Why baseball 'purists' are wrong about Pete Rose's Hall of Fame case

Baseball legend Pete Rose accomplished in death what he could never manage in his lifetime reinstatement to Major League Baseball Yet baseball purists are clutching their pearls terrified that the bad man will now be admitted to the Baseball Hall of Fame They re dead wrong Time for Pete to enter Cooperstown no matter what the baseball eggheads may be saying For those too young to remember Pete Rose is one of the greatest majority exciting athletes ever to pick up a glove Rose remains baseball s all-time Hit King with base hits to his name three World Series titles All-Star Competition appearances and more hitting records than you can shake a Louisville Slugger at In he tore off a National League record consecutive tournament hitting streak And for more than two decades major league pitchers had nightmares about Pete Rose dancing off third base PETE ROSE'S REINSTATEMENT HAS BASEBALL FANS IN UPROAR 'WHAT A SHAME THEY WAITED UNTIL NOW'Rose was a man ahead of his time in the sense that he was gambling long before America s major sports and our society as a whole embraced the habit Of module Rose didn t solely log onto FanDuel and put bucks on the Lakers He bet on baseball games while managing his hometown unit the Cincinnati Reds That s what got him booted in disgrace from the contest It s easy to understand why Rose got tossed Baseball had been through cheating scandals before The Chicago White Sox threw the World Series at the behest of gamblers as demonstrated in the book and movie Eight Men Out The World Series might also have been fixed Protecting the integrity of the encounter was paramount to MLB commissioners and to the Baseball Hall of Fame But as commissioner Rob Manford mentioned as he reinstated Rose it s hard to see what damage someone can do to the match from the grave There are plenty of people who would love to see Rose s exile continue forever They say his actions took baseball down a slippery slope from which it will never recover Oh please They overlook his greatness on the field and focus on his personal shortcomings which admittedly were numerous PETE ROSE'S DAUGHTER DISCUSSES MEETING WITH ROB MANFRED REACTION TO FINDING OUT DAD'S BAN HAD BEEN LIFTEDBut the Baseball Hall of Fame does not exist to honor character If it did they would have to take down the plaques of Ty Cobb a notorious racist and an all-around lousy human being and countless other malefactors who could swing a bat or throw strikes Rose s choices did not affect the outcomes of games unlike the later baseball players whose use of performance enhancing drugs boosted their statistics and transformed the standings He only hurt himself Back in when I was I cut school to watch the Mets play the Reds in the National League Championship Series a encounter marked by Pete Rose and Mets shortstop Buddy Harrelson getting into a violent confrontation that nearly resulted in a Mets forfeit Mets manager Yogi Berra and legendary contestant Willie Mays veritably walked out to left field to urge the fans in the stands to stop throwing liquor bottles and batteries at the players CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINIONYears later I met Rose at the Las Vegas memorabilia store where he would sign a photo or a baseball for a fee I narrated him that I d witnessed his scuffle with Harrelson We lost he snapped at me Why would I wanna hear about that contest It took Rose decades to acknowledge the gambling maybe because he never really thought he did anything that bad His unapologetic stance undoubtedly cost him reinstatement in baseball and admission to the Hall of Fame in his lifetime Yet admitting Rose to the Hall of Fame now doesn t exclusively honor his memory It celebrates his greatness in the memories of fans like me and younger fans who analysis the history of the competition The Classic Baseball committee is not scheduled to meet until December to determine Rose s fate Here s hoping they get together on a Zoom call in the current era right now and give Pete Rose his due That man was a Hall of Famer from the time he first put on a Reds uniform He went to his death without forgiveness or vindication That s an error in the scorebooks if I ever saw one It s time to put the Hit King where he belongs On a plaque in Cooperstown with the rest of the immortals And the pearl clutching sports experts can take a hike CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM MICHAEL LEVIN