25 Years in Exile.

When I was a child the greatest baseball player was Pete Rose. We all emulated him to no end from running hard around the bases, the head first slide for those of us who were brave enough or just motivated enough to do that. Pete was a winner personified. So we wanted to be like him. Then came the gambling.

Banished in 1989 for life for gambling, on baseball, Rose has been all over the map with as many reasons, and excuses as Major League baseball has been with bad decisions and hypocrisy. There is no doubt that Rose bet on baseball, and the ensuing 25 years is enough punishment. Baseball in it's hypocritical wisdom has gone beyond the original crime, and taken it to a personal level that doesn't pass the smell test. A. Bartlett Giamatti, and his vindictive minion Bud Selig, the former, once the Commissioner of Baseball, and the latter the current Commissioner of baseball, have pushed their puritanical morals on Rose and judged him harshly. With all the scandals in the last 25 years, the performance enhancing drugs or PED'S  is the most egregious blind eye that Major League baseball has ever turned.

 Baseball owners were making money hand over fist and to keep this up some condoned or outright encouraged PED use among the players. That is why they took so long to ban them. It wasn't until after the U.S. Senate got involved that PED'S were outlawed. After baseball had made all the money they were going to make. None of those players were banned for life.

In 1999 before the second game of the World Series at Fenway Park in Boston baseball trotted Rose out with the All Century All Star team because the sponsor wanted him there. It just seems that baseball doesn't want anything to do with Rose unless there is something in it for them. Pete was correct when he said, "If baseball can't use me they don't contact me." I guess that kind of sums the derision That Rose encounters from MLB, and Bud Selig.

While Rose is not a perfect man, none of us are, it just shows how personal this issue was.
He has made his mistake, that stems an addiction, that overpowers even the strongest personalities. If baseball wants to ban him for life, because of gambling, or because of a book or denial or whatever reason, they should do so, and get on with their life. They shouldn't call him when they need him just to make money off of him. That stretches the credibility of MLB. Then again considering the debacle that has been MLB the last 25 years MLB can't stretch something they don't have. The lying two faced hypocrite Bud Selig needs to take his fake morality and go away. He isn't any better than Rose, and he has as Commissioner taken Major League baseball with him.