If you want to leave moralizing comments about the many flaws of Pete Rose, don’t bother.

Rose was my first genuine hero.
Rose was my first genuine fallen hero.

If you don’t have both in your life, or live long enough to understand just how flawed we all are, I feel sorry for you.

Somehow I knew baseball would never let him in the Hall. And now, I anticipate that if they ever do, it will be alongside some moralizing tale about the sins of his gambling. It’s all one story that will never be unwound now.

As Josh Smith wrote tonight, it’s the height of hypocrisy that MLB happily rakes in ad dollars from online gambling sites, all while moralizing about Rose.

But, then, we are all hypocrites. That’s the lesson Rose teaches those of us with any shred of self-awareness.

People hated Rose even when he was just the greatest player who ever lived, with no asterisk. Once they had a reason, critics and opposing fans pounced. And now, we hardly even bother to admit just how remarkable his play, his versatility, his passion, was; because the scandal gives us something salacious to talk about, and takes him back to human, from super human.

Critics and fans turned on him in ways that have calcified now, and his play and the scandals are all one seamless narrative.

Is that his fault?
Sure…
He probably should have considered all of that.

But that would have demanded a level of self-awareness I’m not sure Pete Rose ever had.

And if we’d ever truly look back just at Rose on the field, we’d remember this truth:

No one ever played harder, loved the game more, or likely ever will.

His achievements are unrivaled and deserve nothing but respect and an awe he’s still not getting, never got then, and never will now.

My blog about Pete from 2015 is here.

In that writing, I talk more about our cultural desire to engage in public atonement narratives…where we set up our heros, only to scapegoat and knock them down again.

One more time, in case you’re missing my point, this is not to excuse Rose.
My point is something deeper than these moralizing cultural tales.
My point ten years ago, and still this morning, is this:

“God has a soft spot for assholes.“

Rest well, Pete Rose.