Pete Rose Comments on A-Roid

My boyhood hero, Pete Rose, brings up some good points about Alex Rodriguez in the New York Post:

Rodriguez told ESPN Peter Gammons he stopped taking whatever it was he was taking that year, something else Rose finds hard to believe.

"I guess the drug test will prove me wrong on this, but if you're Alex Rodriguez and you're using from 2001 to 2003 and you hit 52 home runs a year, aren't you thinking about using it in 2004?" Rose told the radio station. "With that kind of success, are you just going to say 'I don't need this anymore?' You see, I don't know how it works. I don't know the mindset of a guy that does that."

Rose also doubted Rodriguez's claim that he didn't know what he was taking.

"I just wonder if a guy making $250 million is going to go into the commode at the ballpark and put a blindfold on and say, 'Go ahead hit me in the ass, with whatever you want to hit me in the ass with,'" Rose said.

LOL! Takes a fraud to know one I suppose.

On that note, can you imagine A-Rod's first appearance at Fenway this season? The Boston fans are going to go nuts. There's going to be some very creative heckling.

A-Roid Signals More Trouble for Baseball

Alex Rodriquez admit to ESPN that he did do steroids for three years while playing for the Texas Rangers:

"Back then, [baseball] was a different culture," Rodriguez said. "It was very loose. I was young, I was stupid, I was naïve. I wanted to prove to everyone that I was worth being one of the greatest players of all time.

"I did take a banned substance. For that, I am very sorry and deeply regretful."

Major League Baseball handled this so poorly. The NFL was plagued by steroids in the 80's, but they acted quickly with mandatory testing. Baseball waited until 2003. All those sacred records, particularly the home run records are now garbage. A-Rod was supposed to be the cure for this, but he'll have an asterisk as well, if he ever breaks the record.

You can't entirely blame baseball. The fans were collusive. Did anybody doubt Sosa and McGwire were juiced during that home run love fest season? Clemens and Bonds playing their best ball at 40?

Baseball as we know it is doomed for several reasons:

1. In the age of 200+ cable channels and the internet, it is simply too slow of a game to hold the attention of fans. Think of all the things we used to watch as kids, when we had no choice. World Cup skiing, the Olympics, tennis, etc. Add baseball to the list of yesterday's events.

2. There are at least a dozen small market franchises that will be hit even harder by the recession. Bring your family to the ballpark for $130 to watch the Pittsburgh Pirates?

3. The steroid scandal chases off diehards, who appreciate the history of the game. Look at the all-time home run leader list. Rafael Palmeiro has more homers than Mike Schmidt? Jim f*cking Thome has more than Mickey Mantle? Carlos Delgado has more than Carl Yastrzimski? Disgraceful... Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio?