Bloom Off Whatever Left of Pete Rose

by David WhitleyFiled under: Reds Break out the asterisk. We need one for Pete Rose. It turns out he didn't just gamble on baseball, he cheated at it, too. Charlie Hustle used a corked bat as he pursued Ty Cobb's all-time hit mark in 1985. There have long been rumors of such. The supposed proof came Tuesday in a story on Deadspin.com about a memorabilia dealer who had one of Rose's bats X-rayed. There it was, looming like a bag of cocaine swallowed by a drug mule. Cork. Unlike Rose, the photograph doesn't lie. The question is whether Bud Selig will look at the X-ray and see that justice is done. He should place an asterisk next to Rose's record of 4,256 hits. Ty Cobb may have been a cleat-sharpening scoundrel, but at least he got his 4,191 hits the old-fashioned way. No doubt, there are other suspicious baseball records. But his isn't just any entry. If most home runs in the Holy Grail of records, most hits is the Holy Salad Fork. Permalink | Email thi...