Lincicome: Pardon me, but Pete Rose really doesn’t need one

How it is that Pete Rose has found further humiliation may need the asterisk, if not handy parenthesis, to explain his time in baseball and beyond. His was a case at rest, as is Rose himself, revived on a Presidential whim, along with tariffs and insurrectionists.

Donald Trump has promised that he will pardon Rose, for what it is not clear, maybe tax evasion, Rose’s only obvious crime. Rose should not have gambled, suggested Trump, but he ONLY BET ON HIS TEAM TO WIN, Trumps caps, not mine.

The long take here is that a pardon would ease Rose’s way into the hallowed hall of remembrance, a modest brick building in Cooperstown, N.Y., in there with immortals like Arky Vaughan and Chick Hafey.

Rose accepted an agreement in 1989 that placed him on the “ineligible” list and the Hall of Fame decreed that no one on the list could be considered, plus anyone voting for such a person would have his entire ballot voided.

I never got to vote for Rose because of that rule, but I would have. Rose had petitioned three times to be reconsidered, finally admitting in his 2004 autobiography that he did, indeed, bet on baseball, but not on his team, the Cincinnati Reds, foregoing all caps and making no difference to his reinstatement.

Prompted by Trump, baseball commissioner Rob Manfred has said he will think about ruling on the request to reinstate Rose, meaning he could remove Rose from baseball’s ‘ineligible” list where listees are not allowed to have anything to do with Major League Baseball, and reminders of their achievements are discouraged.

Rose’s accomplishments are significant, more hits than any player ever, more games than any player ever, more martyrdom than any player ever.

Pardons are not what they used to be. Pardons were merciful forgiveness for injustice, arriving just before midnight, rushed to rescue the wronged still digesting a last meal. We’ve all seen the movies.

Now pardons are passed out like dinner mints, handfuls of mercy, unjustified, undeserved and diminished, signifying quirk of the day, which I suppose would still be OK with Rose if it gets him into the Hall of Fame.

Any renewal of Rose would still face the gauntlet of selection, probably consideration by a couple of committees, lastly the Era Committee, the one that lately got Dick Allen and Dave Parker into the Hall.

This year’s class — C.C. Sabathia, Ichiro Suzuki and Billy Wagner — selected by baseball writers will fade from memory almost as soon as the ceremony ends.

Rose’s fame has lasted longer than if he had a plaque on a wall in Cooperstown, and as long as he does not have one he is useful, a handy victim of cruelty and spite.

And with the current cuddle of gambling and sports, Rose’s indiscretion fades, a sin no more, easily ignored like actual laws such as singing in a swimsuit or taking a poodle to the opera or burping in church. (Really, I looked those up).

Yet, I wonder if it all works out for Rose finally, if any gesture of forgiveness will not be tainted by the company Rose will be associated with.

I do not mean just those already honored in the Hall of Fame, flawed as the human beings they were. Nowhere on his plaque does it say that Ty Cobb once beat a cripple with his own crutches. No mention is made of Cobb and Rogers Hornsby conspiring to fix a game. No indication is given of Babe Ruth being serially unfaithful or that Mickey Mantle ruined his liver and was jumped to the head of list for a new one. There is no explanation as to how Roberto Alomar is “ineligible” but in the hall since 2011.

I do not mean the steroid era folks like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, who surely will find forgiveness eventually, but I’m thinking of a pardoned Rose being lumped in with the group of exonerated misdoers who have been pardoned in the last 100 or so days.

These would include the Jan. 6 rioters, of course, but also various drug runners, money launderers, murderers, fraudsters and extortionists lately absolved.

For all his sins, Rose kept better company.