Image courtesy of Getty Images via CBS Sports

Look, I understand that baseball needs to be clamping down on drug cheats. They are a permanent stain on the game, and the recent Biogenesis bans are a good step forward. But I cannot help but feel that they are doing this more for the reputation of the MLB than for the interests of the game. They want to show that they’re stamping down on cheaters, but they don’t want the bad PR that comes with exposing such frauds. So they’ve tried to do both. And as the great Ron Swanson once said: It is better to whole ass one thing than to half-ass two. Mike Trout, future MVP, declared today that PED users should be given permanent life bans. As soon as you are caught, you’re gone. No appeals, no questions. Well, the MLB flirted with a lifetime ban for Alex Rodriguez. Instead he’s landed a 211 game ban, which he is appealing. It’s the longest ever ban for steroid use in baseball, but it’s only a fraction of the longest total ban they’ve ever issued.

Pete Rose. They called him Charlie Hustle. In an unrivalled career of dominance and longevity, Rose played 3562 games (the most in history), he had 4256 hits (the most in history), he won three world series, was both Rookie of the Year and an MVP, he won three batting titles and two gold gloves. He made the All Star game in 17 separate years, and in an unprecedented five different positions. He played the game hard and he played to win, and he loved every second of it. Plus he never touched any PEDs. Yet for reasons outside of baseball, Pete Rose will never be in the Hall of Fame, despite encompassing all the same qualities that the Hall was founded to preserve and celebrate.

You see, Pete Rose had his demons. His competitive spirit got the better of him. After retiring as a player, he took up coaching, but the dugout didn’t bring the same thrill and rush as the batting plate did. Desperate for that high, that buzz, that perilous ecstasy of living life on the edge, he turned to gambling. Rose gambled on baseball, he gambled on his own team. Only ever to win, mind you, it was not in his nature to ever throw a game. But he broke strict rules about betting on baseball, and the MLB came down hard on him. A lifetime ban: “permanent ineligibility”.

24 years since the ban was enforced, Pete Rose still waits in baseball purgatory. After years of denying all accusations, he finally came clean and confessed in 2004 (as a publicity stunt for his autobiography, entitled: “My Prison Without Bars”) but he has not yet been forgiven. Twenty four long years and counting. It dwarfs A-Rod’s record drug ban, yet the crime was nowhere near so serious. Rose gambled. Baseball was unaffected. Rodriguez doped. He, and those many others who have committed the same sin, changed the outcomes of games. He distorted stats and records. He gave himself an unfair advantage over players who played the game honestly and fairly. Players like Pete Rose.

Pete Rose’s situation has gathered much sympathy in the fallout of the recent drug bans. Maybe it will only be a matter of time until Rose’s ban is lifted and he is finally admitted into the Hall of Fame. He certainly did himself no favour by denying it for so long, allowing the shadow to grow and grow until his legacy was shrouded in darkness. If he’d come clean, maybe he’d have a better chance at salvation. Maybe not, though. Baseball made an example of their all-time hit leader, and as we’ve seen recently, they are much too proud and vain to consider softening that stance or contradicting their authority.

Rose stated this week that’d his biggest problem was that he’d chosen the wrong vice. That he’d have been better off if he had beaten his wife or abused drugs. A strong declaration, but he has a point. Guys like Chad Johnson/Ochocinco and Michael Vick have been offered second chances. Rose has been punished for lying and disregarding the authority of the MLB. A-Rod and Ryan Braun did the same and so much more. Yet they get off lightly in comparison.

Pete Rose has done his time, let him be absolved. Open the gates and allow him into the Hall of Fame. Let his legacy prosper as an unparalleled baseball immortal, but also as an example of human imperfection. We all make mistakes, but some are worse than others. In the way that doping is worse than betting on your team to win. Let’s focus on the real problem, and target drug cheats. Pete Rose is not a threat to the MLB’s image. On the contrary, annulling his ban would allow us to truly celebrate the incredible career that he had, and all due to his own natural ability. It’s all about proportionate punishments. Either Major League Baseball needs to adopt the Trout approach of isolating the PED problem and ‘taking care of it permanently’, or Pete Rose should be pardoned. I’m hoping for the latter, though I’m not gonna bet on it.

- Wildcard