THE PETE ROSE DECISION : Other Views : Nation’s Press Shows Little Empathy for Rose : <i> (The reaction to the lifetime suspension of Pete Rose is strong. Here is how some of the country’s top sports columnists saw the decision.)</i>

Add the name of A. Bartlett Giamatti to the Baseball Commissioners Hall of Fame populated hitherto only by Kenesaw Mountain Landis, and even Landis’ reputation for always playing hardball will not withstand intense scrutiny. It may now be said of Giamatti, while mixing more than one metaphor, that when he bit the bullet and lowered the boom on Pete Rose Thursday, banning that worthy from baseball for life, he went to the head of the class. It was a gutsy and proper decision.

. . . In contrast with Giamatti’s press conference Thursday in which he made all points clear, Rose’s press conference was a lot of funny talk, a charade. No, he didn’t bet on baseball, said the player who signed an agreement accepting a life ban on the commissioner’s belief that he did bet on baseball.

. . . Conversely, Giamatti’s was a virtuoso performance before the press. Sometimes he was even cute. When he cocked his ear for the second part of a question he explained, “I was too enthralled by my answer to the first part to listen to the second part.”