A Rose is a Rose is a … liar

I suppose the only thing left now is a nationally televised sit-down with Oprah, because it appears Lance Armstrong was just keeping the chair warm for Pete Rose.

I work for an intelligent man, a veteran of the newspaper business and expert on all things Grateful Dead and Sonny Landreth, a sports editor who put into perspective Monday what most likely thought when news hit about evidence showing Rose indeed bet on baseball during his playing days.

“Haven’t we known that all along?” Mark Whittington asked.

As much as we knew Armstrong was a loathsome fraud.

Which is to say, absolutely.

Twenty-six years of lies and untruths and bold-face denials that few believed later, the jig is officially up for baseball’s all-time leader in hits. A report by “Outside the Lines” of ESPN showed documents that proved Rose bet extensively on games while playing for the Cincinnati Reds.

It also proved the guy was really bad at betting basketball.

Twenty-six years later, copies of pages from a spiral notebook that belonged to a former Rose associate demonstrate a direct connection between betting on baseball and mob-connected bookmakers in New York.

It is the level of confirmation that reaches beyond the 225-page Dowd Report, which in 1989 described in detail the transgressions of Rose and his wagering on baseball and precipitated his agreement to a lifetime suspension from the sport.

“This does it,” said Dowd, the former federal prosecutor who led Major League Baseball’s investigation of Rose. “This closes the door.”

Was it ever really open?

Rose is as much Las Vegas nowadays as your favorite show along the Strip, his “Hits King” moniker having been replaced years ago with that of “Autograph King,” where he spends 15 to 25 days per month here posing for pictures and signing items for anyone who buys memorabilia from his business partners.

He’s doing fine, thank you very much.

I can imagine all the times he lied during those sessions when asked about his suspension and chase for reinstatement and a place in the Hall of Fame, how many times he looked those buying his name and likeness in the eye and denied what is now an indisputable truth.

Rose is no better than Armstrong in terms of his arrogant and comfortable nature when it comes to lying and the heartless manner in which he attacked the reputations of those hired to gather evidence against him.

My best guess is that Dowd or Fay Vincent won’t soon receive an apology. Bart Giamatti isn’t around to get one because the then-commissioner died eight days after banishing Rose from the game.

Rose never met an angle he didn’t play if he believed it would benefit gaining reinstatement. He claimed complete innocence for 15 years before confessing to betting on baseball, but said he only did so as a manager.

He wanted to manage again. He wanted back in. So he lied. Again. He even wrote a book and confessed his sins (well, not the most important ones) and played on whatever heartstrings he could find in the media.

He became, in many eyes, this poor, likable, suffering legend who had served his penance and deserved forgiveness based on the passage of time. What a crock. He was instead a lying, tax-evading egomaniac who wanted nothing more than to smear the reputations of those entrusted with discovering the truth and say whatever falsehood he needed to get his name on the Hall of Fame ballot.

Thankfully, it never happened.

There is no more egregious sin within the tomb of baseball than gambling on the sport, a reminder of which hangs on the wall of every 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.

That’s Rose.

Charlie Permanent.

He is 74 and owns zero credibility, and any chance he had of catching Manfred on a good day probably vanished with those pages from the spiral notebook being made public. Manfred said in March that he viewed Rose’s request for reinstatement separate from whether he should be officially considered for the Hall of Fame.

How can that be the case now?

This has now reached the elite status of baseball’s all-time ugliest scandals, right alongside the Black Sox of 1919 and the Mitchell Report of 2007 and the Pittsburgh Drug Trials of 1985.

How ridiculously ironic: It was shortly before Armstrong told Oprah Winfrey in 2013 that his perfect story was instead one big lie and that he had cheated during most of his famed cycling career that Rose offered this advice in his own televised interview:

“First of all, (fans) have to know you’re sincere,” Rose told NBC. “They have to know you stepped forward and took responsibility. … Come forward as early as you possibly can. My fans understand I know how I screwed up. Once they figure that out, they’re willing to give you a second chance. I hope it’s not too late (for Armstrong).”

It’s too late for Rose now. Sincere went out the window the first time he lied about betting as a player.

But, hey, his official website tells you that Rose is scheduled to next sign autographs at the Art of Music in Mandalay Place on Sunday at noon.

Maybe he will even use a permanent marker.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be a heard on, “Seat and Ed,” on KRLV 1340 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.