Spring-Long Soap Opera Follows Rose

The camera crews set up early by the Cincinnati Reds dugout. ABC and CBS are here this time. NBC was in the day before.

They’re all aboard on this strange, cross-country vigil. Wherever Pete Rose goes, they go--the dugout, the airport, even the shower.

All this time, manpower and electrical gear is devoted to one man and one story. All wait for an outburst or a decision, some closing chapter to this spring-long soap opera of baseball and gambling.

“I try to figure out what they’re doing,” Rose says. “CBS, for the last 68 days, follows me everywhere. How much footage do you need of the guy by the batting cage? Death watch? If that’s the case, Kodak is in good shape.”

Perhaps. But the accountants who run the networks aren’t dumb. Any game could be the last for Rose.

By now, almost everyone has heard one allegation or another about Rose and betting. Tales that the Reds manager allegedly absorbed enormous gambling debts and bet on baseball. Even a suggestion that Rose used hand signals to place wagers from the dugout.

“The stuff is hideous,” Rose says. “One week, you owe someone $700,000. The next week, I win money at the track. Do I owe it or own it? There is no confirmation on anything. Just take your shot.”

Rose, accustomed to holding center stage as a player, is playing a different role. He may be innocent until proven guilty in the courts, but he is the target of an investigation by the commissioner’s office and a media posse looking for a smoking gun or bookie’s cash box. The media circus began March 20 and hasn’t let up.

“I’d hate to spend the money CBS has spent the last three months,” Rose says. “Three people from Plant City (Fla.) to Cincinnati, to Houston to L.A. There was a reporter in L.A., an ABC guy, who said he was happy to be at Dodger Stadium. He told me he once played chess with Yasser Arafat. I told him, ‘I’ve got checkers. Want to play?’ ”

Rose is chummy with the network producers, who are female. He even knows their code word for the questioner who asks about gambling and brings the postgame news conferences to a halt. The word is unfit to print in a family newspaper, and even Rose laughs at its diabolical crassness.

“They’ve seen me in my underwear in the last month more than my wife has,” he says.

Rose remains outwardly calm and confident. Sunday, he sat in the visiting manager’s office at Veterans Stadium and talked with seven reporters for an hour before the game against the Philadelphia Phillies, which the Reds won, 5-3. His hands were in constant motion. He alternately tapped a pencil on the desk and wrapped a rubber band around his fingers. Subjects ranged from pitcher Danny Jackson’s five losses to the finer points of horse breeding to the Kentucky Derby prospects of a colt named Houston.

The guy said that he still enters pools for the Derby, the Masters and the Indianapolis 500. Rose even wore his love for the horses on his chest. His T-shirt was covered with a cartoon of himself on a nag, surrounded by a silver horseshoe.

Rose verged on anger only once, when reminded that it was the one-year anniversary of his infamous bumping incident with umpire Dave Pallone. That bump cost Rose money and time away from baseball.

“The only thing I remember about that game is I spent $10,000 and lost 30 days,” Rose said. “Some guys get suspended three days; I get 30. That’s like getting kicked out of 30 straight games before they start.”

Then, he relaxed.

“This is easy,” he said. “I’m just answering questions. The easiest part of the job is the game. I’m active. I’ve got things on my mind.”

Lineups and stats . . . a pitching rotation and a roster change . . . baseball.

Inevitably, the issue of gambling is brought up. Not directly, mind you. But, it lurks underneath queries about the Reds, memorabilia sales and the commissioner’s probe.

“I’ve got nothing to do with memorabilia,” he says. “For someone to insinuate they have my 4,192 bat is wrong. You can go to Japan and get a 4,192 bat and have Pete Rose sign it. That doesn’t mean it’s a 4,192 bat.”

The bat--used when Rose got his record-setting 4,192nd base hit--hangs in a Cincinnati restaurant.

Rose says that the commissioner’s office is undertaking a “thorough investigation” of all gambling and tax-related allegations.

“I have no idea how thorough they’re trying to be,” he says. “I can’t comment on it. I don’t know how many people they have left to talk to. How many people are there in this country? Two hundred twenty million?”

Rose also mentioned his now-standard defense of gambling: “I bet within my means. I don’t borrow money to go to the track. To my knowledge, horse racing is the No. 1 spectator sport in the world.”

Rose even took time to shoot down the latest rumor--that he was asked to resign as manager by baseball’s commissioner, A. Bartlett Giamatti.

“If you’re asking me if the commissioner’s office asked me to step down, that’s the furthest thing from the truth,” he said. “My job is to run the Cincinnati Reds, and I can’t do that if I step down.”

Others are coming around to the theory that the longer the investigation drags on, the better chance Rose has of remaining manager.

“You look at the history of Pete Rose,” former Reds catcher Johnny Bench said in a television interview Sunday. “He will survive all this, write a book, do a movie and make $50 million in the lawsuit.”

The Reds players also appear content to remain sideshow performers.

“What could be better than this?” said third baseman Chris Sabo. “We’re winning. We don’t let that other stuff worry us.”

Rose seems to delight in keeping the media entertained and away from his players. An example: While Rose talked before yesterday’s game, most of the Reds players were in the trainer’s room, crowded around a television set, watching “The Three Stooges.”

“We’ve got good players here,” he says. “To my knowledge, there are seven writers here, and are you bothering the players? All the crap they write about me is on the front page, and the games are on the sports pages. There isn’t a player in that room that knows a damn thing about what I do when I’m not here.”

The clock ticks. Rose turns the tables.

“Anyone got any baseball questions?” he says.

How about managing?

“You have to use your 24 players,” he says. “If you’ve got the best players, you can prevail. I don’t know any more about baseball than Nick Leyva (the Phillies manager) or you do. I know more about my players. I was an offensive player. I’ll be an offensive manager.”

Rose says that Jackson’s problems are vexing. Here is a pitcher who won 23 games last season but leads National League starters in defeats.

“I talked to him,” Rose says. “Just mark it down as a lousy April. Be Pitcher of the Month in May.”

Sounds like Rose may follow the same advice. Stay on the offense, forget a lousy month and remain unafraid of the future. The Reds go to Shea Stadium for a two-game series with the New York Mets beginning Wednesday. If the commissioner invites him in for a little interview, Rose would oblige.

“I’ve been given no indication that will happen,” he says. “I know a few people who will be interviewed Thursday. Anything is possible. If the phone rings and it’s the commissioner’s office, I will be there. How will it be possible for me to go to the commissioner’s office and not be spotted? The commissioner could say I want to meet on the moon, and I will try to get a ticket.”

Finally, he says, “I’m going to New York to win two games.”

Rose won’t be tough to find. Just look for the manager and his minicams.