So Pete Rose finally fessed up to the worst-kept secret in baseball.
Betting on a sport you play in is serious moral terpitude, even if you're not betting on your own team. It looks bad, and it's bad business for the sport as a whole.
I can't believe there are people defending the guy. Players have been banned for life just for putting a bet on a team, and this guy is about to get his plaque in Cooperstown despite admitting he was betting on MLB? Geez.
I've been to Cooperstown and seen the plaques of some real slimeballs -- Cap Anson, a guy who makes David Duke look like Martin Luther King; Ty Cobb, baseball's greatest anti-role model; various womanizers, spitball throwers, cheaters, and folks you wouldn't want to live next door to. They aren't exactly Nobel Prize winners... but none of them bet on baseball. To put Rose's face in the same room as these guys cheapens the value of the Hall -- even for Cap Anson, whose plaque is worth less than the metal it was cast out of.
Baseball is in serious trouble, but putting Rose in the Hall fixes nothing. It just proves that they're grasping for anything that will make them a buck in a climate where the game is seeing more youth turn to soccer than to Little League.
