At TG we've been pounding the steroid/performance enhancement and the sabermetrics debates for a bit, so I want to turn to a new but equally ire-inspiring topic: Pete Rose.

There's a terrific piece (subs. req.) in the Wall Street Journal today on Rose and John Dowd , the lawyer who investigated Rose's gambling. Dowd still talks about Rose from time to time, usually when he's asked by the press.

Rose was a terrific ball player but he is the textbook definition of a moral failure. I say this not because he gambled -- I like gambling. Or that he gambled on baseball -- I like that, too. But his pathological lying about it after he was caught and his total absence of any remorse make you wonder if he's human.

Still, I wonder if Pete had played -- and gambled -- a generation later, would he have been caught? Gambling online is a legal enterprise, and there's far greater anonymity than when one must deal with shady bookies (not that all bookies are shady, mind you). I wonder if the temptations are greater today now that a bet is just a mouse click and a data message to the Caymans away.

Dowd, by the way, is pretty sure Rose bet against his own team. If that's true -- and why should we suspect it's not? -- what a lowlife.