David Ortiz Gives His Take On Whether Or Not Pete Rose Should Be In The Hall Of Fame

The death of baseball great Pete Rose has reignited the debate about whether or not he should be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, despite being slapped with a lifetime ban for gambling.

Now, Boston Red Sox great and Fox Sports broadcaster David Ortiz is giving his take, and — spoiler alert — it's the same take that pretty much everyone aside from those who can actually make the call and induct Rose into the Hall of Fame has.

TMZ Sports asked Ortiz for his take on the matter while the long-time Big League slugger and Hall of Famer was standing outside the terminal at LAX (which, by the way, isn't wild how many scoops TMZ has gotten over the years from just posting up outside the airport?) and Big Papi was firmly on the side of those who feel Rose's enshrinement in Cooperstown is overdue.

"I thought he should have been a Hall of Famer a long time ago," Ortiz said.

I'm with Big Papi on this one. It seems like Major League Baseball had one job to do and that was to make sure Pete Rose got in the Hall of Fame before it was too late for him to be there in person.

David Ortiz gave his take on why Pete Rose should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. (Getty Images)

Especially as the landscape of sports betting has completely evolved in recent years, it's wild to not have the best hitter the game has ever seen in the Hall of Fame.

Ortiz acknowledged that Rose had made some mistakes, but said that sometimes there need to be exceptions.

"Mistakes are mistakes," the former Red Sox star said. "But sometimes there's exceptions to the rules, you know what I'm saying? And, he's one-of-a-kind."

Big Papi gets it. I'm sure there are going to be more and more big names saying similar things until the public pressure is so great that MLB has to posthumously induct Rose into the Hall of Fame.