Pete Rose Said What?

Pete Rose has advised the Biogenesis 13 to "come clean". This is laughable, for any number of reasons, not the least of which being that it took literally decades for Rose to admit he'd lied, and lied about lying, and lied about lying about lying. Rose's story is too long and too sad to go into here; I'd advise anyone who still thinks he's a victim in all this to go back and read the actual report that lays out in damning detail who Rose was running with, what he did, and how he lied about it.

Denny McLain's weighing in, too. Denny's not as famous as Pete is, of course. He had some great years for the Tigers, was the last guy to win 30 in a single season, and got his toes broken by mobsters over a gambling debt while his team was in the thick of a pennant race. McLain later would indulge in such activities as embezzlement, mail fraud, racketeering, drug dealing, and flying a wanted felon out of the country. And Denny is disappointed in Tigers shortstop Jhonny Peralta for not appealing his suspension, what with his team in a pennant race and all.


A-Rod is getting clobbered in the media for not claiming he was innocent, and for not just taking his suspension immediately. Other guys are getting killed for not fighting their suspensions because their teams theoretically need them - Texas is definitely going to miss Nelson Cruz' power. Look for any opinion on what Should Be Done on this mess and you'll find it, coming from the most sanctimonious of press boxes and the most obscene and illogical of comments sections, from dugouts and retired bums who would have you remember their performances and forget everything else about them.

What it means, of course, is that nobody knows what to think. They caught these guys. They're punishing these guys - well, most of them - in accordance with the agreed-on rules, despite MLB's almost pathological need to illegally leak stuff that's described as confidential in the CBA. [And there are special unshaded bleachers in the Old Comiskey in Hell for the idiots demanding that negotiated due process get thrown out just because they want to see a head on baseball's Traitors Gate. If we don't adhere to due process at the moments when we want most to abrogate it, we render it useless.] The bad guys got found out and are going to metaphorical jail. The system, such as it is, worked.

And yet there's this muddled response. Guys should have fought. Guys shouldn't have fought. It's too much. It's too little. The one thing no one is, is satisfied, and that's the way it's going to continue to be. The PED monster is too big in perception, the emotional responses to it have gotten too far out of control for anyone to look at a solution, and see a solution. That's what leaves the air in the room for Pete Rose to seize on this as part of his personal PR campaign, and for McLain to try to steal some moral high ground from his position underwater. We know we're supposed to feel something very strongly, we're just not sure what.
And until we do - if we ever do - we'll keep getting more of this: Confusion. Opportunism. And everything except honest debate.