CINCINNATI—Pete Rose Jr., whose father was issued a lifetime ban from baseball in 1989 for betting on Reds games while employed as the team's manager, found a way to further tarnish the baseball legacy of the Rose family when he pleaded guilty Monday to charges that he distributed and sold an illegal steroid alternative to his minor-league teammates. "It'd be tough for any son to live in the shadow of a tax-evading gambler, a man who would only admit he compromised the integrity of baseball as part of a publicity stunt to promote his autobiography," said Cincinnati Reds beat reporter Hal McCoy, who has written extensively about Rose Sr.'s various exploits, from the sale of counterfeit memorabilia to his dressing up in a chicken outfit at professional-wrestling pay-per-view events. "But Rose Jr., who never had the raw talent that his father exhibited in his heyday, was nonetheless able to live up to his namesake in his own way." As punishment for peddling the drug gamma butyrolactone (GBL) to teammates, Rose Jr. is facing up to two years in federal prison, a fine of $1 million, and a lifetime ban from all Double-A baseball and the independent Atlantic League's defending champion Long Island Ducks.