Rose deserves a shot at Hall of Fame election

It turns out that as Commissioner Bud Selig prepares to leave Major League Baseball he is grudgingly willing to leave the door slightly ajar for Pete Rose on the way out.

Selig, who has been adamantly opposed to reinstating Rose during his 16-year tenure, suggested to the Baseball Writers Association of America on Tuesday that the aging star could play a minor role in next year’s All-Star Game festivities.

Now, the hope is that whoever is the next commissioner will seize upon the All-Star Game’s return to Cincinnati in 2015 to end baseball’s longest-running cold war and finally let Rose stand for election to Cooperstown.

After what has already been a quarter-century of a "lifetime" ban for gambling, permit the game’s all-time hits leader another at-bat. This time on the ballot for the Hall of Fame.

If the writers who cast the ballots can find it in their hearts to forgive him and commute part of his sentence, let baseball do the same and find a place for Rose among the rogues and the sainted in Cooperstown.

Keep him out of the clubhouse and dugout, where he committed the cardinal sin of betting on the game while managing the Reds. But after all these years — and who knows how many more the 73-year-old Rose has remaining — allow him entry to the sanctum where his 4,256 hits in a 24-year career say he belongs.

Baseball cloaks itself in as much history of each city as it can with every All-Star Game stop, and the return to Cincinnati next year will call out for Rose’s presence. It was at Riverfront Stadium in 1970 that Rose barrelled into catcher Ray Fosse in the midsummer event.

How much of a presence Rose will have "will be up to the Cincinnati club and they know what they can do and can’t do," Selig told writers. "It’s sort of been subjective."

Indeed the "lifetime ban" has been bent and contorted. Rose was permitted a place on the field at Great American Ballpark four years ago for ceremonies celebrating the 25th anniversary of his record-making 4,192nd hit. He was even allowed to stand in when the All-Century team was honored in Atlanta in 1999.

But three commissioners, A. Bartlett Giamatti, Fay Vincent and Selig, have steadfastly barred the door to Cooperstown since 1989. Selig has refused to rule on Rose’s pending applications for reinstatement and shows every indication of leaving it that way when he departs in January.

In the process, Rose has served a quarter-century penance for his actions and the stubborn inability to publicly come clean until a decade ago.

With the departure of Selig now comes a new era and an opportunity to finally end the staredown between baseball officialdom and its hits leader. Where better to hold that rapprochement than Cincinnati?

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.