FanHouse PeteRose

ST. LOUIS -- Bud Selig said Tuesday he'd like players suspended for performance-enhancing drugs, such as Manny Ramirez, not to be able to go on minor-league assignments while their suspensions are in force.

During his annual All-Star break question-and-answer session with members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America, the commissioner also touched on Pete Rose, the Nationals, collusion charges and the effect of the economy on baseball.

People, people, people. How many times do we need to go over this? It seems that every time we have another steroids revelation and talk turns to how that affects the player's Hall of Fame qualifications, all of the Pete Rose people come out of the woodwork to say that Pete should get in if the Steroids Guys are in.

A whole batch of them came out in the comments for this post about Sammy Sosa's Hall of Fame chances.

What many people fail to realize is that the rule Rose broke is more important to baseball than any rule about steroid use.

MLB Power Rankings: Where MLB FanHouse's editors, writers and bloggers team up to break down the who's who and the what's what in the baseball world.

Well, that took freaking forever ... but the Blue Jays finally started to stink the joint up. I swear to you, you can't stay long atop the MLB Power Rankings -- our failure by osmosis jinxing ability is just too strong, son. At any rate, it was a weird week for ranking baseball: the Cubs continued to skid, the Padres went on a tear and Toronto fell off the face of the planet. So, yeah, spiciness ensued, and you may take the jump to see how badly your team fared. Unless you're a Rangers or a Braves fan, in which case they couldn't have done that poorly.

In these troubling times, where you can't simply follow the game of baseball without hearing about steroids everywhere you turn, we could all use a moral compass so that we can have something to tell our children. When it comes to the Alex Rodriguez saga, Pete Rose, who was banished from baseball for betting on games while he was a manager, is happy to provide us with that moral compass.

"Being my good and close friend, I was disappointed about A-Rod's admission."

Yeah, he should have waited until he had a book to sell, right Pete?

Left on Base is MLB FanHouse's link dump.

* Boston's two-year offer to Jason Varitek comes with a deadline -- he has until the end of the week before the Red Sox take the deal off the table.

* The Rangers move into the lead for Ben Sheets, which pleases Kevin Millwood: "I think it would be great for us if he's on our team," Millwood said. "I don't know what's going on with that, but he'll make us a better team."

* All the fake sports-themed Lego men you've ever wanted.

Even though Pete Rose is persona non grata in MLB, that doesn't mean fans from all over the country still don't love the guy. Yeah, he gambled on baseball and proceeded to lie about it for years, but he was still one of the greatest hitters to ever play the game.

Which is why so many people show up to collectibles shows and other events featuring Rose to meet one of their childhood heroes, and maybe get a picture or an autograph. Of course, there's one Pete Rose fan who is probably wishing he never met his hero right about now. Jim Scornerston met Rose on October 4th when he was signing autographs at Field of Dreams inside Caesar's Palace, and he said that Rose not only seemed annoyed by the fact he hadn't bought anything, but also made fun of his lisp.

"I told him how much I used to love to get up Saturday mornings with my sister to watch 'The Baseball Bunch,'" said Scornerston, referring to a syndicated TV baseball show hosted by Rose's former teammate, Johnny Bench.

According to Scornerston, Rose was "clearly annoyed" and responded by mocking Scornerston's lisp, saying, "Did ya thee me on Thaturdayth? With your thithter?' Then just looks away."

Earlier today, the higher-ups at the Cincinnati Reds baseball club decided to satiate their fanbase with what was essentially a Dear John Bench letter explaining why the team's efforts have failed despite the organization doing everything right.

What they didn't tell you on the website is that the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Reds read the letter to the masses from high atop the ballpark, and that it wasn't enough. This really happened. Stop looking at me like that.

This morning's Dugout, chronicling those events, is after the jump.

Let's just get his over with.

Seriously? This was on ESPN's MLB front page all day today and I still couldn't bring myself to read the entire thing. Hell, I barely read any of it. I watched the video they supplied for a solid minute before the clutter on my desk drew my attention. It honestly is the stupidest non-story I've ever seen on ESPN. Not to mention that the picture they used makes Pete look like one of Walter Matthau's butt cheeks. Bad all around. But hey, it's a text-based conversation between two Dugout stars. What am I supposed to do, cover the red hot Phillies? Moyer please.

I have missed quite a few of my spots in recent weeks(alright, all of them) so this is an extra stupid Dugout. Feel free to spend the three minutes you were planning to read it with to choke down a bit of Tom Friend's article. Because it sucks.

Long before steroids became the blackeye du jour of Major League Baseball, there was that small problem of gambling that threatened to tear the game apart. Much like Barry Bonds has been the poster boy of the Steroids Era, all-time hits leader Pete Rose carried the cross that was baseball's gambling problem.

You all know the story by now, Rose was banished from baseball in 1989 by commissioner Bart Giamatti when it was discovered that he was betting on baseball while managing the Reds, even on the Reds games themselves. Then, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, Rose spent 15 years denying he ever bet on baseball before finally coming clean about it in 2004.

Now Charlie Hustle has admitted how much money he was betting on each game after an interview with Dan Patrick on The Dan Patrick Show this past Tuesday.

"It was like $2,000. That's it," Rose said in the interview. "And it didn't change -- because I know you're going to say, Well betting's all about pitching and stuff like that -- I didn't care who was pitching for me or who was pitching for the opposition. I just made it easy for the guys making the bets and just bet this much every game and that's the way we did it."

Yes, it was only $2,000 a game, a mere pittance! I mean, if you only bet $2,000 a game, you're risking no more than $324,000 a season. Who amongst us doesn't bet that much every year?

I think the real news here is just how kind and considerate that Pete is. Sure, he was supposed to be managing a baseball team, and he had $2,000 of his own money on the line every night, but all he ever really cared about was making things easy on the bookie. What a guy!

Prerequisite: BlackDraft™ Part 1

The ESPN ticker for the mock Negro Leagues draft as it stands:

Round 1

1. New York Yankees - Cool Papa Bell (CF)
2. Washington Nationals - a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, which are pretty much the worst kind of Dorito
3. Chicago White Sox - Buck O'Neil (1B)
4. Boston Red Sox - David Ortiz (DH)
5. New York Yankees - Manny Ramirez (LF)

Upcoming picks

6. Cincinnati Reds
7. Detroit Tigers
8. Kansas City Royals
9. New York Yankees
10. New York Yankees again

Round 1 continues, after the jump.