Reply #36: Yes, he was

[Oeditpus Rex]

He broke one of baseball's most long-standing rules.

But let's look at effect for a minute: Rose bet on some ball games. Did that affect their outcome? Probably not, since no evidence was ever found that he bet against the Reds while managing them. Baseball's brain trust was more concerned with the effect on "the integrity of the game," which is rather a difficult concept to define (not unlike "Our nation's moral fiber").

Steroid use, on the other hand, obviously affected the outcome of games as well as individual accomplishments. It made a joke of baseball's record books in addition to instigating the biggest controversy over baseball's "integrity" since the Rose investigation.

We can determine for ourselves which we believe has had the greater effect on the game. In my mind, there's no comparison.