Posted in every clubhouse of every team Pete Rose played on in his record-setting career was a simple and easily understood prohibition, the violation of which everyone in baseball, from the lowliest bat boy to the team owner, knows leads to a lifetime ban: Thou shalt not bet on baseball.

Pete Rose violated baseball’s eligibility rules by betting on baseball games that he was playing in and managing. He should not be eligible for the baseball Hall of Fame.

There is no wiggle room; there is no excuse. You bet on baseball, you are banned. Eligibility for the Hall of Fame is the most important privilege one thereby forfeits.

It is undisputed that Pete Rose bet on baseball while he was a manager of the Cincinnati Reds, inserting himself into the lineup in order to set the all-time hits record. It is also undisputed that Pete Rose agreed to a lifetime ban from baseball after the league showed him the evidence against him. It is furthermore undisputed that Rose for years denied he bet on baseball, knowing that evidence of his bets kept him out of the Hall.

So what did Rose just do? He wrote and sold a book in which he finally admits betting on baseball. In a strange move, Rose, after years of denials, now is betting that he can escape being banned for betting by admitting he bet.

Rose claims that he is unfairly being treated worse than other “bad guys” of the game, including drug users, alcoholics and anti-Semites among others. However, betting is distinguishable because betting on baseball threatens the integrity of the game itself by putting into question whether games are decided through actual competition or a gambler’s influence. Baseball must confront the steroid/cheating issue but baseball’s union-induced lethargy in addressing steroids does not threaten its valid decision to ban gambling.

Baseball was nearly destroyed in 1919, when gamblers paid the “Black Sox” to lose the World Series. To ensure that baseball’s integrity would never again be so threatened, baseball prohibited its participants from gambling on the game. Baseball knew then and knows now that the game can overcome hatred; it can overcome alcohol abuse; it can overcome stars whom you would never leave alone with your child. But what the game cannot overcome, as boxing has not overcome, is the public perception that the games are “fixed” before the players take the field.

The one advantage of today’s million-dollar player salaries is that there is no serious chance that many of them would sell out to a gambler wishing to make a quick buck. Preventing gambling ensures that gamblers cannot control the game.

Baseball made a game-saving rule 84 years ago, a rule that every player knows from Day 1. A rule Pete Rose knowingly violated. A rule that applies to everyone working for Major League baseball, but to which Pete Rose seeks an exemption. An exemption for Rose would mean Rose is bigger than the game. He is not.

Rose’s fans claim that because he was such a good player, because he played the game with such a ferociousness and vigor and for longer than any other player, the rules should not apply to him. They say they want him in the Hall of Fame so that they can show their children how to play the game of baseball.

Guess what? Tell your children to play like Rose did on the field. Show them film of “Charlie” Hustling on every play. Especially Rose bowling over catcher Ray Schalk in an All-Star game, a pointless collision that virtually ended Schalk’s career.

But teach your children the other important lessons from Rose. Tell your children that for all his hustle on the field, Rose was a hustler off the field. A cheater. Tell your children that Rose played well enough to make the Hall of Fame, but that he broke the most important rule in baseball, and that even the best players have to follow the rules.

Yes, teach your children to play hard on and off the field, to play and live to the best of their ability, but please tell them not to cheat, not to break the rules. Tell them that the rules should apply to everyone, the best and the worst players alike.