Pete Rose @ MindSay

Pete Rose will someday be admitted into the Hall of Fame. 

You heard it first right here.  It will be because of the games best players are using drugs to enhance their performance and breaking records while doing so.  Using performance enhancing drugs is against the rules of baseball.  So is gambling.  Baseball will have to let in the players that have broken the records and the rules now because it is more than just Pete Rose.  It is a bunch of them.  It is sad that this will have to happen but in defense of Rose, his Major League accomplishments were before he bet on baseball.  His mistake was doing it while he was a part of the game.  That is why he will be admitted. 

Todays players are doing it right in front of baseball behind the players union walls that protect them.  One by one they will be exposed as long as drug testing is enforced, ala Raphael Palmeiro.  What will put them in the Hall is what they were doing before they were caught using.  Just like Rose.  What baseball will have to decide is the proper way to display their accomplishments, acknowledge their records, and whether or not to acknowledge the rule breaking that took them out of the game.  I wish good luck to baseball in deciding that one.

Baseball will induct two new members to it's Hall of Fame this Sunday.  Wade Boggs and Ryne Sandberg.  Yes these players were good.  They were good players no doubt about it.  But Hall of Fame material?  Well lets just compare to them to a real Hall of Fame player.

I am trying to remember those guys.  Wade played for the Bosox for a while.  Hmm, was he a consistant batting average champ?  Did he hit 600 home runs?  Maybe he was a great golden glove winner winning 10+ consective years?  No only two.  He did have a career batting average of .328.  That was good.  An on base percentage of .415 but as a career ranked 26th.  Very good.  But Hall of Fame?  Maybe.

Ryne Sandberg.  Who did he play for?  Wait let me google it to find out....  oh yeah the Cubs.  Lets see what he did.  He was a one time MVP.  He was a Golden Glove winner 9 times, that is great!  He played in the game for 10 years, something that most people cannot do.  But Hall of Fame material?

O.K, let me do a comparison for a bit...  Pete Rose.

Lets see what Pete has done.  To start with he hit left and right handed.  He was an Allstar 17 years.  He played 1st, 2nd, and 3rd base.  Had a 44 game hitting streak.  MVP 1963, 1973 and 1975 MVP World Series MVP.  He has the most hits of anyone in the game at 4,256.  Played in 3562 games which is number one all time.  Played in 6 World Series, winning two just off of memory, i.e, the Big Red Machine.  2nd on the alltime doubles list with 746.  Sixth on the total bases categorie with 5752.  Number one with times on base at 5929.  And why isn't he in Cooperstown?

Oh yeah he bet on baseball.  That is against the rules.  So is drug use.  Steroids.  Oh, wonder why Bobby Bonds isn't playing right now and won't again until his blood system clears?  It is time for baseball to admit it's mistakes and wipe the slate clean.  Start from scratch and begin again.

Let the man in.  I have never met Pete Rose and have only heard bad things about him as him a person but he was the best hitter in baseball with out a doubt.  If baseball needs to keep him from managing or something that they would fear he could alter then so be it.  But to let average to good players be remembered forever in Cooperstown and not have the all time hit king there?  Shame on baseball.