Pete Rose, the Hit King, is still not a Hall of Famer.
Pete Rose, the Hit King, is still not a Hall of Famer. (USATSI)

It's Friday afternoon in Eye on Baseball, so you know what that means? It's time to send you all off for the weekend with another edition of This Week in (Dumb) Baseball. We have some lingering Hall of Fame items along with one good non-HOF item before we get to the fun stuff. Let's dive in.

(First installment here | second here | third here | fourth here | fifth here | sixth here | seventh here).

1. Pete Rose talk

As we get every year in what I call "Hall of Fame season," there are still legions of fans incapable of discussing the current Hall of Fame candidates and electees without kicking and screaming about Pete Rose.

If Internet discussions were conversations, it would be a laughable "discussion" with constant interruptions.

"Let's discuss Jeff Bagwe-----"
PETE ROSE
"What about Larry Walke-----"
PETE ROSE
"OK, but what about Pedro Martinez. There's a stud who wa-----"
PETE ROSE!!!

Good lord.

Look, Pete Rose the player is easily a Hall of Fame-caliber performer and I don't think anyone really disputes that. Here's the problem, though:

Rule 21 MISCONDUCT, (d) BETTING ON BALL GAMES, 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 rule was in place and Rose knowingly violated it. He knew the punishment for betting on baseball and did it anyway. Thus, the consequences when he was caught fit the crime and he's doing his time. I don't understand how this is such a hard fact for so many otherwise smart people to grasp.

Seriously, walk through it:

1. Pete Rose was a Hall of Fame-caliber baseball player.
2. Pete Rose knowingly and admittedly violated a rule that carries a ban from baseball.
3. He's now serving his ban.

Again, is it really that difficult to grasp that one can believe Rose was a Hall of Fame player but shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame due to his rightful, permanent ban?

People continue to bring up PED users and point to those guys and say this is why Rose should be in. That's dumb. It's far past dumb. It's mind-numbingly ridiculous. First of all, one has nothing to do with the other. Secondly, the players who have been tied to PEDs with even loose evidence are all being kept out of the Hall of Fame anyway. Third, even if people like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens were inducted into the Hall of Fame, they weren't doing anything while employed by a Major League Baseball team that carried a permanent ban as specifically outlined in the rules.

Rose did.

Put emotions aside and be logical here.

Further ...

2. Irrelevant/"I don't care"/"who cares?"

It doesn't matter which medium I peruse for comments on the Baseball Hall of Fame. Once one of the Rose Cult decides to start ranting, there will immediately be some commentary resembling "the Hall of Fame is irrelevant without Pete Rose." Well, no. That's not true. It's plenty relevant. Thousands upon thousands of fans care deeply about the Hall of Fame, rendering the "who cares?" rhetorical pretty dumb in its own right. A disgruntled individual doesn't get to arbitrarily decide what is relevant to the general public, otherwise I'd have long ago put the kibosh on any show with "Real Housewives" in the title.

There's also the "I don't care about the Hall of Fame, since Pete Rose isn't in it." OK, that's the right of any individual, but I have a question for the commenters who do this: Why are you voluntarily clicking on an article and commenting about it? The true measure of not caring about something is completely ignoring it.

Here's an example: I don't care about figure skating. Do I go around during the Winter Olympics clicking on articles and telling everyone about how much I don't care about it? Dear lord, no. Life is too short. I change the channel if it comes on and don't click on any Internet articles relating the subject. That's the measuring stick. I don't care, thus, I ignore and avoid.

No, the Rose Cult members who click through on, say, an article discussing whether or not Mike Mussina should be in the Hall of Fame -- for the sole purpose of hammering home Pete's name -- actually greatly care about the Hall of Fame, otherwise they wouldn't give a rip if Pete were in it or not.

See how that works?

Props the many commenters I saw on our pages in the past month who set the Rose people straight and reminded them that wasn't the topic at hand. I appreciate you fighting the good fight with me.

