Pete Rose: I Finally Get It

When Major League Baseball allowed Pete Rose onto the field for a Sept. 11 ceremony honoring the 25th anniversary of the day he became baseball's all-time hit king, it seemed to signal a crack in the wall baseball has put up to keep Rose out.

Rose seemed to realize that as well. He gave a tearful speech at a roast filled with former teammates after the ceremony and apologized to them for disrespecting the game of baseball by gambling on it during his career. During an interview with The Associated Press, he made an even bigger attempt to let people know that he's ready to take responsibility for his actions.

"I'm kind of a hardheaded guy. That's probably the reason I got all those damn hits," Rose said. "It took me years to figure out what he was saying was to step forward and 'fess up and take responsibility for what you did. In the last several years, I finally get it. I understand."
These steps are crucial to the effort to get Rose off of baseball's blacklist and into consideration for the spot in Cooperstown. That's the only part of reinstatement that matters at this point in time and no one can argue against his spot among the game's best players.

Even more important than simply admitting wrongdoing is the way Rose has abandoned the habit of talking out of both sides of his mouth. That's been the biggest stumbling block to his full return to baseball's graces. It's been too obvious that he was merely going through the motions of apologizing because he was making a case about how what he did wasn't worse than steroids or when he finally admitted betting on games in a book so that it would sell a lot of copies. It came off wrong and it made it easy for Bud Selig and the rest of baseball's overlords to look the other way whenever the topic of reinstatement came along.

Rose needed to stop trying to have it both ways and it finally seems that he has accepted that the best path for him to take is the one that features only apologies.

"I'm perfectly happy inside right now - understand what I'm saying?" he said. "I think anybody that knows me knows that I'm very sorry. I understand the mistakes I made. There's some people that will never give you a second opportunity. That's fine. I can understand they feel that way."

It will be interesting to see where things go from here because there are fewer obstacles than ever to baseball allowing Rose entry to the Hall of Fame.