Rose is just one guy who shouldn't promote a sport

                    

	Hey, if Pete Rose is baseball's best ambassador, what does that make O.J. Simpson? AP
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"I believe I'm the best ambassador baseball has, because I'm constantly selling the game of baseball."
-- Pete Rose on the Dan Patrick Radio Show

Well, ain't that a bold new twist on the old saying, "With friends like that, who needs enemies?"

But, what the hey. Let's give Pete the official gig kissing babies and spreading the virtues of our national pastime. He may be an admitted gambler as well as a tax cheat who served a stretch in the federal pokey for not reporting income from autographs, memorabilia and personal appearances (yes, he's always selling the game, all right), but he's probably the most appropriate ambassador for a game that is up to its lampblack in cheating scandals. (Farewell, Ernie Banks. At least it's a beautiful day to bet two.)

Rose's remarks got me thinking that just about every major sport has a shameless, self-promoting rascal -- someone of great disrepute or controversy who is brassy enough, and oblivious enough, to ignore this inconvenient truth while beating on the door to get back in on the action or the limelight. In other words, the last person that sport would want as its ambassador:

Pro football: When you think O.J. Simpson, you think pigskin, don't you? With his literary endeavors and independent murder investigation, the man stirs warm feelings wherever he goes. In this age of rampant off-field violence, Simpson's stature as the 1968 Heisman-winner means he's got the college game covered, too.

Pro basketball: A twisted character whose prodigious game was overshadowed by his seemingly endless on- and off-court shenanigans, legal imbroglios and zest for self-promotion, good ol' Dennis Rodman is always up for an NBA comeback.

College basketball: Now 76, Jerry Tarkanian carries the requisite excellence obscured by clouds of suspicion. He's not in the Basketball Hall of Fame and that has something to do with his 26-year war with the NCAA that was fraught with endless investigations and occasional probation. But as Tark The Shark said in 1998 after he was awarded $2.5 million in his harassment lawsuit against the NCAA, "We look forward to a new era where we can make college athletics everything they can and should be." Indeed.

Hockey: Former agent and players union boss Alan Eagleson never laced 'em up, but he was the sport's most powerful guy. Then he pled guilty in 1998 to bilking the NHLPA, served a stretch in the jug, and got himself disbarred in Canada. For good measure, he was forced to resign from the Hockey Hall of Fame, where he'd been enshrined as a builder. The remorseful Eagelson is just what the struggling NHL needs now.