He last played a game in 1986. He was banned from baseball for life in 1989. He maintained his innocence for fourteen years, until he saw the opportunity to sell his confession in book form. And even then he expressed no remorse or contrition for what he'd done, insisting that he'd suffered enough already and that he should now be reinstated because he'd come "clean" at last.

Why are we still discussing Pete Rose?

He was a great player. He racked up more hits than anyone in the history of the game. Durability and strength are an important element of greatness; Rose, who liked to portray himself during his career as having only average ability, was a rock-solid 200-pounder who kept turning out 160-game seasons into his forties. He was a starting first baseman for a World Series team at age 42, albeit a first baseman with a .286 slugging average for the season.

The man could hit. He most likely would not hold the all-time hit record if he hadn't been the one writing his name in the lineup card for the last three seasons, but so what - if he had 3,800 hits instead of 4,256, his career would be no less stellar.

He was banned from baseball for life, because he broke the one unbreakable rule: He bet on baseball games he was a part of. According to Michael Y. Sokolove's 1990 book Hustle, the Baseball Commissioner's office first began examining Rose's gambling habits and associations in 1970. The investigation overseen by A. Bartlett Giamatti and Fay Vincent in 1989 demonstrated - and Rose eventually acknowledged - that while he was manager of the Cincinnati Reds he bet on his team's games. Not on all of them, but many.

There is no evidence he bet on his team to lose. But if you're a bookie, and Pete has bet with you on the Reds for three straight nights, and he doesn't bet tonight, what are you going to think about this next game? There's no proof he threw any games, but wouldn't it be human nature to try a little harder to win the ones you've bet on? Might you manage a little differently, go to the bullpen more often, not worry as much about preserving your relievers' arms? 

The only team in the 1980s to have two pitchers appear in 80-plus games in the same season was the 1987 Cincinnati Reds.

It has been argued that there are worse crimes than gambling. Pete did not beat up women, did not abuse and kill his trusting animals. Those are dreadful crimes against society. But betting on your own team's games is a crime against your sport, the worst crime. It is the one thing you cannot do if a sport is to maintain integrity.

Why are illegal drugs banned in sports? Not merely because they set a bad example for youth. Because, since they're illegal, acquiring them means doing business with people of questionable backgrounds. People who might blackmail you. Who might pressure you to throw a game, or to give them information they can use in their own betting.

It all comes back to gambling.

We are coming to the end of an era in which many ballplayers used steroids or human growth hormone and lied about it. The use of performance-enhancing drugs was a form of cheating, but a form of cheating analogous to throwing spitballs or scuffed balls, or corking your bat. It's cheating with the intention of improving your performance. It does not go to the heart of a sport's integrity like gambling does. (I will believe that fans truly care about steroids and p.e.d.'s when I hear a home crowd boo its own star upon his return from a suspension.)

It is the one taboo, the one absolute, and every player knows it from the moment he enters the sport. Pete Rose violated it, and he doesn't think he did anything wrong. "Contrition never has been his style," an apologist writes. Is that any way to impress the Commissioner - his de facto parole board?

The Hall of Fame is hardly a repository of virtue. There are some awful people in there. Are we going to judge players by the standard of the worst of them? That's no way to evaluate candidates, whether for their on- or off-the-field credentials.

Hank Aaron, at the recent Cooperstown induction weekend, said that the time has come to forgive Rose, to welcome him back and let him enjoy his status as one of the game's immortals. Aaron was a great hitter too, and may well be, as a writer calls him, "an individual of great honor." Honor and ability, however, do not make one wise. Rose is a pariah - a celebrated pariah - because he put his desire for a competitive thrill (or a financial score) above the values of his sport. If baseball forgives this, how does it draw a firm line next time?

I wrote six years ago in the New York Times that Bud Selig should call Rose in and inform him that he will be made eligible for the Hall of Fame, but only posthumously. Baseball will honor his accomplishments - as it does in historical displays in the Hall - but the person will not get to stand before the cheering crowd and rejoice in his vindication. A lifetime ban should mean just that, and need not last longer.

"I think the thing that bothers me," said Aaron, "is (Rose) is missing out on a lot of things. He made a mistake. I don't know what else can be done or what else can be said."

I agree, Mr. Aaron, but it doesn't bother me. He made the mistake, the biggest one, not once but again and again. And the punishment he's getting is the only one that fits.