MLB is taken to task by.....PETE ROSE?...

This week, Pete Rose, an icon to many major league baseball fans, and a pariah of the MLB front offices; made statements about the recent release of the Mitchell Report and the subsequent "outing" of many MLB players who were named in the report for taking steroids, HGH and other performance enhancing drugs.

Pete Rose, in a statement the other day said that players who have used steroids or other PED's are "making a mockery" of baseball.

Yes, this is Pete Rose talking. The current and still leader in MLB history for career hits, the leader of the 1970's "Big Red Machine" that won several World Series, AND the SAME Pete Rose that was banned for life from the sport for gambling on baseball.

Honestly, I actually think that Pete Rose is actually right and has a point. I als think Rose has been given the shaft by MLB for years, and I think he SHOULD be given a pardon and be allowed to be voted on for HOF membership. But come on, Pete Rose talking about how players using drugs makes a mockery of baseball? That is just laughable at best. What Pete Rose SHOULD be saying, is to tell those very same players, (guys like Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Miguel Tejada, among others), that what they NEED to do is fess up, come clean, and ask for forgiveness.

The problem that EVERYONE had with Pete Rose, is exactly the SAME problem many fans have with sterioid and PED users in baseball. That being that, in spite of evidence to the contrary, they all want to deny everything. Ya' know what? THAT pisses fans off and alienates them from the players faster than anything else. But if those same players were to come out, admit they did use those drugs, but did not know what the consequences of those drugs were, (let's face it, back when these guys were accused of taking the drugs, we really did not know what they would or could do...nor even how dangerous they were.)

Look we all make mistakes, we all have used bad judgement. But at least Pettitte is showing SOME type of honor about his involvement, and is looking more and more the pitiable victim than a blatant cheater. That is the lesson that Pete Rose apparently has not learned.

Fans will forgive players, we WANT to forgive players, but we do NOT want to be made out to be dupes and look like idiots. The "court of public opinion" is what is at stake here, because none of the drugs used are criminal acts. So the ONLY risk these players will be taking is the risk that some fans will never forgive them. But you know what? MOST fans will. If given the chance. And that is something that Rose never really "got". Let's hope that the players named in the Mitchell report do learn that lesson.