It’s been a while but I have finally decided to come out of hiding and share some thoughts. Most baseball fans have heard of Pete Rose. The man holds the record for most career hits, however is not in the Hall of Fame. Rose has been notoriously known as the man who was banned from Major League Baseball for betting on his team while he was the manager of the Cincinnati Reds. At no point was there any proof that he betted AGAINST his team. He also adamantly stood by his word that he never gambled on baseball during his playing career. However, earlier today ESPN’s Outside the Lines reported that a notebook documenting that he actually in deed DID bet on his own games while he played. Sadly for Rose this basically takes any slim opportunity he previously had of getting in the MLB Hall of Fame away. Arguably the greatest contact hitter of all time will never be enshrined in the Hall of Fame.

Betting on your own games is sketchy and wrong but everyone needs to stop crying and put this guy in the Hall. Since I am now a writer and have a vote on the Hall of Fame ballot, I will be voting for him. That’s how it works right? If you write articles about baseball you get a vote? I’m pretty sure that’s how it works but I digress. Pete Rose bet on himself. He never, to our knowledge bet against his team. If he did, that would be a completely different story. Betting against yourself and throwing games to win bets is the lowest of lows. If that were the case then yea, let Pete Rose continue to burn in baseball purgatory. One writer even went as far as saying that if Pete Rose killed a man it would not have been as bad as betting on his games. That is absurd! Is that writer a literal crazy person? Yes, yes he is. Someone should probably investigate that writer because he himself probably killed a man and is trying to use Pete Rose to distract everyone from the actual crime he committed. By numbers alone, Rose is a first ballot Hall of Famer. He has a career batting average of .303 and not to mention his 4,256 career hits which is an MLB record. As a player the man was an unstoppable hitting machine.

What’s really sad for baseball is you have a guy like Pete Rose being shunned while cheaters like Alex Rodriguez is being celebrated for passing historic baseball milestones that should not even count. Anyone who has been found guilty of performance enhancing drugs should lose stats from the years that they took the drugs. I don’t know exactly how you would figure that out but I’m sure the smart people at MLB could find a way. Guys like A Rod, Bonds, McGuire, and Sosa are cheaters and do not deserve the accolades they achieved. The saddest part of the whole PED era is that most of those players would be at the very least really good players, if not sure thing Hall of Fames. Maybe Bonds wouldn’t be the all time home run leader but he would still probably be in the Hall of Fame. Plus, they ruined the chance for any player from that era to get into the Hall. Even though guys like Mike Piazza, possibly the best hitting catcher of all time, was never connected to PEDs, he will probably never be voted into the Hall of Fame. Pete Rose never cheated. He just figured he could make a little extra money off the fact that he was a beast. But hey, when you have crazy old guys who think gambling on sports is worse than straight up murder, what do you expect? Until news comes out that Pete Rose bet against himself when he coached or played, my stance still stands. Put Pete Rose in the MLB Hall of Fame!

-Kev