A Red Rose in The Hall… Thorns and all.

Ever enter a home and see a bouquet of roses displayed prominently in the entry hall?

Kind of makes you want to come in - welcomes you so to speak.

But when you enter 25 Main Street in Cooperstown, New York, you know before you cross the threshold, something special is missing… and that is the greatest hitter in the history of baseball, one Peter Edward Rose.

Not just any old garden variety rose this.

But a Rose that got to the bases with hits 4,256 times, the most in baseball history. A record unlikely to be broken.

Astounding.

Rose was also a Rookie of the Year,  an MVP and helped his team to win three World Series. Did I mention a forty-four game hitting streak? Sort of perfected the head first slide… garnering him the nickname, Charlie Hustle.

And hustle he did, all game, every game, for twenty-three years.

Pretty amazing athlete.

And he used some pretty poor judgement off the field. Seems Pete had a penchant for gambling. On games. team games. And as it turns out, BASEBALL games.

Flawed, like every human being.

Okay, I can hear the purists now… he disrespected the game.

What a crock. There are players in the Hall who disrespected the game, and in so doing, diminished hard earned records of players who went before. Give that one a rest.

Twenty-five years is a pretty stiff penalty to pay. But forever?

The other element of the story is how the rules (remember the rules that are so sacred) were manipulated to keep Pete out of the hall.

"In August 1989, three years after he retired as an active player, Rose agreed to permanent ineligibility from baseball amidst accusations that he gambled on baseball games while playing for and managing the Reds, including claims that he bet on his own team. In 1991, the Baseball Hall of Fame formally voted to ban those on the "permanently ineligible" list from induction, after previously excluding such players by informal agreement among voters."

The powers-that-be have spoken, and Charlie Hustle stays outside. Let's call it The Pete Rose rule.

He was wrong. He finally admitted it. He paid a price.

But he deserves, on his body of work… on the field, to be with the other greats. Why not let the entire body of 600 voters, sportswriters all, decide Pete's fate? All candidates require an overwhelming majority in order to enter the hall. Why not put it to a vote, unencumbered by bureaucrats.

In the United States of America, self-proclaimed as the world's greatest democracy… the man deserves a vote.

One of the best Reds ever… a Red Rose.

Thorns and all.