Pete Rose once was a heck of a baseball player — who then got caught violating one of the cardinal rules of the game. He placed bets on games involving his own team.

Then-Major League Baseball Commissioner Bart Giamatti made it clear to Rose: You’re out. You’re banned for life.

Now the all-time hit king has decided he chose the wrong vice. He should have used illegal drugs, or beat up on his wife/girlfriend, he said. That way he’d get a second — maybe a third — chance at getting back into baseball’s good graces.

Rose shows why he’s such a slug.

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/08/12/pete-rose-i-should-have-picked-alcohol-or-i-should-have-picked-up-beating-up-my-wife-or-girlfriend/related/

He probably hasn’t been paying attention to the piles of invective that have been heaped on those who’ve been caught using performance-enhancing drugs. Narcissist that he is, Rose cares only about what’s been said about him since his lifetime ban went into effect in 1989.

I’ve seen the clause in the baseball handbook that deals with gambling. It says anyone caught gambling is banned from the game for the rest of his life. Rose knew that, yes? But he did it anyway.

As for the PED scandal that’s erupted once again with the pending suspension of super-duperstar Alex Rodriguez and a dozen other players, baseball only recently enacted a ban on the drugs’ use. And that was after other big-time players — Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens to name just four — either were suspected of using them or actually admitted to it.

Rose doesn’t deserve to be reinstated. He remains what I’ve thought him to be, a top-notch athlete with gutter-level morals.