No one ever asked what was my relationship with Bart Giamatti. We used to talk about baseball a lot as a player and a commissioner, just talk about the game, what could we do to help the game, where’s the game going, he was pretty good.

Rose contrasts public curiosity about his relationships with baseball officials with the more sensational scrutiny that surrounded him after the gambling investigation. By invoking Bart Giamatti—MLB commissioner during the period when Rose was investigated and ultimately accepted a lifetime ban—Rose frames their interactions as ordinary, game-centered conversations between a prominent player/manager and the league’s leadership. The quote functions as a bid to humanize both men and to suggest that, beneath the later conflict and disciplinary outcome, there was mutual engagement about baseball’s health and direction. It also implicitly argues that the relationship was professional rather than conspiratorial or personal, and that Giamatti’s stewardship was respected even by someone he disciplined.