Pettitte helped himself by coming clean on PED use. Other than that, I view him as a borderline candidate, with career numbers akin to Jim Kaat and Tommy John.

At least from the Sun article, it looks like Rose is advocating that Bonds and Clemens get in. Should both Bonds and Clemens get in, Rose builds a sympathy case for reinstatment and induction. After all, if the all time home run king and a top five pitcher get in with their baggage, why can't the all time hits leader?

I think Rose deserves a fair hearing on reinstatment; he has applied four times since 1990 and all have been summarily denied by Fay Vincent and Bud Selig. While I think Selig had an axe to grind, what has bugged me about Rose is that he's always been a bit self-serving, whether it's been his player/manager career to his sudden reversal in 2004 regarding the Dowd Report. Considering he'll be 74 this year, I think Rose only going to amplify his reinstatement campaign.

So let Rose reapply, and come clean and be contrite in a public forum. It would be some interesting filler on MLB Network, and serve as a message to current and future players about the downside of gambling. He probably has the support of a majority of fans. And instead of the Commissioner deciding, let the owners and living Hall of Fame players vote on his reinstatement. That way, his fate isn't in the hands of one person, but a cross-section of baseball's past and present.

Part of Bud Selig's legacy will be tarnished with the PED issues and MLB's slow reaction to implement rules. It's vastly different now - there's a good partnership with the MLBPA to adapt to changes in PEDs - but from at least the McGwire/Sosa chase in 1998 to Bonds breaking Aaron's record in 2007, there were far too many issues with enforcement and leadership from Selig's office. Until a few seasons ago, there were no serious consequences for this cheating - when Palmeiro was caught in 2005, all he received was a 10 day (not game) suspension.

Selig's biggest leadership failure was offloading the investigative work to the Mitchell Report, which not only had significant conflict of interest concerns, but ended up hurting a number of players who might have never touched a PED. Selig didn't even appoint George Mitchell to conduct the investigation until 2006, eight years after Mark McGwire brought Andro in the spotlight.

Now compare that to the Black Sox scandal, which threatened to destroy baseball. Dating back to the early days of the National League, gambling was a threat to the integrity of the game. But the Black Sox scandal was far bigger, in fact the American League was on the verge of folding after the 1920 season. Within a year of the scandal surfacing, clear rules were established regarding gambling with consequences for violators. And it was one of those rules that snared Pete Rose. Were the rules rigid and black-and-white? Probably. But it helped preserve baseball's legitimacy from its most critical time to its current peaks.