PETE ROSE HITS ROCK BOTTOM: If Pete Rose's chances of getting into the Baseball Hall of Fame looked bad after his insincere and incomplete "confession," it now appears the door is about to be slammed shut, as the New York Times reports today that Rose has agreed to appear at WWE's Wrestlemania XX later this month- at which time he will be inducted into WWE's Hall of Fame.
This is one of those situations where it's hard to tell whether Rose is being sullied by being in business with Vince McMahon, or vice versa. Rose's only previous wrestling experience consists of a few embarrassing appearances in which he has, among other gimmicks, dressed up as the San Diego Chicken and been assaulted by wrestler Kane, who is known as "The Big Red Machine" (get it?); Kane will "present" Rose at the induction. How this brief experience makes Pete worthy of wrestling's Hall of Fame is an open question; Rose can't get reinstated into the sport in which he's the all-time hits leader, but at least he's welcome to be enshrined by a fake sport which he never actually played.
Also on tap for WWE Hall of Fame inductions are another guy who's just been on a roll lately (Jesse Ventura), as well a GI Joe figure who sided with Iraq in the first Gulf War (Sgt. Slaughter), and old timers Tito Santana, Bob Backlund, "Superstar" Billy Graham, Don Muraco, Bobby "The Brain" Heenan, and Greg "The Hammer" Valentine. They will be joined, posthumously, by the Junkyard Dog and "Big" John Studd; Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake will not be part of the festivities, as in the WWE's cosmos setting off a bioterror scare with your cocaine is apparently a much greater offense than betting on baseball.
Hulk Hogan, due to his falling out with McMahon, is not in the wrestling Hall of Fame- does this mean we can expect to see him in Cooperstown next August?