SELIG CONSIDERS PARDONING PETE ROSE??

Or is he in reality passing the buck to the Veterans Committee? And won't the baseball writers do much the same thing fundamentally with the "steroid" guys going forward?

FROM THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS:

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/2009/07/27/2009-07-27_pete_rose.html

Thanks to the behind-the-scenes lobbying from some of the most influential Hall of Famers, commissioner Bud Selig is said to be seriously considering lifting Pete Rose's lifetime suspension from baseball.

The guys who played with Rose are starting to show sympathetic cracks in the wall that has kept Rose out. He was passed over by the sportswriters due to the climate of fear du jour.

Better re-consider the Shoeless Joe Jackson case, if you're going to allow Pete Rose in. I still maintain that Rose represented--to an entire generation of parents, coaches and players--a living, breathing, Charlie-hustling example of how the game should be played. What he was involved in after his playing career was over should not hold him back.

Maybe we can expand Hank Aaron's suggestion the PED suspects plaques are asterisked and apply a "gambling asterisk" to Pete's plaque. Then we can go back and asterisk the entire original class and anyone else who played while the game was segregated with a "segregation asterisk". Pretty soon, there wouldn't be too many guys in there without an asterisk. Like the football guys say, it's a Hall of Fame, not a Hall of Saints.

If Selig does reinstate him, Rose then would become eligible for the Hall of Fame, but on the Veterans Committee ballot, as his 15 years on the Baseball Writers ballot expired during his time on the ineligible list. He would thus have to be elected by his peers, the 65 living members in the Hall of Fame, not all of whom agree with Aaron, Morgan and Robinson that Rose has done his time. It's hard to say if he would get the necessary 75% for election. "I know there are still guys who feel strongly against him," said one Hall of Famer, "and I don't know if that would change even if Selig clears him."

Now what Selig can do is say to the Veterans Committee--the remaining living members--"If you want him in, he's all yours". And the baseball writers will handle the steroid guys in the same manner in the future. They will get a 15-year penance or waiting period where the writers as a voting bloc will pass on anyone remotely close to the PED issue.

Then as the composition of the remaining living members changes to include these players peer group, the same sympathy for their overall career will kick in and in the same manner as we are seeing for Rose.

The only thing I see changing the issue markedly is if the writers somehow vote in a guy who was judged pristine by them and then is revealed to have been conclusively involved in PED's.

Then the whole complexion of the game changes.