Gambling vs. Use of Steroids, HGH

Rose: "Steroids Scandal Makes Me Look Like An Alter Boy"

An interesting statement by Pete Rose this morning in the wake of the Mitchell Report. Of course, it was all geared towards his argument that he should be in the Hall of Fame, which I don't think a lot of people will dispute. He makes the point that if these HGHers and 'Roiders get elected to the Hall, then he should too. It makes sense on the surface, but as Mike Greenberg pointed out on Mike and Mike in the Morning today: there's a difference between merely being mentioned in a congressional report and being banned from baseball. Sooner or later, there is going to have be a decision on the issue of how to deal with alleged rulebreakers in the Hall of Fame and record books. Bob Costas suggests that the "Steroids Era" is no different than the various other scandals that have tainted previous years (or decades) of baseball and that the record books should simply make reference to the allegations on page one, such that the reader keeps that information into consideration as he peruses the records (no asterisks!).

Sounds good to me, but I want to take the time to focus on the debate at hand. Which is worse: Rose's gambling or Bonds' juicing? The Mike and Mike boys predictably took the side of the steroid/HGH user, presumably because one of them (guess which one!?) is an admitted steroid user himself. I don't see the problem with gambling on your own team to win, except for the specter of betting against your own team that will inevitably come with it (do you really beleive Rose never bet against his team?). And because gambling on baseball has been taboo ever since the Black Sox scandal, violators like Rose get banned from the game (if they get caught). Steroid use, on the other hand, is only now beginning to carry such a stigma within baseball.

My conclusion: neither is worse than the other because they aren't comparable. One involves the appearance of impropriety and manipulation of the course of a game (i.e. the players on the field should decide the game) and one involves the actual players on the field seeking an advantage to change their performance. This is what makes the piece on Mike and Mike this morning so ridiculous. To immediately and arbitrarily say that steroid use is worse than gambling is asinine. The bottom line is that Pete Rose still isn't getting into the Hall of Fame no matter how many players used HGH or steroids or whatever. And in my opinion, having all these prominent players 'outed' in the Mitchell Report (and found guilty in the court of public opinion) only makes people more suspicious of baseball players in general, which can do nothing but harm Rose's Hall of Fame chances.