[highball]

The gambling has nothing to do with his performance as a player (unlike Shoeless Joe Jackson) - it was way after the fact. If he doesn't get in the HoF it will just further cheapen the meaning of the HoF and of baseball in general. Nobody got more hits than Pete Rose, ever - if that isn't HoF material then what is?

That's just nonsense. Pete Rose gambled on his team as a manager. He was in a position to impact the games on which he was betting. How does that not compromise the integrity of the game?

Secondly, how do we know that he didn't bet on games while he was a player? We only have his word for that, and he's proven over the past decade and a half what his word is worth.

[thoughtomator]

If baseball was really concerned about its integrity, it has far, far worse issues to deal with than Pete Rose's gambling while being a manager. Its record books are chock-full of numbers that could not have been achieved without serious chemical enhancement, displacing all the players who did have integrity. It seems to me that baseball has long since made the decision to chuck its integrity in the garbage in exchange for the marketing opportunities of record-setting. Given that, I don't see how Rose's after-the-fact behavior is any worse than that of Barry Bonds and his ilk.