Pete Rose continues to be full of it

Pete Rose periodically gives interviews in which he says that gambling may be bad, but it’s nowhere near as bad as PEDs are. He has a little rehearsed spiel too, in which he says “ask Babe Ruth, ask Roger Maris, ask Hank Aaron” etc., about how they feel that their records were broken by PED users. He said this almost word-for-word in 2010 and said it again to Michael Kay yesterday:

“They’re both bad. I think in my case, I know I didn’t do anything to alter the statistics of baseball,” Rose said . . . I had nothing to do with altering statistics of baseball, and these guys, that take PEDs—wouldn’t it be nice if you could ask Babe Ruth the same question, or Roger Maris the same question or Hank Aaron, who won’t talk about it. I’d like to hear what their response will be because those are the guys who lost their records because of supposedly steroids.”

At times like this I think it’s worth reminding people that (a) Rose took amphetamines as a player, and they are clearly performance-enhancing (b) Paul Janzen, the man who, according to the Dowd Report, was Rose’s primary bet-placer was also a steroids dealer; (c) one of Rose’s best friends during his gambling days was a minor leaguer, Tommy Gioiosa, who was a heavy steroids user who shot up in front of Pete and to whom Pete constantly asked questions about steroids and PEDs, contemplating using them to extend his already lengthy career. A lengthy career that had him eke just past Ty Cobb for the hit record.

Wouldn’t it be nice, Pete, if you could ask Ty Cobb about that?