Sports journalists' Jihad.

• Author: Saltzman, Joe
• Position: WORDS & IMAGES - In defense of baseball players Pete Rose and Barry Bonds - Column

HAIL TO THE BURGEONING sports journalism community--a sundry group of columnists, reporters, writers, talkshow hosts, analysts, commentators, gossips, and experts on every aspect of athletics. In reality, they are little more than pig-headed hacks sitting in condescending judgment of skilled professional athletes.

There are, of course, spectacular exceptions to the rule. By and large, though, broadcast, cable and satellite, Internet, and less culpable print media sports journalists rush to the scent of controversy like a pack of wolves descending upon helpless prey. Lest you think this hyperbole, consider the cases of Pete Rose and Barry Bonds, two of the greatest baseball players in the game's history whose main sins have been to be less than heroic off the field. They made the kinds of mistakes most mortals do in the course of a self-centered, addictive lifestyle.

On the field, Rose did virtually everything a baseball player could do and was rewarded with record-book numbers that have few rivals. Yet, this sports idol had an Achilles heel--a gambling addiction. Like a moth attracted to a flame, he was done in by his fatal attraction to betting as he did the unpardonable: while managing the Cincinnati Reds, he wagered on baseball. No one cared much that Rose, who never has been accused of throwing a game or shaving points, bet on horses and sports of all kinds. However, when it was determined that his addiction knew no bounds and that he had bet on The Game, he became a pariah, someone to be scorned without mercy.

The baseball commissioner decided Pete Rose was persona non grata and pressured him into signing a document removing his name from the list of eligible candidates for the Baseball Hall of Fame. The sportswriters who vote on who should be admitted to this shrine quickly and quietly fell into line. Rose had bet on baseball and should not be in the Hall. Case closed. So what if the hallowed Hall is filled with racists, drunkards, drug addicts, and gamblers whose only claim to fame is what they did on the diamond? A different standard would apply to Rose. The end result is that perhaps the great singles hitter in the history of the sport is denied access to the Hall of Fame, which includes the vicious racist Ty Cobb and other notables of an era that refused to let any person of color play the game of baseball on the major league level.

Bonds, meanwhile, was like many ballplayers at the end of the 20th century who decided that they...