Now, to answer your question about steroids, wouldn’t you like to ask Roger Maris how he feels about steroids? Or Babe Ruth how he feels about steroids? Or Hank Aaron, you could probably ask how he feels about steroids. Because those guys all lost records because of people who supposedly took steroids. So that’s a different deal right there. But I didn’t alter any statistics of baseball.
-- Pete Rose, casting himself as morally and ethically superior to steroids users in a radio interview yesterday. I searched the entire transcript, however, and could not find any reference to the fact that Paul Janzen, the man who, according to the Dowd Report, was Rose’s primary bet-placer was also a steroids dealer. Or that one of his best friends during the bad old days, minor leaguer Tommy Gioiosa, 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.
But yes, clearly, Pete Rose was a man above all of that and should be judged less harshly.
