LOVERRO: Growing acceptance of sports betting should mean nothing for Pete Rose

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Golfer Phil Mickelson allegedly acted as a bag man — a “conduit” — for an illegal offshore gambling operation involving nearly $3 million, according to an ESPN report.

He’s not being charged with any crime, or is he under investigation.

But I’m guessing he’s not getting into Cooperstown.

Neither is Pete Rose.

At a time when major professional sports are rethinking their opposition to legalized sports betting, gambling among athletes has been prominent in the news for three weeks.

A former National Hockey League player pleaded guilty two weeks ago for his role in an illegal gambling ring, according to the Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle. Nathan Paetsch was accused of recruiting hockey players and others to place bets, and also aiding in the transmission of wagering information as well as the collection of debts, the newspaper reported.

One of the former players who reportedly lost more than $1 million in that gambling ring was Paetsch’s former teammate, Thomas Vanek, the paper reported.

Add in the evidence uncovered by ESPN last week that Rose bet on baseball as a player, as well as when he was a manager, and, well, you’ve got the trifecta representing the dangers of athletes and gambling — doing business with criminals, using information as leverage and putting oneself in the vulnerable position to possibly be extorted for gambling debts.

This comes at a time when Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred and NBA commissioner Adam Silver have publicly stated that it may be time for their leagues to rethink their staunch opposition to legalized sports betting. It’s a smart move, because they see the future in this country, and it includes legalized sports betting.

Gambling will expand because, save for the religious lobbying that resulted in the federal government’s strict prohibitions on legalized sports betting, most politicians will embrace it because gambling is the perfect tax for them. When they tax you, they have to take your money. When you gamble, you give them your money — and sports betting is one of the last untapped legalized gambling markets for the government to reach into.

But that said, professional leagues will have to be more diligent than ever to send the message to its players that while your next-door neighbor can bet legally bet on the Cincinnati Reds, you can’t do so.

That message gets watered down if you forgive and forget Rose — held out as the example of what can happen if you chose to do business with mobsters and drug dealers.

You don’t get honored for that.

At a time when Manfred is reconsidering the ban former commissioner Bart Giamatti imposed on Rose in 1989 after evidence was compiled in a report by former federal prosecutor John Dowd, ESPN reported there was additional evidence that Rose bet on baseball as a player-manager with the Reds — something he has denied. Then again, he denied betting on the Reds as a manager for 14 years until coming clean in a book he published in 2000, thus profiting from his confession.

Turns out he wasn’t telling the whole truth. Shocking.

Here’s a truth for you — Rose is not getting reinstated and then put into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He wasn’t getting in before the news broke last week about his bets as a player, and now this just seals the deal.

Of course, for some of his supporters, they could find evidence Rose worked for Meyer Lansky and it still wouldn’t matter.

The Hall of Fame, they say, is a “joke” without Rose, the all-time hit leader.
Tell that to Willie Mays. Go tell Hank Aaron that the place where he is honored for being the true all-time home run leader is a “joke.”

Tell that to Johnny Bench, Rose’s former teammate, who expressed the words of most fellow Hall of Famers when he wrote in his book in 2008 that if you let Rose into the Hall of Fame, then, “go home tonight and tell your kids that rules don’t matter.”

Tell that to Paul Molitor, who told The New York Times earlier this year that “the one rule that is read in every clubhouse, every spring training, for I don’t know how many decades, has been made clear that, if this is violated, this is the consequence. Now, if they decide to make a change in the stance that they’ve taken to this point, you are going to say that every time we read that, we really didn’t mean it.”

Now, more than ever, they need to really mean it.

• Thom Loverro is co-host of “The Sports Fix,” noon to 2 p.m. daily on ESPN 980 and espn980.com.