While often referring to Rose as a baseball hero, U.S. District Judge A. Arthur Spiegel said he had to ignore Rose’s fame.
“Today, we are not dealing with the legend,” Spiegel said.
The Baseball Commission expressed similar sentiments before Rose agreed to be banned from baseball for life on Aug. 24, 1989.
“Pete Rose has denied under oath ever betting on Major League Baseball or associating with anyone who bet on Major League Baseball,” the Commission’s report states. “However, the investigation has developed evidence to the contrary. The testimony and the documentary evidence gathered in the course of the investigation demonstrates that Pete Rose bet on baseball, and in particular, on games of the Cincinnati Reds Baseball Club, during the 1985, 1986 and 1987 seasons.”
“The evidence showed that with few exceptions, Rose did not deal directly with bookmakers but rather placed his bets through others,” the report says.
Rose placed bets on baseball with Ron Peters, a bookmaker in Franklin. Although Rose placed his bets with Peters primarily through Tommy Gioiosa, on several occasions Rose placed bets on baseball games, including Cincinnati Reds games, directly with Peters, the report says.
“Betting on baseball by a participant of the game is corrupt because it erodes and destroys the integrity of the game of baseball,” the Commission noted. “Betting also exposes the game to the influence of forces who seek to control the game to their own ends. Betting on one’s own team gives rise to the ultimate conflict of interest in which the individual player/bettor places his personal financial interest above the interests of the team.”
Credit: Tom Gilliam
Credit: Tom Gilliam
Investigators for the Commission spent numerous hours with Rose reviewing the overwhelming evidence they had regarding his betting on baseball, including the Cincinnati Reds. When they were finished, Rose insisted, “I’m guilty of one thing in this whole mess, and that’s I was a horse (feces) selector of friends.”
Rose also insisted he was not a compulsive gambler or needing help.
Troy attorney Jose M. Lopez said former Dayton attorney Roger J. Makley, who represented Rose, shared this “favorite Pete Rose story” with him.
Unable to contain his laughter, Lopez said Makley, a former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, said “Pete saw where he was going to be banned for life for gambling” by Major League Baseball Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti. “So Giamatti dies” on September 1, 1989 and Pete calls Makley and asks, “Am I back in?”
“No,” Makley replied. “You did it (agreed to be banned from baseball) for life.”
“No!” Rose protested. “We didn’t say whose life.”
Rose died Sept. 30 at the age of 83. Despite still holding a league records for career hits, he still won’t be going into the Baseball Hall of Fame. The Hall’s board of directors in 1991 adopted a rule that anyone on the permanently ineligible list can’t be considered for election even after death.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Former Major League Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent told The Associated Press shortly after Rose’s death: “At the end, how can you not feel very sorry for a guy who suffered from sort of a human failing, which is an excessive belief in his infallibility, and he kept testing that. ... Kept being punished, and he never got a lesson.”
“The lesson was stop doing what you’re doing,” he said.
Credit: Tom Gilliam
Credit: Tom Gilliam
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