The Pete Rose Fast Shuffle Continues

It made big news yesterday that Pete Rose admitted on The Dan Patrick Show on ESPN Radio that he not only bet on baseball and his team, the Cincinnati Reds, but now he says he bet on them "every night."

Pete Rose is simply pathetic.

He's a con man, always on the hunt for his next buck or some quick "action." I heard parts of the Patrick interview, and he just comes off as sleazy. I was defender of Rose for years, and I thought he was punished enough for his betting transgressions, and deserved to be reinstated so the writers could vote on whether he should be voted into baseball's Hall of Fame.

But his admission in January 2004 turned me against him. He seemed to admit he bet on baseball finally just so he could sell some more books on yet another "autobiography" he'd written. He came across as someone looking to make more money and nothing else. I saw no genuine remorse for lying to the people who had defended him for years. It seemed like another elaborate con to me. He still bets at racetracks and in Las Vegas casinos. That maybe legal and all, but for someone with a serious gambling problem, this doesn't show me someone who's truly sorry for breaking baseball's number one rule.

This latest admission is more trash. In his mind, betting on the Reds every night is somehow not as bad as betting on them in selected games, as he doesn't want to appear to have "tampered" with the integrity of games to put more money in his pocket.

Rose committed baseball's "Mortal Sin," by betting on Major League baseball games. Signs are posted in every MLB clubhouse that this is the worst transgression any player can commit. But he went and did it anyway, then lied for years and used his loyal followers as complete suckers.

Joe Morgan once said that for Rose to be reinstated to baseball's good graces he has to show some real contrition for his illegal gambling, and that he's truly turned his life around. Rose simply hasn't done that.

And now he says he doesn't really care that he's not eligible for the Hall of Fame, and that he just wants to get back to managing again. Does Rose really think in his deluded mind that any owner, no matter how desperate, would hire him? (He's also 66, so Father Time is against him as well.)He's always calling himself "baseball's best ambassador" but I highly doubt anyone would hire this degenerate gambler, liar and tax cheat to run their onfield club.

Rose may make it to the Hall one day, but I doubt he'll live to enjoy it, as he'll probably get in after he dies. He won't have my support after all the conning he did for years.

Sorry Pete. You may have the stats as a player to get into Cooperstown, but all the crap you pulled after that destroyed any hope of being reinstated now.

You can bet on that.