Bring back Charlie Hustle

The central question for Major League Baseball is, what is gained or lost by reinstating Rose, apology or no? The argument against allowing him to come back is that as a gambler he threatened the integrity of the game, and forgiving and forgetting would tarnish the game's reputation.

But tarnish the game's reputation for whom? Not the fans, who have made their feelings clear. And surely not the media, because who cares what we think, except to the extent that it affects how fans think?

By ending Rose's ban, baseball can end the ugly episode of his exile. It can look, for a change, like it's taking the high road, offering forgiveness even to an unrepentant sinner. The awkward period of having the game's all-time hits leader unable to be around the sport unless he buys a ticket will close. The grand opening of a new stadium next spring in Cincinnati, Rose's hometown and the city in which he became a hero, will not be overshadowed by his absence -- or, worse, his presence, down the street, selling souvenirs out of a tent. I suspect that this specter is precisely the reason that Selig, five years after Rose applied for reinstatement, now seems to be in a forgiving mood.

Baseball should let Rose return with the stipulation that he can't work as a manager or general manager. I doubt he'd fight that, since it's unlikely anyone would hire him for those positions anyway. He's far more likely to be hired as some sort of roving minor-league instructor or as a glorified mascot -- community relations, it's usually called -- for either the Reds or the Philadelphia Phillies, who won their only World Series with Rose as their first baseman.

And then baseball should modernize its draconian gambling rules just a bit. Gambling isn't quite the societal evil it was considered to be three-quarters or even one-quarter of a century ago. The state I live in, and probably the state you live in, encourages gambling. A lot. If a player or manager is found to have gambled on his own team, he should be banished for a long time -- 10 years? Fifteen? -- and prevented from both playing and managing once reinstated. The anti-gambling message would still be crystal clear. Betting on baseball would still get you banned and ruin your career, but it wouldn't keep you from getting a job as a hitting instructor 20 years down the road. I think the game's integrity would be safe.

Once reinstated, Rose would become eligible for the Hall of Fame. There's a small faction of contrarians who believe that he was overrated as a player, that he was nothing more than a singles hitter, which is sort of, but not quite, like saying that Pamela Anderson is nothing more than a sex symbol. Rose was a singles hitter nonpareil, but he also hit more doubles than anybody except Tris Speaker. He's fifth in runs scored. He was an All-Star 17 times, at four different positions.

It should be right there on his plaque, with the 4,256 hits and the Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player awards and the four championships and that nickname that's as fitting in his retirement years as it was in his playing days: "Charlie Hustle."

I'd like to stand in Cooperstown and read that plaque someday. I'll remember what a great player he was, and what a colossal screw-up he became. I'll remember that long-ago conversation in a dugout, when I sat there and thought, "You are so going down, pal." And I'll remember how I forgave him.

That's how we Americans do things.

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