WRITTEN BY ESPN 99.1's Andrew Brown 

I may be on the less favorited side of the Pete Rose gambling saga for his reinstatement, but I believe it is the right side and I’d like to shed some light on that.

Recently the entire sports world discovered that Pete Rose gambled on baseball again, both as player and coach. Recent findings have been found giving more details on transactions that occurred.

I for one am still waiting to hear the “new” evidence against Pete Rose.

For those who believe that there has been new condemning information against Mr. Rose I’d like to invite you to get out from under the rock you’ve been living in and look at the bigger picture.

Nothing has changed ladies and gentlemen. Pete Rose gambled, anybody who knows a lick about baseball has known that ever since he was banned; so what has changed?

For those writers, show hosts, and fans of baseball who are still against Rose or who have changed their tune against Rose I would like to ask one question, are your heads on straight?

When cooler heads prevail and the bigger picture is realized it’s easy to see that Pete Rose should easily be back in baseball and in the Hall of Fame. Whenever I read articles against Rose’s reinstatement or talk to those against Rose, the biggest reoccurring theme for condemning him is that he lied to baseball about gambling.

I am a huge proponent of fairness in sports when applicable and this is one of those situations. I agree that what Rose did with gambling was wrong, but if we are going to keep him out of baseball for lying about a heinous act, then in the spirit of fairness we should also ban all the PED users throughout baseball. If we allow the tainted numbers of PED users like Alex Rodriguez, Mark McGuire, Rafael Palmeiro, and even Barry Bonds to stain the MLB record books and hall of fame talks then by that same token we should put Pete Rose in that same category.

A-Rod lied through his teeth and even went as far as to sue the players union, yet he’s back playing baseball. All of these individuals are Hall of Fame players but none of them are above the integrity of the game.

PED’s have a more direct and profound impact on the game then gambling ever has or ever will. To “fix” a major league baseball game through gambling is as impossible to do as swimming in a frozen pool, yet wrongfully enhancing one’s performance with PED’s is considerably easier to do.

What many haters of Pete Rose may or may not realize is that he never bet against his team, always for his team. He never had to enhance his performance, he already had great athletic ability.

While his character may be questionable, his un-matched major league career is not. Rose is a baseball legend whose only mistake wasn’t cheating on the field but making poor decisions off it.

I believe his reinstatement should be implemented as soon as possible. Pete Rose helped mold baseball into the great game that it is today, reinstatement is the least that Major League baseball could do.

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