According to a commentary in the Washington Post by John Dowd, baseball’s lead investigator in the Pete Rose matter back in the ’80s, this is the deal that was offered to the schmuck-king once the extent of his gambling on the game was clear:

Pete would have to reconfigure his life. He would have to stop betting. He would have to make a candid response to all of the hard evidence. He would have to explain his association with all of the characters in the betting operation. He would have to submit to, and complete, a full rehabilitation. During his rehabilitation, he would be removed from the game of baseball.

I had been advised by federal authorities that if Rose agreed to these terms, he would not be prosecuted for tax evasion but would have to pay all taxes, interest and penalties due. Upon successful completion of his rehabilitation, he would have been readmitted to the game of baseball and could receive all honors which come with achievement and good conduct. He would have been eligible, if chosen, for admission to the Hall of Fame.

If this is true — and there’s not much reason to doubt Dowd on this — then it immediately puts the lie to one of Rose’s favorite rhetorical gambits, as evidenced in his latest scam book:

If I had been an alcoholic or a drug addict, baseball would have suspended me for six weeks and paid for my rehabilitation.

I should have had the opportunity to get help, but baseball had no fancy rehab for gamblers like they do for drug addicts. If I had admitted my guilt, it would have been the same as putting my head on the chopping block — lifetime ban. Death penalty. I spent my entire life on the baseball fields of America, and I was not going to give up my profession without first seeing some hard evidence. … Right or wrong, the punishment didn’t fit the crime — so I denied the crime.

In fact, Rose was given the opportunity to fess up and rehabilitate. No, it wouldn’t have been a six-week suspension, but it would have been an opportunity for him to acknowledge the harm he’d done, change his ways, and work to re-earn the respect of baseball and its fans. Instead, he chose to lie, go to prison for tax evasion, and hit the talk-show and card-show circuits in a desperate attempt to scratch out a living.

Even now he won’t stop gambling! On the one hand, he wants to claim the gambling-is-a-disease mantle to afford him special treatment, and then when “rehabilitation” is offered he refuses it.

Rose’s case is almost enough to make me believe in this “addiction is a disease” nonsense, since only a seriously damaged mind would cogitate as poorly as he has throughout this whole mess. I still think Rose, like Joe Jackson, deserves a shot on the Hall of Fame ballot, but he shouldn’t be allowed within a Sammy Sosa homerun ball’s distance of a job in professional baseball.

Yes, Rose really deserves to be on the ballot, because the all-time hits leader won’t come close to getting elected, and the ignominy of that feat — being such a schmuck that it outweighs the advantage of holding one of the greatest records in sports — is well-deserved indeed.