Was Pete Rose's sin still big enough to keep him away from baseball?

My God Tom, where have you been????? Welcome back! The Rose thing as you know is all about gambling and breaking the worse of all MLB rules, at least that's what we were all lead to believe. I think MLB and the BBWAA still look at both situations as compromising the integrity of baseball.

The PED use, I think, is worse because clean players have had to compete with chemically enhanced players for a good number of years. That is NOT a level playing field as far as I'm concerned. Either way the public as well as baseball will never forgive them, Rose included.

I suspect that if Pete had admitted all of his gambling issues at the time of the investigations, he might have had a chance of getting in as a player. Because he lied for so long, despite all the evidence against him, I think that he shot himself in the foot.

Personally, I would love to see him in the HOF as a player. Unfortunately, I do not have a vote. The voting privileges go to the Baseball Writers Association of America and the Hall Of Fame Veterans Committee.

One reason that I believe that he will not be admitted is because of Rule 5 on voting.

5. Voting: Voting shall be based upon the player's record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.

There was a petition last year on Change.org to try to get Rose reinstated but it only garnered 25 signatures. http://www.change.org/petitions/bud-selig-major-le...

Rumor has it that Bud Selig will be retiring be retiring after the 2014 season. Perhaps the next commissioner will remove the lifetime suspension - that still would not be an automatic entry into the Hall of Fame.

Gambling is unequivocally a bigger sin that PEDs. It's really the only cardinal sin in baseball. While PEDs call into question the integrity of individual performances, betting on games when you have the ability to control the outcome of said game calls into question the integrity of the entire league.

And come on, played the game clean? Just like a ton of other players in his era Pete Rose was popping greenies.

Rose did not make a mistake. He made a bad decision, and he did this repeatedly. Bad decisions can have bad and lasting consequences.

Rose's contravention of the rules had a prescribed sanction, which he continues to serve.

PED abuse had no such sanctions prior to 2004. Now there are defined sanctions, which MLB metes out when such is needed.

Two wrongs still do not make a right, and Rose's status neither merits nor will beget any partial or total absolution merely because other players today are committing their own running afoul of a different rule.

So because people who have nothing to do with Pete Rose did something that had nothing to do with Pete Rose, we should therefore forgive Pete Rose?

Although from a technical standpoint, using drugs, lying and cheating ARE more acceptable than gambling to everybody except in the instance of steroids:

Plenty of players have illegally used amphetamines (or cocaine, for that matter) but nobody cares.

Plenty of players have lied about stuff but nobody cares.

Plenty of players have thrown spitballs- which were banned because THEY KILLED SOMEBODY- but nobody cares.

Basically every kind of cheating is considered okay, except for steroids.

Edit: I don't understand why people note that Pete Rose gambled as a "manager" and not a "player" (though he was player-manager for a while there). Should guys like Joe Jackson have been banned "as players" but allowed to stick around "as managers" or coaches if they wanted to? If Barry Bonds comes back to baseball and has a Hall-of-Fame-quality managerial career, are you going to say he should be elected into the HOF "as a manager" but not as a "player" because he didn't cheat as a manager?

I don't like PED's, but Pete Rose is the biggest scumbag I've ever had the displeasure of watching.

It's not just the betting that people hate Pete Rose for. It is the numerous lies he has told since getting caught. He even lied in his book. He's changed his story too many times.

The two have nothing to do with each other. There are penalties spelled out for PED use. They are enforced. There is a penalty for gambling. It is enforced. It means permanent banishment. Rose got what he richly deserves.

Clean???? That guy and the rest of the 70's/80's even 90's players were hopped on so many amphetimines they couldn't sleep at night.

Why did Pete Rose play so crazy? Well he's a crazy/ intense guy and then he was having himself some meth coffee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You're joking, right?

I've known you for over 10 years and you cannot be serious.

We all know what pete is thee most cardinal sin ever of all time.