A Clean Game

I have often wondered why Pete Rose was banned for life by Major League Baseball and had his accomplishments stricken for gambling, but drug users have been allowed to stay in the game and maintain their place in the record books. Rose was given the harshest punishment baseball could deliver because supposedly his actions threatened the integrity of the game. Would drug dealers not have just as much ability and desire to manipulate the outcome of games as gamblers? Has a street drug dealer or even a doctor administering performance enhancing steroids or hormones not have the ability to blackmail a player who sought their goods and services to drop a fly in the outfield or miss a hittable pitch to win a major bet? The idea that Rose is exiled from the game, but Steve Howe was not is ludicrous. As for the current crop of cheating superstars, either kick them all out or allow Rose back in the record books for the accolades he earned before we quite so jaded about our national pastime.