It’s Charlie Hustle’s time

In declaring Pete Rose eligible for its Hall of Fame back in May, Major League Baseball did not grant him a posthumous pardon for committing what was long the sport’s supposedly unpardonable sin—namely, gambling.

Rather, MLB acknowledged that its all-time hit king had served his sentence.

Though it did not take place in a court of law, Rose entered into what effectively amounted to a plea bargain with MLB in 1989. The 17-time All-Star accepted a lifetime ban from the sport in exchange for MLB’s agreement to make no formal finding as to whether he’d engaged in gambling as the Cincinnati Reds’ manager during the mid- to late 1980s. The agreement rendered Rose ineligible for induction into baseball’s Hall of Fame for as long as it remained in effect.

Rose’s agreement allowed him to apply for reinstatement after one year, and he applied on multiple occasions. At times, he practically begged whichever MLB commissioner was in power to end his exile from the game.

Over the years, baseball did temporarily suspend it on occasion for special events, such as the honoring of MLB’s All-Century Team at the 1999 World Series and celebrations of championships he’d helped the Reds and Philadelphia Phillies win during his playing days. But no commissioner ever lifted the ban permanently while Rose was alive.

There were valid reasons for this: While Rose did eventually come clean about gambling in general and specifically about betting on baseball while managing the Reds, his belated honesty always seemed self-serving, never truly remorseful. Rose even profited from his lifetime exclusion: He’d set up shop at a high-end sports memorabilia store in Las Vegas—the city he called home at the time of his death, both fittingly and without irony—and charged $357 for autographed balls including the statement, “I’m sorry I bet on baseball.” He’d do the same thing every summer at the Baseball Hall of Fame’s annual induction ceremony in Cooperstown, N.Y.

“Rose was offered a lifeline (in 1989) by commissioner Bart Giamatti, who said at the time: ‘The burden to show a redirected, reconfigured, rehabilitated life is entirely Pete Rose’s,’” ESPN’s Jeff Passan wrote after Rose died last September. “Rose would never take on that burden.”

Leave his sordid history of gambling and other transgressions—including a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl while he was still married during the 1970s and tax evasion, for which he did a five-month prison stint in 1990—aside for the moment. On the strength of his on-field accomplishments alone, the player known as “Charlie Hustle” would certainly qualify for the Hall. Rose collected more hits—4,256—than any player in MLB history. He led teams to six World Series—four with the Reds, two with the Phillies—and won three. And no player has earned All-Star selections at as many different positions (five—three infield, two outfield) as Rose has.

For those reasons and more, many baseball fans clamored for MLB to lift his ban during his lifetime so he could take his arguably rightful place in the Hall and be alive to enjoy it.

That said, not everyone is thrilled that he’s eligible even in death. Jim Palmer, the legendary Baltimore Orioles pitcher who faced Rose in the 1970 and 1983 World Series, feels no sympathy for him, believing he knew baseball’s rules prohibiting gambling—especially on the sport itself—and broke them anyway.

Palmer has a valid point. For roughly a century after banning eight players for the Chicago White Sox for allegedly dropping the 1919 World Series in exchange for payoffs from gamblers, baseball took a hardline stance against the vice. Like Rose, those players—most notably outfielder “Shoeless Joe” Jackson, whose role in the scandal remains the subject of much intense debate—are now eligible for the Hall. Still, the potential for players to prevent games from being played on the up-and-up made it all but necessary for baseball to require players to abstain from betting in any form.

Now, however, multiple teams—including one of Rose’s old clubs, the Reds—have sportsbooks in their home ballparks. And MLB itself has a deal with the betting website DraftKings to offer in-stadium betting experiences. As I wrote roughly a year ago, “Apparently, baseball has no problem letting its teams profit from gambling so long as players, managers, and other team personnel aren’t directly involved.”

Baseball’s Hall of Fame is dedicated to the game’s greatest players, not saints. Ty Cobb had a notoriously vicious temper. Babe Ruth was perhaps the sport’s ultimate hedonist. And while I’m not sure where he’s spending eternity—I hope not the place he once said he’d walk through in a gasoline suit to play baseball—Rose is presumably no longer concerned with whether he takes his place in the Hall.

During his lifetime, I opposed Rose getting in. Now that he’s gone, I’m glad MLB has extended him some grace. He’s paid his debt to the game. While I don’t condone the many sins he committed in and outside of baseball and am by no means suggesting character should not matter—especially since the Hall itself makes it a consideration—I believe it’s time to let him in.