"I can't honestly remember the first time I bet on baseball." Pete Rose may not remember when he began his gambling on baseball, but he knows full well where it has led him--to a lifetime ban from the sport he once hoped to personify. Now, "Charlie Hustler" is trying to hustle his way into the baseball Hall of Fame.

Rose's latest strategy comes with the release of a new autobiography, My Prison Without Bars, timed for release to give Rose the best chance for a shot at reinstatement to the game and election to the Hall of Fame. It will also put some big money in his bank account.

The tragic story of Pete Rose remains one of the greatest blights on America's most legendary sport. His 1989 settlement with baseball Commissioner Bartlett Giamatti precluded a full hearing and open investigation. For the last fourteen years, Pete Rose has steadfastly denied ever betting on baseball--even though he spent time in a federal prison for tax evasion linked to his gambling habit.

Pete Rose's guilt or innocence of baseball's cardinal sin has been hotly debated ever since, though only the most die hard and blinded fans could truly have believed that Rose was innocent. When allegations of Rose's gambling were submitted to the baseball commissioner, a process was automatically put into motion that would either absolve Rose or lead to a lifetime ban. From the very beginning, Pete Rose tried to play the investigation the way he had played the game--cutting all corners and breaking a rule any time he could get away with it. Special Counsel John Dowd, the attorney who investigated the case, produced evidence that Rose had placed hundreds of bets on baseball games, including bets on the Cincinnati Reds made while Rose was the teams manager.

The rule--known throughout the game as "Rule 21," is abundantly clear, and it is posted on the door of every major league clubhouse: "Any player, umpire, or club or league official or employee, who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has a duty to perform shall be declared permanently ineligible."

By the time the special counsel's investigation was over, it was clear that Rose was either guilty of the accusations, or was at least unwilling to submit to a formal hearing which would determine his guilt or innocence. Either way, Pete Rose had insulted and compromised the sport that had made him famous, rich, and powerful.

Giamatti, a former president of Yale University, was a world-class scholar as well as a life-long lover of baseball. Speaking of baseball players in general, Giamatti once observed: "You can't get to the top of your profession without having lived a life where a lot of people are taking care of you. It's an adulated, isolated life, and you're vulnerable. These people who have developed their physical gifts haven't necessarily developed the rest of their lives."

This was particularly true in the case of Pete Rose, whose life was obviously spinning out of control as the commissioner prepared to make his decision. Giamatti told Rose that he would have to completely "reconfigure" his life. It is now clear that Pete Rose decided merely to reconfigure the truth.