Pete Rose Says Baseballs Are Juiced: I'm Not Happy When I Watch MLB

Pete Rose believes Major League Baseball is in a bad place.

Speaking to USA Today's Bob Nightengale on Saturday in Cooperstown, New York, Rose said he believes the game has been tainted by juiced baseballs and an abundance of home runs.

"I'm going to argue with baseball until the day I die that baseball is juiced," he said. "I don't care what anybody says. They'll say it's not, which they have to. I saw a ball bounce behind the dugout the other day in Anaheim and it bounced into the second deck. Now, there's something going on there.

"I saw Bryce Harper break his bat in half, and hit a 420-foot home run in New York. That just doesn't happen. I know the ballparks are small. It just seems to me that everybody who plays baseball today is a potential home-run hitter."

Rose added that he's "not real happy" when he watches baseball now from a fundamentals standpoint.

"It seems like back in the '70s and '80s we worked on fundamentals," he said. "We spent a little more time in the minor leagues than they do today because there are 30 teams, and they're going to hurry them to the big leagues.

"Too many guys just sit around waiting for that two-run, three-run home runs. The teams that put the ball in play go to the World Series."

Individual preferences aside, Rose has a point considering MLB experienced a power spike last year. In fact, the 2017 campaign saw players combine to hit a single-season record 6,105 dingers—up from 5,610 the year prior.

We can't draw sweeping conclusions since the 2018 regular season is a couple of months from drawing to a close, but the Washington Post's Dave Sheinin noted that home run rates in March and April were down from 2.34 to 2.14 per game year-over-year.