Former Cincinnati Reds player and manager Pete Rose, was banned for life in 1989 for betting on baseball games, including Reds games. The all time hit king (4,256) has admitted his mistakes and has petitioned MLB and commissioner Bud Selig to reinstate him but has not had any success.

In his second autobiography in 2004, Rose admitted that he bet on baseball, something he had adamantly denied until then. “I’ve taken responsibility for my life,” Rose said. “Baseball isn’t good for second chances — not for gamblers. They are for people who take drugs. They are for people who beat up their wives. They are for people who drink a lot of alcohol. I screwed up. I wish I could change it.”

Rose was recently the keynote speaker at a gala of the Ohio Justice & Policy Center. There, he said he did not care about being inducted into the Hall of Fame but only wanted to manage again to share his knowledge with the younger generation of ball players.

“It’s a like a singer getting caught running a red light and not being able to sing again,” Rose said. “That’s not America. I’m a baseball player. I can go on every talk show and say I’m sorry and some people don’t want to hear you. That’s not fair.”

One of the guests at the banquet was the federal judge who sentenced him to five months in jail in 1990 for failing to report income from gambling on his taxes. Rose made light of it but blamed only himself for the situation that he put himself in.

If you take a step back and look at the big picture with everything else that is going on in baseball, Rose does have a small compliant. Manny Ramirez was caught cheating as he was using PEDs and received a 50-game suspension and was rightfully suspended once and then for a second time. But if he served his now 100-game suspension, he would be able to come back and play again or manage like Rose wants to.

DUIs have become a dime a dozen.  It’s now easier to ask who hasn’t had a DUI than who has. Baseball needs to address this issue and will hopefully in the next collective bargaining agreement but in some regards they are no different than Rose as they all broke the law.  If anything, what they did was worse as they put innocent people in danger as they (DUI boys) got behind the wheel and made the decision to drive impaired.

Lets not forget Alfredo Simon of the Orioles who on January 1st, killed an innocent human being as he recklessly discharged a firearm into the air.  Whether it was an accident or not, Simon’s actions resulted in a life being lost. Baseball has not taken any action against him as he is back in the States pitching in the minor leagues.

Though, the big difference in the situations is that Rose gave baseball a black eye by betting on the games that he was involved in (kinda like referee Tim Donaghy of the NBA). He violated the trust factor and the honesty factor of the game. But with that said, Rose has come forward and admitted that he did gamble on baseball games, just not ones that he was involved in like he was alleged to have done.

Almost 22-years later and nothing has changed for Rose as he sits on the outside looking in. So if you were the commissioner, would you reinstate Rose?

Information from the Associated Press was used in this article?

Image by Pvsbond under the Creative Commons license.