Along with strategy, suspense and uneven economics, Major League Baseball specializes in irony. Make a great defensive play? Lead off the next inning. Ignore splits? Get ready to get burned.

It’s no different with the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, where voting has sports writers invoking a morality clause — in fairness because it’s part of the official rules for election established by the Hall and the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA).

The irony will soon arrive in Cooperstown, as Pete Rose, “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and other deceased players from MLB’s permanently ineligible list will have those bans lifted. But think about that for a second.

If Rose and Jackson are there, if Ty Cobb’s there, and we’re citing the morality clause to keep Barry Bonds, Roger Cle

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