STATISTICS DRIVE ROSE CASE.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

It's pretty clear now that Pete Rose is heading for the Hall of Fame, some year soon. All he has to do to get on the ballot is admit he lied when he denied that he bet on his own games. The moral ambiguity should be no problem for a character like Charlie Hustle.

It's also plain that Fernando Valenzuela will not get a plaque in Cooperstown. Not this year, his first time eligible. Not ever.

Which tells you something is wrong with the way baseball is more and more a numbers game, the way a man's value to the sport is summed up by his lifetime statistics.

Pete Rose should not be a mortal lock for the Hall of Fame simply because of the one huge number, the 4,256 hits, the career record. Fernando Valenzuela should not be a throw-out simply because of the one disappointing number, the 173 pitching victories, far short of any threshold for immortality. They should not be that easy to appraise, yet that's the way it's likely to happen for Rose if the commissioner cancels his lifetime ban and for Valenzuela in the round of voting that goes on as we speak.

It makes you wonder why the Hall of Fame has voters in the first place if it's going to be about numbers and not people.

There are no official standards for Hall of Fame enshrinement beyond the minimum requirements that a player have competed in 10 major-league seasons and have been retired for at least five years. A published ``rule'' states voting ``shall be based upon the player's record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.'' Nice job of conjugating ``play,'' now could you be a little more specific? Another ``rule'' prohibits ``automatic elections based on performances'' such as a .400 season or a perfect game, just so that Len Barker won't get his hopes up.

In the end, it's a judgment call, or it should be, otherwise let's turn the job over to a computer.

There are, you know, mathematical formulas designed to say who's a Hall of Famer and who's not. You can find their calculations for any player past or present on a Web site called baseball-reference.com. One formula is Hall of Fame Standards. It gives Rose a 54.9 on a scale where 50 is Hall of Fame material, and gives Valenzuela a 25. Another is Hall of Fame Monitor. It gives Rose a 313.5, well beyond the 100 needed, and gives Valenzuela a 64.5.

But the formulas do not factor in prison time served, cardinal rules shattered or scandal headlines made - which are among Rose's achievements.

Nor do they take note of how many magical moments a player created, how many barrio children he inspired or how many words (``Fernandomania'') he added to the English language before he could even speak it - which are part of Valenzuela's legacy.

At least, when you read to the kids Fernando's chapter in the history of baseball, you needn't skip over the last page as you must with Rose's.

Rose supporters will argue there are plenty of men of dubious character enshrined in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. One can only hope they were subjected to the same keen judgment by the voting baseball writers of their day that Rose should face when his time comes.

This week it has been reported Rose met with commissioner Bud Selig in Milwaukee on Nov. 25 as part of negotiations to end the ban imposed in 1989 after an investigation of whether he bet on baseball while a player and manager. Selig wants a confession as part of the terms of a reinstatement that would make Rose eligible to appear on the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time a year from now.

Unless voting for the Hall of Fame is no more than a journalistic exercise in listing the sport's most productive players, then writers should want to hear a convincing explanation from Rose for 13 years of lies.

While the Rose controversy was resurfacing, this year's Hall of Fame ballot was unveiled last weekend, with Valenzuela, Eddie Murray, Lee Smith and Ryne Sandberg among the first-time candidates.

That news brought back some of the happiest memories in Los Angeles baseball: Valenzuela's 8-0 start in 1981 in his first full year with the Dodgers, a streak that ended May 18 with a 4-0 loss to Philadelphia in which Pete Rose went 0 for 3. The mystery and joy that surrounded this kid from Mexico with the screwball and the rubber arm and the Babe Ruth belly. The aura he carried around for 17 major-league seasons until he couldn't find a team to let him pitch anymore.

A man known by his first name alone - Babe, Mickey, Sandy, Reggie, Fernando - belongs in the Hall of Fame before a man identified by a docket number.

There should be more happy stories in baseball and in Cooperstown, more singular and noble figures. While we're at it, get Roger Maris in there, and Maury Wills.

Meanwhile: Rose, no. Valenzuela, si.