ESPN:

In a historic, sweeping decision, baseball commissioner Rob Manfred on Tuesday removed Pete Rose, “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and other deceased players from Major League Baseball’s permanently ineligible list.

The all-time hit king and Jackson—both longtime baseball pariahs stained by gambling, seen by MLB as the game’s mortal sin—are now eligible for election into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

Pete Rose was undeniably the best hitter in the game. No active player is even close to achieving his 4,256 career hits or 3,562 games played^[1]. He was a sure-fire first-round Hall of Famer.

Until he bet on baseball.

I’ve long held that the Baseball Hall of Fame should be stats-based. If you top the leaderboards, you should be eligible. And I’ve long believed that Rose should be in the Hall of Fame, based solely on his stats.

Yet I find myself rather torn about this reinstatement. Rose consistently lied about betting on the game and has shown no remorse in the decades since. I’m also surprised that Manfred took this action, considering he’s denied Rose’s requests several times.

But it makes no sense to visit Cooperstown and not see the game’s most prolific hitter on display.

I can only hope that if Rose does get inducted into the Hall of Fame, his statue is kept in a remote wing (the Hall of Cheaters?) and comes with a giant plaque that clearly states, above his impressive game stats, that he was banned for life for betting on baseball.