CINCINNATI (AP) – Excerpts from some of pitcher Todd Jones’ newspaper and magazine columns.

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ON BASEBALL’S HALL OF FAME:

And one more thing: There’s one rule that should never be broken by anyone in the game: Don’t bet on baseball. If, for one minute, fans think that an outcome has been fixed, our industry has nothing to sell the public. People watch baseball to see who wins and who loses. It’s as simple as that.

Pete Rose bet on baseball. It has been proved. To protect the integrity of the game, he should not be in the Hall of Fame.

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ON BASEBALL’S STEROIDS CONTROVERSY:

I think like most of the players: Come up with a test and a system that will catch the guys who use steroids and discipline them, or stop talking about it.

Testing came about because former and current players did talk about it. Now the owners and the players association don’t know what to do. The media make it out to be much more than it is.

I maintain that 5 percent of players use hard steroids, but the issue gets talked about way more than 5 percent of the time.

And we players have no one but ourselves to blame for that.

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ON THOUGHTS OF RETIRING AFTER LAST SEASON:

My thinking changed Nov. 6, when I was asked to visit John Paul Montgomery in my hometown of Pell City, Ala. Three months earlier, John Paul had suffered a broken neck and a bruised spinal cord during a football game with his ninth-grade team. The injuries left him paralyzed.

John Paul was fired up to meet me. To be honest, though, it felt weird that someone who’d had his world turned upside-down wanted to meet me. … As I got to know John Paul, I found out he didn’t need me feeling sorry for him. He just wanted to hang out and talk baseball and hunting. …

For one thing, I decided to play at least one more year. John Paul made me realize I needed to do it. He showed me a person doesn’t quit when it gets tough – he’s got months and months of therapy ahead of him, and he’s got the greatest grin on his face. He showed me that it’s OK to get knocked down, but a sin not to get up and try again.

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ON HAVING A GAY TEAMMATE:

First, I’m a heterosexual, God-fearing Baptist. I’m not here to explain if being gay is right or wrong, but I’d like to explain the dynamics of a gay person on a ballclub. On the field, there would be no problems. If the player could help our team win baseball games, I would not care if he was gay or green.

Off the field is where it gets tough. Real tough. Our team is around each other for eight months or more at a time. That’s more time than I’m around my wife and kids. We eat together, live together and shower together. I need to be comfortable around my teammates. In my opinion, if a gay player has made his sexual preference public, he would have to understand there are 24 teammates with different opinions who are going to deal with him differently. Some players would accept the gay player right off the bat, while others would never be able to accept him. …

For me, the original shock would be hard to handle. To know a player is gay and in the same shower as I am would be strange. It’s only human nature to feel this way. After a while, like anything else, I would get used to it. …

I think a gay baseball player would be lonely. Players would think twice about asking him out to lunch because other players might think the straight player is gay. I don’t think players are narrow-minded, but I think they are homophobic. I’m homophobic. It’s easy to be scared of something you don’t know anything about.