3 reasons Pete Rose should and should not be reinstated to MLB

In this June 24, 1989, file photo, Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose gives a thumbs up sign while sitting in the dugout at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati during a baseball game against the Los Angeles Dodgers. . ESPN says it obtained a notebook that shows Rose bet on Reds games during his last season as an active player in 1986. The career hits leader agreed to a lifetime ban from baseball in 1989 after an investigation by John Dowd, a lawyer retained by Major League Baseball, concluded he bet on the Reds to win from 1985-87, during his time as a player and manager. (AP Photo/Rob Burns, File)

In this June 24, 1989, file photo, Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose gives a thumbs up sign while sitting in the dugout at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati during a baseball game against the Los Angeles Dodgers. . ESPN says it obtained a notebook that shows Rose bet on Reds games during his last season as an active player in 1986. The career hits leader agreed to a lifetime ban from baseball in 1989 after an investigation by John Dowd, a lawyer retained by Major League Baseball, concluded he bet on the Reds to win from 1985-87, during his time as a player and manager. (AP Photo/Rob Burns, File)

The ESPN Outside the Lines report that indicates Pete Rose bet on baseball while he was a player for the Cincinnati Reds, a claim Rose has long denied, is sure to cloud the decision facing commissioner Rob Manfred as he weigh’s the all-time hits leader’s application for reinstatement into major league baseball after being banished for the last 26 years.

Reasons to support Rose:

1.. He still has more hits (4,256), more games played (3,562) than anyone in Major League Baseball history and never gave the slightest hint on the field that he wasn't giving 100 percent in an effort to win.

2. As damning as the new evidence appears to be, it is circumstantial at best and the hand writing belongs to a convicted felon.

3. While John Dowd didn't have the proof that ESPN alleges to have uncovered when he authored the report that led to Rose's banishment in 1989, the inference was there all along and the probability of Rose betting on baseball as a player already was part of then-commissioner Bart Giamatti's decision.

Reasons to not support Rose:

1. If the new evidence is, in fact, proof that Rose bet on baseball while he was a player, it will be the second outright lie he has told to investigators, the office of the commissioner and you, the public.

2. While the evidence suggests he never bet against the Reds, it's irrelevant because the decision to not bet on his team on certain days creates its own inference of malfeasance.

3. The new documents show Rose betting at a staggering rate in terms of frequency and volume, and losing that much money at that rapid of a pace and associating with bookies who have ties to organize crime creates too much doubt for any rational mind to ignore.

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