By Rich Herrera

Pete Rose has been rounding third heading for home for the past 12 months.  With Bud Selig was stepping off the throne of Major League Baseball, and new leader would be crowned.  Perhaps this new ruler of the game will show pity on the Hit King and allow him back in the kingdom.

Pete was suddenly everywhere during the baseball season, by joining the Fox Sports MLB coverage, in an awkward way.  He was talking about the game on TV during the World Series, he was as close to the game as he had been since Jim Grey ambushed him on TV during the 1999 World Series. There he was next to the other disgraced baseball great Alex Rodriguez taking about the game he loved. The better and the cheater side by side, for the world to see during the fall classic, could it be Pete Rose was being redeemed. It was if he and ARod were being cleansed of their sins in front of a national audience. Pete was seated next to a Hall of Famer Frank Thomas.  As much as everyone loves the Big Hurt, we all know who was the best player was on that stage, it wasn’t Thomas, it wasn’t even Alex, no it was Pete Rose. We saw Pete talking about a game that Rose had played as well as anyone else who has ever laced them up.  Could it be, would the time in the desert finally come to end for Charlie Hustle?

He seemed this close, he could see his third base coach waving him home his batting helmet lost somewhere between first and second.  His Prince Valiant haircut blowing in the wind, his powerful arms pumping, his legs churning, as he was heading for home for the biggest play in his career.  As his powerful frame coiled to slide headfirst as he done so many times, his body flying through the air like Superman, his arms outstretched reaching for home as he got there with a full head of steam like a brahma bull, he could smell home, he could taste home, he could see it, its glistening white shape in which pitchers dared to try sneak a fastball past him.  The black edges where a pitcher would hope his eagle eye site might fail him.  The clay surrounding home which he would often take home as a souvenir on his uniform which was perpetually filthy because that is how he played the game.  He was so close he was about to finally come home after being shunned for decades.

And with less than a blink of an eye it was gone, ripped away from him.   The new ruler of the game shall not let him come in from the wilderness, he will not be welcome back into the Kingdom, Pete Rose is still banished from the game.

He got to home plate and for him it wasn’t there, because as much we thought he had a chance to be reinstated, it wasn’t to be. His dream of coming back to the dugout, and take his place in Cooperstown, was nothing more than a mirage. Instead of there walking into the Hall of Game taking his place amongst his peers, He was no a mere mortal on the outside looking in. Standing there was a man that has seen his last chance to gain entrance into the Valhalla that was built for him by the baseball gods.  He stood there striped naked of the glory that clothed him during is Hall Of Fame worthy career. There he is forever banished from the game he loved and that loved him.  He sat at press conference wearing a white reds baseball cap with no color to it, much like his position in the game.  Baseball’s new ruler took a long hard look at the Hit King, looking for some way to let these all time hit leader back into the game.

But Pete hadn’t changed, he was still betting on sports, he hadn’t seen the error of his ways that cast him out into the wilderness. When his supporters whispered maybe being in Las Vegas isn’t the best place to be for a man who broke the cardinal sin of betting on the game he ignored them. When baseball fans through the world were screaming for his return he was in Vegas placing legal bets as any of us are allowed to do, except none of us are Pete Rose, the disgraced Hit King. Even on the biggest stage of the World Series he remained tone deaf, and left the state early, so he could attended a baseball card signing, the thing that helped get him to hot water in the first place. So after years of lying to us that he had bet on baseball, when he finally got his second chance, he struck out.

You can see him and what he meant the game, but not really for he like a ghost, only this ghost is being haunted by the Hall Of Fame that won’t set free his pain, not the other way around.  In Cooperstown you can see his likeness everywhere, except where it really counts, on a plaque with all the other greats in his game, and that is a man made shame.