To reiterate (not that it'll stave off my impending onslaught of threatening emails): Pete Rose the player was a Hall of Famer. I greatly respect the work he did as a player. That doesn't mean we can never discuss any other players without bringing him up in Hall of Fame discussions, especially since it's his own damn fault he's not in the Hall.

3. Worrying about voting percentage

While I agree that it's laughable that there are actually groups of voters who don't believe Pedro Martinez and/or Randy Johnson should have been voted in as Hall of Famers, let's not lose focus of what's important here.

Johnson got 97.27 percent of the vote. Martinez received over 91 percent. That's overwhelming support.

Let's put this in the context of any profession and just say that over 90 percent of said profession got something right. Are we really going to impugn the entire profession?

"97.27 percent of Doctors correctly diagnosed the problem ... "

"OMG Doctors are morons!"

Well, dude, more than 97 percent of them did the job.

Not only that, but I'll reiterate a point I made earlier this week, which is that the percentage of votes isn't a ranking system. Once players have been in the Hall for a while, the vote percentages are pretty well forgotten.

For example, when you think about Willie Mays, do you think about the fact that more than five percent of the voters left him off their ballots? Do you think of 86.87 percent when I say "Sandy Koufax?" If I mention Jackie Robinson, do you go into a blind rage about how he only received 77.5 percent of the vote?

Of course not. A Hall of Famer is a Hall of Famer and what's important is the playing career.

For every single year of my life until this year (woo hoo 2015!) I got riled up about the voters who would leave certain guys off. I was angry about people like Greg Maddux not getting 100 percent of the vote. I have come to realize this is dumb, because it just doesn't matter at the end of the day.

4. Dan Haren backlash

On the non-HOF front, starting pitcher Dan Haren continues to say he wishes to pitch on the West Coast instead of in Miami. He's even been said to be willing to retire, which means he would forfeit the $10 million owed to him this season by virtue of his contract. I've seen a bit of backlash on comments sections around the Internet and it strikes me as very hypocritical.

Let me get this straight: Baseball players are greedy and only care about their next paycheck, or so goes the narrative in some corners. Yet this player is willing to leave eight figures on the table in order to be closer to his family and now he's a bad guy, too? Shouldn't he be some sort of hero for being willing to give up money in order to be with his family, considering he's already made over $71 million in his career?

Oh wait, I forgot. We have to complain about professional athletes at all costs. Got it.

Isn't that a dumb thing for, you know, sports fans to do?

As we do every week, let's close it out with some fun to wash away the dumb.

Tweet of the Week:

For anyone who is familar with Joe Morgan's broadcasting work, this is pure gold.

GIF of the Week:

Sick, Pedro. Just sick.

Hat of the Week:

Man, this is glorious. I might enter this contest at least 75 times.

Video of the Week, via reader John F.

Is this going to be Jon Lester, who is 0-for-36 in his career at the plate?

Thanks, John!

Baseball card of the week:

Indianapolis Indians, baby (I'm a central Indiana native)! At the time, the ballclub was obviously an affiliate of the Montreal Expos, but now the Indians are the Triple-A affiliate of the Pirates.

And that'll do it for the week. See you next Friday.

Suggestions (dumb stuff or GIFs, random videos, baseball cards, etc.) or hate mail? Feel free to hit me up: matt.snyder@cbs.com or you could always go to Twitter (@MattSnyderCBS).

Disclaimer: I'm not bashing our CBSSports.com readers. I get a lot of my material from Twitter, other media and comments sections on other sites. Sure, some of the stuff I see here, but on that front let's keep in mind that it's possible for someone to make a dumb argument without being a dumb person. I spotlighted myself in an earlier installment and that won't be the last time. A few people have claimed I'm only doing this to bash the readers, who are essentially my customers. I'm not doing that. Just picking out some dumb arguments that can be found on the Internet. If nothing else, this is supposed to be fun anyway.