Pete Rose Has Balls

The Cincinnati Reds have opened a new exhibit at the Reds Hall of Fame to honor the MLB Hit King because by baseball rule he isn't allowed to be enshrined in the team Hall of Fame (or the real one, for that matter, but you knew that). So what's the exhibit? Balls. Lots of 'em.

Several Rose-related artifacts have been on display at the Reds Hall of Fame since it debuted in 2004, a year after Great American Ball Park opened. The new exhibit includes more than 300 items from the career of Rose, who finished playing in 1986 with a career-high 4,256 hits. His total is reflected at the Reds' Hall in a three-story high wall of baseballs -- one for each hit.

And what does Charlie Hustle think of the exhibit?

"I'm just happy having three stories of balls. That's a lot of balls," said Rose.

Rose also spent part of his day informing reporters that fans would be excited to see him in the Hall of Fame. I wonder if Bud Selig has considered letting Rose into the Hall of Fame just so that he'll go away. At this point, Rose continues to make a spectacle of himself and of baseball because the league lets him. The powers that be in are going to have to seriously reconsider their Hall of Fame standards in the next few years anyways with more and more steroid-era players becoming eligible. Why not give Rose what he wants and make the thorn in their side disappear? You can't argue with Rose's Hall case on merit and his gambling problem has kind of become like that stupid family feud that you can't even remember why it got started. With time it simply doesn't seem like that big of a deal.

UPDATE (5:19 PM)- Of course, I wrote all this a mere 20 hours before Pete Rose comes out and admits he bet on the Reds every night. Ugh. Nevermind that whole part about "you can't remember why it got started."