Re: Pete Rose, 20 years later...HOF or not?
Nope.
Regardless of his contributions on the field, he touched what some have called "the third rail" of baseball by gambling on games he was involved in, and for that the penalty they say is death.
I kind of agree with that analogy. Nobody who has ever bet on baseball has ever been let back in, once you make an exception you open the floodgates and need to justify why this one, and not that one.
Examples are wonderful things, all the more so when the example being made is someone noteworthy. Yup, other players did bad things too, or weren't nice guys (see Ty cobb), but they didn't bet on the game. Not an apples to apples comparison.
Not that I don't appreciate his contributions, but we've all broken things in our lives that we just can't fix, no matter how hard we try or how remorseful we may be.Some things may be forgiven, but can't be forgotten.
As an aside, from what I've read he's never getting in anyways, because the people who do the voting don't want him there.
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