Columnist Dean Juipe: No reason to lift ban on Rose

Dean Juipe

Monday, Dec. 16, 2002 | 9:52 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

Time doesn't necessarily heal all wounds.

Some are too serious, too lethal, too repugnant to be easily forgiven or dismissed simply by the passage of days, weeks or years.

Take note Pete Rose: I wouldn't let you back in baseball or allow you in the Hall of Fame, even if you swallow your pride and confess to not only betting on the sport but on (or against) the very team you were managing in the 1980s.

As you've probably seen, baseball commissioner Bud Selig has opened the door to the possibility of reinstating Rose, who was issued a "lifetime" ban by then-commissioner Bart Giamatti 13 years ago. From the looks of things, the weak-kneed Selig has lobbed the ball to where it's in Rose's court.

All Pete has to do is admit he was guilty of the charges that led to his ban. An apology and an "I'm sorry" will all but wipe the slate clean, at least in Selig's eyes.

But not everyone has the same perspective. For instance, Hall of Fame pitchers Bob Feller and Robin Roberts each stepped forward to say he would no longer attend induction ceremonies nor have anything to do with the Hall in the event Rose is absolved.

Likewise, the man who led baseball's investigation into the sorry mess Rose created, John Dowd, hints that he, too, has a reluctance to forgive and forget.

Dowd documented at least 412 times that Rose bet on baseball with illegal bookies. But only in the last few days has it been suggested that some of those bets were made against the Cincinnati Reds team Rose managed between 1984 and '89.

Rose may hold the record for most hits in a career (4,256) but that's purely secondary to his brazen disregard for one of baseball's sacred tenets: No betting allowed.

It was an FBI investigation into the bookies that led the feds -- and Major League Baseball -- to Rose, who quickly responded by filing a lawsuit against the sport. He later dropped the flimsy suit, yet he has steadfastly denied his involvement with the bookies to this day and has used his position as an occasional radio host to crusade for reinstatement.

He believes he could once again get a job managing in the big leagues if it weren't for the ban.

Rose was the 14th man to receive a lifetime ban from baseball and the previous 13 went to their graves duly ostracized. Included in those ranks were at least two -- Shoeless Joe Jackson and Buck Weaver -- who were only marginally guilty and who suffered disproportionately for their misdeeds; the illiterate Jackson agreed to accept $5,000 for helping to throw the 1919 World Series but he neither received the money nor failed to give his best effort, hitting .375 for the Chicago White Sox in the Series; Weaver was a third baseman on that same team who had 11 hits in that Series and knew something was up with a few of his teammates, but he led a life in which he said he would "never snitch" on an acquaintance, regardless of the crime.

In Jackson's case, the ban kept him from being inducted into the Hall of Fame, as would ordinarily befit a man who had a career batting average of .356 and whose batting stance was so refined it was copied by no less a slugger than Babe Ruth.

Exiled and disgraced, Jackson ran a dry-cleaning business for the remainder of his life.

Rose deserves no better.