Pete Rose Bet 'Like $2,000' Per Game

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!