You can't have a Major League Baseball Hall of Fame that doesn't include Pete Rose.

You just can't.

Because that's not what it is - a Major League Baseball Hall of Fame, I mean.

You can't have a baseball hall of fame and not have the man included in it who has more base hits than any other player to ever wear a uniform.

You just can't.

If you try and do that, you have something — but not a hall of fame. You might have a major league baseball museum, or a partial collection of some really neat baseball stuff.

But you don't have a hall of fame.

If the purpose of having a baseball hall of fame is to include in it the greatest players in the history of the game

— the legends — then it HAS TO include Rose, whether you like him or not.

On the other hand, if you want to have some sort of private, by-invitation only kind of hall of fame and select only the players you like, well, that's another story.

But call it that. Call it a PRIVATE baseball hall of fame. Don't pretend that its purpose is to be the all-encompassing inclusion of the game's legends.

If you're going to have a real Major League Baseball Hall of Fame and in it you are going to enshrine the best to ever wave a bat, or throw a pitch, or slide head-first into a base, then you can't have one of those and exclude Peter Edward Rose.

How can you say to the game's all-time hits leader, "There is no forgiveness. Go straight to baseball limbo. Do not pass GO. Do not collect your bronze bust. Keep your butt out of Cooperstown."

It's just sad.

And unfair.

Until Peter Edward Rose is in the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame, what you have in that building there in Cooperstown is merely a collection of memorabilia, some souvenirs.

Nothing more.

Klonie Jordan (editor@gaffneyledger.com) is executive editor of The Gaffney Ledger.