Pete Rose's Last, Best Chance to the Hall of Fame Now Gone

Pete Rose had one final hope for admittance into the Hall of Fame, and it was the passage of time and the mercy for the accused that often accompanies it.

That was torpedoed Monday by a bombshell report from William Weinbaum and T.J. Quinn of ESPN's Outside the Lines that includes hard evidence that he bet on baseball as a player, something he's denied for a quarter of a century.

There is no way now baseball can—or should—remove him from the permanently suspended list.

There is no way now he can re-enter the game on a second chance.

Hell, at this point, there is no way now baseball should even allow him to participate in All-Star festivities next month in Cincinnati.

Because Pete Rose, again, just became more toxic than a neighborhood gas leak.

Just when things were settling down and maybe even looking up for the 74-year-old fallen icon, with new Commissioner Rob Manfred replacing longtime Rose nemesis Bud Selig and with a new reinstatement request in motion, out of the National Archives comes a smoking gun of a notebook that John Dowd never could quite get his hands on.

AL BEHRMAN/Associated Press

It was Dowd who led baseball's investigation of Rose in the late 1980s, and it was the 1989 Dowd Report that then-Commissioner Bart Giamatti used as hard evidence to kick Rose out of the park for good.

In those pages, it was alleged that Rose bet on baseball and did so while managing the Cincinnati Reds. It took 15 years for Rose to finally admit in 2004, following years of denials, that he indeed did bet on baseball, but only as a manager.

A proven liar already, the hope here was that Rose learned some very hard lessons during these past 25 years. Last August, I even wrote that given the passage of time, Rose's belated apology, a new commissioner and baseball's very real need to reconnect with the younger generation, it was time to reinstate Rose.

I absolutely believed then, given the confluence of events, that the time was right to start the discussion about Rose's return to baseball. New commissioner, fresh start. And even while on the outside looking in, nobody can sell baseball like Pete Rose.

As I noted in that column, Rose told ESPN's Jeremy Schaap for an Outside the Lines special on the 25th anniversary of his lifetime suspension last summer, "I've been led to believe America is a forgiving country, and if you do the right things—keep your nose clean, be a good citizen, pay your taxes, do all the things you're supposed to do—eventually you'll get a second chance."

True, all of it.

Except those second chances can only emerge out of the cleansing of a full admission and a complete apology.

Which brings us to Monday's sensational disclosure of the notebook that contains hard evidence of Rose betting as a player from 1984 to 1986 with mob-connected bookmakers. It is a notebook Dowd told ESPN he was aware of during his investigation in the late '80s but that his people could never acquire.

That it now is stored in the National Archives' New York office only adds weight to the tragic irony.

The all-time hit king himself, with records of 4,256 hits, 3,562 games played and 5,929 times on base, should be stored in the National Archives.

Instead, what resides there is the final damning bit of evidence relegating him, permanently, from treasured icon to scoundrel.

He can never be immortalized in Cooperstown now because this latest evidence is too damning. Because it reveals an even deeper, darker layer of Rose's betting than had been proved before and, most importantly, one he still continued to hide all these years later.

Anonymous/Associated Press

Nearly as sensational as the latest revelation is the timing. In three weeks, the All-Star Game returns to Rose's native Cincinnati for the first time since 1988. Though Rose's involvement isn't yet known, Selig said last summer that it would be up to the club and that the Reds "know what they can and can't do."

Now, clearly, any Rose involvement will hijack the game. There can be no forgiveness and redemption, not now. But that's not the only reason why baseball needs to move now to keep him away, again.

One reason I advocated leniency last August was because of the hypocritical way baseball has treated him over the past several years.

John Minchillo/Associated Press

According to terms of his current ban, Rose is barred from going anywhere in a ballpark that a regular fan cannot go. Yet MLB brought him onto the field to participate in an All-Century Team celebration at the 1999 World Series and also permitted Rose to participate in a celebration of the 25th anniversary of his record-setting 4,192nd hit in Cincinnati in 2010.

As I wrote last August, "There comes a point where it is unconscionable to trot Rose out like a show horse for some occasions and keep him locked in the barn like a glue horse for others."

More unconscionable yet is the slippery manner in which Rose continues to elude the truth while playing the victim.

Some 80 years ago, the feds brought down notorious gangster Al Capone on charges of tax evasion. Now, the notebook tying Rose to betting with mob-connected bookmakers originally was seized as part of a mail fraud investigation. Go figure.

Currently under review in Manfred's office is Rose's application for reinstatement, submitted in March.

Ruling on that just became a no-brainer. As in the case of the disgraced Shoeless Joe Jackson, at this point, any compassionate human being wants to look at Rose and plead, "Say it ain't so, Pete."

Problem is, he already has. Too many times.

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

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