Ok, Now You Can Put Pete Rose In The Baseball HOF

As just about all of you know by now, Pete Rose (pictured above) passed away on Monday at the age of 83.

MLB's (Major League Baseball's) all-time hit king's (with 4,256 hits) passing has once again gotten people talking about whether "Charlie Hustle" should be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

And here are my thoughts on that:

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If you remember, after denying it for years, Rose finally admitted that he did bet on the sport (while as the manager of the Cincinnati Reds in the mid-late 1980's) in an interview with ABC's Charles Gibson and in the book he wrote 20 years ago.

I certainly don't condone what he did, he should've been banned from the game that he loved so much.  Betting on the game while an active player/coach/manager is the one thing you can't do in MLB without immediate punishment.

I have always felt that Rose did NOT belong in the Hall while he was alive because I felt that he didn't deserved to enjoy the love and adulation that he certainly would've gotten had he been allowed into Cooperstown as a HOF inductee.  But after he dies, put him in the next year after he passes.  His stats as a player are undeniable and worthy of induction.

Well, Rose is no longer with us, so he has now served his lifetime ban.  And I think that MLB commissioner Rob Manfred should end his banishment from the game, which would make him eligible for the Hall of Fame voters to either vote him in or not.  Put it in the hands of the writers who vote on this every year.  But there is one caveat...

Shoeless Joe Jackson should go in with Pete or before him.  There is no evidence that Joe ever threw any World Series games as part of the infamous "Black Sox" scandal of 1919.  MLB would have to reinstate him as well, but that should've happened already.

Pete Rose belongs in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.  He deserves a plaque there.  Put the fact that he was banned from baseball for betting on the bottom of the plaque, but put him in, it's time.

Do the right thing and put Pete Rose in the Hall of Fame!!!