By Bob Markus

Let the punishment fit the crime. It sounds like a lyric from a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta. Instead it is the leit motiff running through a week in sports that, for talk show hosts, was the stuff that dreams are made of. First came Michael Vick's "conditional" reinstatement by the National Football League. Then came the rumor that Commissioner Bud Selig was considering lifting Pete Rose's lifetime ban, the sole impediment keeping baseball's alltime hits leader out of the Hall of Fame. That turned out to be untrue and Rose remains as far from reinstatement as he was 20 years ago when he agreed to the lifetime ban.

It's a close call as to which super star committed the greater transgression. It's closer yet as to which paid the steeper price. Vick spent nearly two years in jail, lost millions of dollars in his cancelled contract with the Atlanta Falcons, millions more in endorsements, and even after his conditional reinstatement by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodall will miss at least five paychecks (about one-third of what figures to be a minimal salary), provided there is a team out there willing to take him at any price. All of this for promoting illegal dog fights and assisting in the killing of some dogs deemed too placid for pit duty. Not that his crimes were not reprehensible, but the former quarterback hardly qualifies as the most sadistic monster since Vlad the Impaler. He didn't murder his wife, after all, and if he did he might not have had to serve any time at all (see Simpson, Orenthal James)

But dog lovers everywhere apparently feel that Vick hasn't suffered enough. They apparently feel that a more appropriate punishment would be to put Vick in a pit with a dozen or so of the more vicious varieties of canines, say a couple of Dobermans, a Rottweiler or two and maybe a few pit bulls thrown in for good measure.

Personally, I'm having trouble getting too worked up about Vick's crimes. I don't condone them but I don't understand the universal rage they inspired. These were not your cuddly lap dog or pet poodle that were involved. They were attack dogs, bred and trained to provide protection. Vick could have put on a suit of lights and carved a bull into cube steaks and be applauded for his efforts. He'd probably receive two ears and a tail. Instead he received two years and a ruined career. I understand that dog fighting is illegal, but other then that I can't see where it much differs, morally, from bull fighting.

(Full disclosure: I have been to several bull fights in Mexico and Spain and probably would go again if the opportunity was presented.) I concede that there is none of the pageantry and drama of the bull ring in a dog fight, but the result is the same. An animal dies.

Dog fanciers claim there are no bad dogs, only bad owners. Hogwash. Dogs are, to my knowledge, the only animals that will attack without provocation or to satisfy hunger. I've been bitten by dogs four times in my life and, believe me, I was not provoking any of them, unless you call attempting to share the same road a provocation.

The first time, I admit, was an accident. I was 6 or 7 years old and playing in the park with an uncle when a huge German shepherd came cantering by and I shied away from him. My uncle assured me there was nothing to fear and proposed we play with the nice doggie. Accordingly, he threw the tennis ball with which we were playing catch as far as he could throw it. The dog happily bounded after it and returned it to my uncle, who repeated the process two or three times. Then he turned to me and said, "You try it," flipping the ball to me. The dog, of course, didn't know the game was between innings and the ball and the dog's teeth reached my hand at the same time. I still have the scar although it has faded considerably over the nearly 70 intervening years.

Many years later I was staying in Orlando Cepeda's house in Puerto Rico while collaborating on the baseball star's autobiography (High and Inside," still available, I believe, at Amazon.com although I don't particularly recommend it). Orlando had three or four dogs, which had the run of the house, and were constantly yapping underfoot. They seemed to take no notice of me and after awhile I forgot about them. Then one morning, late in my one week stay, I was finishing my morning run when one of the little rascals ran over and bit my ankle.

The last two (so far) dog bites I suffered both came while visiting a friend's farm in Michigan. In the first instance I had run past a rather large German shepherd on the outbound leg of my morning jog and the dog had simply barked and stared at me. I was hoping the dog would be somewhere else when I went by on my return trip, but there he was, standing in the middle of the road. With his owner standing a few yards away and saying, "Duke, don't do that Duke," Duke did it. He took a nice chunk from behind my right knee and I had to spend my Sunday afternoon in a hospital. A few years later, same place, different road I was running facing traffic and not even noticing the little dog across the road. He noticed me, however, and bounded gleefully across the road to nip the back of my leg.

Like people there are good dogs and bad dogs. There are dogs that rescue babies from burning buildings and there are dogs that maul babies to death. I don't advocate killing dogs willy-nilly, but I also don't think what Vick did merits punishing him for the rest of his life. But that's what's going to happen unless some NFL franchise will take a chance on him. That seems unlikely, although some one would be getting a multimillion dollar talent for a fraction of that price. The downside, of course, is that whoever hires Vick may be as reviled as much as if they were harboring Dr. Mengele. There will be outrage and there could be boycotts of the team's games and its TV sponsors. The only team I can think of that would risk that much heat is the Oakland Raiders. The Raiders have a history of taking on troubled--and troublesome--players and I imagine Al Davis would enjoy the fuss.

But harsh as Vick's penalties have been I think Pete Rose suffers more. His lifetime banishment from the game he loves for betting on the Cincinnati Reds to win games while he was managing the team is like a death sentence for Rose. His whole life is baseball and he desperately wants to get into the Hall of Fame, where he belongs. But it now appears that will never happen. Although there are some Hall of Famers, most notably Hank Aaron, who are lobbying Commissioner Bud Selig to reinstate Rose--at least to the extent where he would be Hall of Fame eligible, there are even more, with Bob Feller being the most adamant, who insist Rose should never get in.

Rose has spent 20 years pleading his case and at 68 may go to his grave still knocking futilely at the Hall of Fame's door. Rose has his talking points. He is, after all, baseball's alltime hits leader and he played the game with unparalleled passion. He argues that, while he did bet on Reds games, he never bet on them to lose. If he were strictly a player, that might be a mitigating factor. But as manager he was entrusted with decisions that go beyond today's ball game. Supposing he has a closer who clearly needs a night off, but Pete has a bet on tonight's game and he needs that closer, even with a tired arm, to nail it down. I doubt that Rose would succumb to the temptation, but the temptation is there. This issue goes to the very core of the game,the public's assurance that every game is on the up-and-up. Ever since the Black Sox scandal, the game has protected its integrity with the vehemence of a mama bear sheltering her cubs (that's cubs with a small c). Betting on baseball, in the eyes of the game's keepers, is a sin far worse than doctoring a baseball with spittle or doctoring the player himself with steroids. The former will get you tossed from the game, the latter will cost you 50 games. But placing bets on your own team? That will get you a life sentence with no chance of parole.

Does the punishment fit the crime? Probably. But if I had a vote I'd still put Pete Rose in the Hall of Fame. I don't know, the place just doesn't seem complete without him.