re: Does Pete Rose belong in the HOF?

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The lifetime ban is from MLB. The HOF currently has a rule stating that no players on the lifetime ban list are eligible for induction, but they can change this anytime they want. Personally, I think the HOF has this rule as a cop out to avoid the negative press that might come along with possibly inducting a player who is on MLB's banned list.

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Did gambling on games help him get 4000 hits? If you're a fan of baseball he is the hit King and that should be respected. He didn't cheat like bonds to achieve the feat

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Shoeless Joe Jackson's request was turned down last year. That was the 1919 world series he cheated in.

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Jackson spent most of the last 30 years of his life proclaiming his innocence, and evidence has surfaced that casts significant doubt on his involvement in the fix. Jackson reportedly refused the $5,000 bribe on two separate occasions—despite the fact that it would effectively double his salary—only to have teammate Lefty Williams toss the cash on the floor of his hotel room. Jackson then reportedly tried to tell White Sox owner Charles Comiskey about the fix, but Comiskey refused to meet with him.[23] Unable to afford legal counsel, Jackson was represented by team attorney Alfred Austrian—a clear conflict of interest. Before Jackson's grand jury testimony, Austrian allegedly elicited Jackson's admission of his supposed role in the fix by plying him with whiskey.[14] Austrian was also able to persuade the nearly illiterate Jackson to sign a waiver of immunity from prosecution.[23] Years later, the other seven players implicated in the scandal confirmed that Jackson was never at any of the meetings. Williams said that they only mentioned Jackson's name to give their plot more credibility. Jackson's performance during the series itself lends further credence to his assertions.[14] A 1993 article in The American Statistician reported the results of a statistical analysis of Jackson's contribution during the 1919 World Series, and concluded that there was "substantial support to Jackson's subsequent claims of innocence".[24]

An article in the September 2009 issue of Chicago Lawyer magazine argued that Eliot Asinof's 1963 book Eight Men Out, purporting to confirm Jackson's guilt, was based on inaccurate information; for example, Jackson never confessed to throwing the Series as Asinof claimed. Further, Asinof omitted key facts from publicly available documents such as the 1920 grand jury records and proceedings of Jackson's successful 1924 lawsuit against Comiskey to recover back pay for the 1920 and 1921 seasons. Asinof's use of fictional characters within a supposedly non-fiction account added further questions about the historical accuracy of the book.

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