Steroids mean time to forgive Charlie Hustle

When Bart Giamatti banned Pete Rose from baseball in 1989, it was arguably the darkest moment in baseball history since the 1919 Chicago White Sox earned the moniker Black Sox for throwing the World Series. But in the 20 years since Rose's banishment, a far greater injustice has been propogated upon our national pastime. Every few months, it seems, the Steroids Era casts a longer, darker shadow upon what I still somehow manage to love as the greatest game of all.

In case you missed it, Monday baseball's highest paid player Alex Rodriguez admitted to allegations in a SI.com report over the weekend that he used performance-enhancing drugs as recently as 2003. I will give him credit for admitting it, unlike many other of the game's greats who are widely suspected. But in a 60 Minutes interview that aired in December 2007, Rodriguez denied to Katie Couric that he had ever used steroids, human growth hormone or any other performance-enhancing substance. He also told her he never felt tempted because he "never felt overmatched on the baseball field. I've always been a very strong, dominant position," he said. "And I felt that if I did my work as I've done since I was, you know, a rookie back in Seattle, I didn't have a problem competing at any level."

That's funny, because Monday Rodriguez told ESPN's Peter Gammons, "When I arrived in Texas in 2001, I felt an enormous amount of pressure. I felt like I had all the weight of the world on top of me and I needed to perform, and perform at a high level every day."

Oh, the burdens of having a contract worth more than the GDP of about ten small nations.

When Rose accepted his lifetime ban, he had been accused of violating what has always been considered baseball's cardinal sin by betting on the game itself. It is the one and only rule posted in every Major League clubhouse. But is there anything worse in this or any sport than purposely doing something you know to be wrong, whether there is a rule or punishment against it, to try and gain an unnatural edge? Is betting really worse than cheating?

When Rose was banned everyone said the same thing: Just admit it, Pete. Come clean, and everything will be forgiven. For nearly 15 years baseball's all-time hit king denied he ever bet on baseball. It wasn't until his horribly-written 2004 autobiography My Prison Without Bars that Rose finally admitted his gambling offenses. And as soon as he did, all those people who told him to come clean for so long turned their back on him. They said his book was just to make money and try to get in the Hall of Fame and that its release stole the spotlight from the announcement of that year's class of Hall of Fame inductees.

Five years later, coming clean has not helped Pete Rose. Yet an admitted cheater like Alex Rodriguez will make about $30 million this year for playing the game he has now disgraced. Does anyone else see the problem with this?

I confess I was one of the naive baseball faithful who looked past the inhumanly bulked physiques of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa in the summer of 1998 as they chased Roger Maris's single-season home run record. I confess that I applauded and snapped pictures at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium during a game in September 2001, when Barry Bonds hit three home runs on his way to a new record 73 that season. Ironically I was at that game to see Padres great Tony Gwynn honored. His physique exploded over the years, too. Though he surely bulked up on a Ruthian diet of fats and sweets instead of a chemical diet of stuff like Clomid, Primobolan, testosterone or even "the Cream" and "the Clear."

Two decades later, the sting of one of baseball's all-time greats breaking the rules linger. But while Pete Rose did the crime, he has certainly also done the time. It's time for baseball to forgive him for what he did. The gambling aside, we need more players like Pete Rose, who played the game with nothing but heart and hustle instead of chemically-enhanced muscles.