on-going saga that is not likely to stop any time soon and it's beginning to get extremely old. With everything that goes on in sports today, all the criminal acts and cheating, it is unbelievable to me that Pete Rose is still banned from the game.

Sports are by no means a clean environment in today's world. It doesn't matter what level you're talking about, someone somewhere is doing something they shouldn't be doing whether it violates league rules or the law. We have professional athletes beating their wives and testing positive for illegal drugs, yet not a single one of those guys have been banned by their league for their actions. Even Ray Rice, who was shown on video knocking his fiance out cold, has been reinstated by the NFL. What's wrong with that picture?

No one will ever play as hard as Rose played

I think it shows a serious lack of priorities not only on Rob Manfred's part, but professional sports as a whole. If you want to keep Pete Rose out of the Hall of Fame for a rule he violated that is not even a federal crime, then they need to crack down on the idiots that are breaking laws as well. What message are you trying to send to the world? That beating women, doing illegal drugs, and driving drunk deserves a slap on the wrist while betting on the outcome of your team's games deserves a full-blown expulsion from the game? That's absolutely pathetic in my mind and I feel genuinely sorry that the MLB sees it that way.

If you think back to the Mitchell Report, and all the names that were brought to the forefront as cheaters and steroid users, it goes to show how unclean the game of baseball was and probably still is. Yet we saw guys like Barry Bonds, Andy Pettite, and Roger Clemens who were allowed to continue playing even after they were found guilty of PEDs. These are guys who took drugs to improve performance in an attempt to gain an edge on the competition, and obviously it worked. That is not to say that these guys were not Hall of Fame caliber before they began "juicing", but the fact that they blatantly went against league rules and the integrity of the game and were still allowed to play and appear on the Hall of Fame ballets while Rose continues to be shunned is a crime.

So when you compare all of these things to Pete Rose, how significant is his gambling? There is no evidence that he was betting against the Reds, and nobody was hurt or jailed during this whole ordeal. He did not commit a crime, he violated a rule. And in today's world where we let professional athletes get away with just about anything, it blows my mind that Pete Rose is still banned from baseball. This is a guy who played the game the way it was meant to be played. He out-hustled and out-worked every single player on the field every single day. He took pride in what he did and he took pride in his teams. That's something you don't see as often in today's world. It has become about the money and the individual as opposed to the team and the passion. Pete Rose is the perfect example of how a professional athlete should handle themselves and yet the MLB is choosing to make him the bad guy while other guys cheat and break laws while receiving no long-term punishment.

I personally believe that Pete Rose belongs in the Hall of Fame and, if you want my honest opinion, I think he will get in someday. But the day Pete Rose gets into the Hall of Fame is a day that he won't be around to witness because he'll probably be reinstated after he passes away. I would not be the least bit surprised if that happens and it will make the MLB look like more of joke than it already does. I hope the day that Rose is allowed into the Hall comes soon because, quite frankly, he deserves to be in. It's been over 25 years of punishment for one of the greatest players the game has ever seen. It's time the MLB quits trying to look tough and lets "Charlie Hustle" have his day.