Well, it's beginning to look as if we have three-fourths of the mugs for the Mount Rushmore of Baseball Shame.Poor ol' Shoeless Joe Jackson has been up there for decades. Pete Rose's carving is still relatively new and shiny. And as we speak, the construction crews are slinging anvils and dynamiting stubborn stone, preparing to work on the oversized noggin of Barry Bonds.
Under different circumstances, Shoeless Joe and Pete would instead have their heads dipped in bronze, sitting high and pretty in a Cooperstown hallway. Not knowing how the future will play out, there's still a chance for Bonds to wedge his way into the Hall of Fame -- but the doubt grows, day by day.
My little buddy, with his stubby little fingers gripping a rare fact for all it's worth (not much, by the way), says if any of the Big Three bad boys deserves Hall entry, it's Bonds, because he never broke any specific baseball rule and has never even tested positive for steroids.
And David Wells never tested positive for doughnuts.
For the sake of argument, I'll go way out on the limb here and suggest Bonds put something in his body stronger than Flintstone Vitamins. Regardless of that, I'm smart enough to realize he was a Hall of Famer long before he started expanding like a South Florida suburb. Problem is, the "rest of the story" tends to overshadow the past greatness.
Of our three anti-heroes, the most deserving of Hall status is, quite easily, Peter Edward Rose. Let's assume we don't need to rehash what made Rose a legendary baseball player. The question at hand is what makes him more deserving than Shoeless Joe or Beefy Barry.
Rose got in trouble for gambling AFTER his playing career ended. Joe Jackson was one of the eight Chicago White Sox who conspired (yes, at varying levels) to throw the 1919 World Series -- the ultimate sporting sin. And Bonds may be the poster child for the bastardization of the record book, as well as a ringleader in the geological shift in the age-old pitcher/batter balance that held together for most of baseball's history.
As a ballplayer, Pete Rose never did anything to discredit the game. Just the opposite, actually. He may not get Ray Fosse's vote, but if you had to pick one of these three to make the Hall, he should get yours.
ken.willis@news-jrnl.com
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