Rose built mountain of lies too tall.

Byline: Ron Bellamy / The Register-Guard

Years ago, I wrote a column about Pete Rose, the disgraced former baseball star, suggesting that a lifetime ban from baseball was too harsh.

That he be given a second chance, but that as a condition of reinstatement he ought to serve the equivalent of community service.

That he ought spend a half-dozen seasons in the low minor leagues, riding the buses, teaching hitting and hustling to young ballplayers just out of high school and college.

That would have been a reasonable solution, years ago. It's not so easy now.

Finally, after more than 14 years of lying, of denying it, Pete Rose has admitted that he bet on baseball while he was the manager of the Cincinnati Reds.

Even in this admission, it's not certain that Rose is telling the whole truth. He claims he never placed bets on baseball from the team clubhouse; a former associate has come forward to say that he did, many times.

Charlie Hustle is still hustlin'.

The reasons for this belated truth-telling, such as it is?

Rose wants to be in the Hall of Fame, and certainly he has the on-field credentials for it; he was a great hitter, a consummate winner. Without this scandal, he'd have been in the Hall of Fame years ago.

Rose wants to manage again, in the major leagues. Managers can earn $3 million per year now, and certainly Rose's name would command top dollar, especially in Cincinnati, where he's a hero.

And, oh yes, Rose has a new autobiography coming out, on Thursday, in which he admits that he bet on baseball. The snippets of the ABC "Primetime Thursday" interview that you've seen? That's nothing more than book-hawking, priming the pump for sales. It's crass and opportunistic, but that's Pete Rose.

Being all for second chances, I could forgive Rose his gambling. It was wrong, it was an affront to the game, it was stupid. To my knowledge it's never been suggested that he threw a game. His career was over and he missed the action; he became addicted to gambling.

It's harder to think that baseball should forgive him for lying about it for 14 years - for pulling the game through the mud, playing the martyr - and then give him everything he wants, too: The Hall of Fame, the chance at the multimillion-dollar managerial contract.

All along, Rose has lied. Not once, in the heat of the moment, but again and again, year after year after year.

He impugned the integrity of those in baseball who determined that he had bet on baseball.

He lied to reporter after reporter; a few years ago, TV reporter Jim Gray was made a national whipping boy because he dared ask Pete whether he bet on baseball.

An inappropriate question? Obviously not.

Rose even lied to his collaborator on his first autobiography, Roger Kahn, author of the venerable book, "The Boys of Summer."

"Had Pete Rose bet on baseball?" Kahn wrote Tuesday in the Los Angeles Times. "If I asked that once, I asked it 20 times.

"Rose always looked at me evenly and said in his rough speech, `I dint bet baseball. I got too much respect for the game.'

"An editor and I ... grilled Pete for something like four hours. `I dint bet baseball. I got too much respect for the game.'"

As things turned out, Rose dint have nearly enough respect for the game that he'd played so hard; he just never thought he'd get caught.

Now, he wants baseball to take him back, and there's a school of thought that he should be made eligible for the Hall of Fame again, but not be allowed to manage again.

"Allow him to be voted into Cooperstown, but keep him away from teams," wrote Bill Plaschke in the Times. "Honor him for what he once was, not what he has become."

Once upon a time, as egregious as Rose's sin - rules against gambling on baseball are posted in every clubhouse - that might have been a reasonable solution. Not anymore.

Pete Rose waited far too long to make a clean break for home. Baseball should make the right call and thumb him out at the plate.