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Pete Rose: PEDs are worse for baseball than gambling

Major League Baseball's all-time hit leader Pete Rose said performance enhancing drugs have had a greater impact on baseball than his gambling, while speaking on CBS Sports Radio.
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Major League Baseball's all-time hit leader Pete Rose said performance enhancing drugs have had a greater impact on baseball than his gambling, while speaking on CBS Sports Radio.

Rose, who received a lifetime ban in 1989 for gambling as manager of the Cincinnati Reds, cited how PEDs have permanently changed the statistics of the game.

"What I did is bad, but PEDs are bad too. I had nothing to do with altering the statistics of baseball ... I'm the one who screwed it up, but if I get a second chance, I'll be the happiest guy in the world ... but they'll probably wait 'til I'm gone like they did with Ron Santo."

Rose finished his career with a record 4,256 hits and played until he was 45 years old. In 2004, he admitted to betting on baseball games in 1987 and 1988.

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- Paul Palladino