A Rose by any other name still was a hell of a ball player

In a lull at dinner tonight, the hot non-political topic was brought up: should Pete Rose be in the hall of fame? I expected a No or two, and maybe another yes, but I was amazed by some of the anger, and I was still, as always, disappointed that people think that he should be kept out.

Yes, disappointed. It's a disappointment that's not out of any fandom for Pete Rose or and certainly not out of any sympathy or feeling that he's been cheated. He's such a lying, immoral, pathetic moron that "pathetic moron" could probably be proved scientifically with a few simple tests. But he's a record-setter and one of the greatest baseball players of all-time, and, no (before you say it because I can hear you starting the sentence already), just because he's a great baseball player does not excuse his immorality, but...

It's a misplaced moral objection. The one and only reason that any of us know the name Pete Rose is because he's valued by the public as an athlete. This is why we know who he is more than any other person in the world or at least more than some guy who played a couple years in the majors before going back down to the minors. The one and only reason that the baseball hall of fame exists is to give recognition to those people who did exactly what Pete Rose did, which is be a really great athlete, period. So why should we pretend that anything else he does matters? His hits, his career batting average and his stolen bases are just black-and-white sports stats and have absolutely nothing to do with his gambling habit, even if he was gambling on baseball during his playing days. Those numbers just ARE, and no amount of gambling or immorality changes them.

I am a person who believes very strongly that the ideas of morality and decency have slid way too far in our society. But we need to be able to accept that sports accomplishment have nothing to do with the morality of the players. Think Pete Rose was immoral for gambling? Fine. But this has nothing to do with his accomplishment as a player, and the only reason that Pete Rose or anyone else is or should be considered for the hall of fame is for those accomplishments, not morality.