What may cause voters to hesitate to vote for Rose won't necessarily be because he bet on baseball games, but that he's so vigorously maintained that he never did it. Never not once did he ever acknowledge this. His lawyer argues that his contribution to the game should be what the vote should be based on... I'm suggesting that the turmoil that Rose allowed to be perpetuated around charges against him is a basis voters may say that to some extent mitigated what he did between the lines.
And - Rose was not the first to be banned for conduct that could largely be construed as off the field activity. Shoeless Joe Jackson had a pretty tremendous World Series, despite purportedly participating in his White Sox throwing that series to the Reds... Ironically.
I'm not suggesting that Rose doesn't deserve enshrinement. But I would suggest that Shoeless Joe arguably has the more compelling argument.
@ThomasFromTN