Diminishing legacy

Peter Edward Rose has never been the sharpest knife in the drawer, nor anyone you could trust to tell the truth when lying through his eyeteeth was an option.  But at least you might have assumed you could leave your teenaged daughter alone with him for five minutes or so.

Apparently not.

Apparently Rose had a thing for under-aged girls back in the day, which adds a fresh layer of sleaze to a human being who more and more reveals that his ability to hit a baseball was his only redeeming virtue. Certainly nothing about him outside the batter's box merits anything but scorn, and perhaps pity.

Comes now court documents alleging Rose had a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl back in the mid-1970s, which qualifies as statutory rape in the state of Ohio. Even more appalling, perhaps, is Rose's defense for this.

He doesn't deny it. All he says is he thought the girl was 16 (and therefore of legal age of consent). Which I guess in Pete's mind is supposed to make it OK, except for the fact that Pete himself was 34 years old at the time.

Uh ... no. Sorry. That just makes you icky, Pete. And gives the creeps to those of us with a working knowledge of common decency and civilized behavior.

So here we are. Not only is Pete a degenerate gambler who willfully violated baseball's third rail and continues to lie about it, he's now also a sicko with a taste for high school girls.

On the other hand, he used to run to first base when he drew a walk. That makes up for the rest of it, right?

Right?