We now remember what we want to remember about Pete Rose: the player called Charlie Hustle running out walks, hurling himself head first to take an extra base, and breaking the most venerable record in baseball--Ty Cobb's 4,191 hits. Those memories are vivid, etched into our baseball consciousness, along with the exploits of immortals like Cobb, Ruth, Robinson and Mays, in whose Hall of Fame company Rose arguably belongs.
Rose, who last week launched a new campaign to be reinstated into baseball, is hoping those mental film clips will outweigh in fans' minds--and, more important, in that of baseball commissioner Bud...