Commentary : For Rose and for Baseball, Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied

The wheels of baseball’s justice grind exceedingly slow. So slow that they present an injustice to Pete Rose and to the game the commissioner represents. Too slow.

The commissioner’s wheels have ground with too many squeaks of leaked information and too much official silence. What little official information has come forth has been misinformation.

Blame Peter Ueberroth for leaving potentially the most unpleasant matter of his time for his successor. Blame Bart Giamatti for carrying on with Rose’s guilt by innuendo as plain as the box scores on baseball’s face.

Now Washington lawyer John Dowd, heading the investigation, has informed the commissioner that a report will be submitted next week. And then, unless Giamatti concludes that the investigation found nothing incriminating and clears Rose, Rose will have time to study the evidence before presenting his rebuttal.

This has been going on since Feb. 20, when Rose met with Ueberroth and Giamatti at the commissioner’s office. Remember that the next day Ueberroth said Rose’s well-known gambling habits were “not the reason” for the meeting.

“There’s nothing ominous, and there won’t be any follow-through,” Ueberroth said. Of course he knew better all the while. On March 20 his office announced that it had been conducting “a full inquiry into serious allegations” about Rose for several months.

Since then bits and pieces of allegations have told us that Rose’s well-known penchant for gambling was much greater than we imagined. He kept bad company. We also learned that the Internal Revenue Service has accumulated enough information to convene a grand jury to hear evidence that Rose may have dodged some income tax. The IRS doesn’t go to court unless it has a winner.

Taxes are withheld from baseball salaries, just as from yours and mine, and Rose would have had to file a return, so it’s not likely that a prison sentence is involved. He is not Al Capone. The suspicion is that Rose did not report income from sales of memorabilia and appearances at card shows, or cash payments from equipment manufacturers for endorsements.

But that’s not baseball’s business. It’s not the business of baseball whether Rose failed to report his winnings at the horses and the dogs; such is legal gambling. It’s not really baseball’s business whether Rose bet on football or basketball.

If the commissioner finds that Rose bet on baseball, he would be suspended for a year. If the commissioner finds that Rose bet on games involving his own team, he would be banned for life. Those are fitting penalties for violations against baseball.

A bookmaker named Ronald Peters told federal investigators he took bets over a two-year period “that could very well amount to in excess of a million dollars,” according to an assistant U.S. attorney general.

But Rose has been permitted to continue managing the Reds throughout the long investigation. If Ueberroth and Giamatti had as much evidence as innuendo, they should not have permitted Rose to go into the season managing. Police officers under investigation are customarily reassigned pending departmental findings.

A man under suspicion of betting on baseball games shouldn’t be permitted in uniform. If there wasn’t anything that strong, Ueberroth and then Giamatti should have made it clear that until and unless they had something stronger, they had to consider Rose clean. They damned Rose with their silence.

And the Reds have been kept in the dark for all of spring training and well into the season. Is Rose the manager or is he not? Players feel the tension that has caused Rose to lose his hair and undoubtedly some sleep and concentration.

Now if Giamatti and Dowd haven’t produced enough evidence to suspend Rose for at least a year for associating with the wrong people, then baseball looks very bad. And Rose will have his scarlet letter anyhow.

There’s no reason to think Giamatti has any kind of vendetta against Rose. The commissioner is an honorable man. He is entrusted with keeping the game clean in perception as well as in fact. A perceived crack in integrity is as damaging as a real crack.

A manager who bets on his own team can do a lot of damage even if he isn’t deliberately causing his team to lose. He can manipulate his pitching rotation to better his chances tomorrow instead of today. He can spend his best relief pitcher to win today when that pitcher needs the day off.

None of that is absolute. Good hitters have been known to pop up on hanging curveballs. But the bettor is looking for an edge. Nobody knows the odds and edges of baseball better than Pete Rose.

Once the image of integrity is gone, then baseball may as well be wrestling or jai alai.

Giamatti wants to be certain he has an unbreakable case before he passes judgment. But justice delayed as long as this is justice denied -- both for Rose and for baseball.

There’s been no suggestion that Rose is involved in drugs, but he associated with people who were. Peters is awaiting sentence after pleading guilty to tax evasion and distribution of cocaine. Tommy Gioiosa, who once lived with Rose and has made allegations against him, is under indictment for cocaine distribution.

Michael Fry, who formerly operated a gym where Rose worked out, is serving an eight-year sentence for drug trafficking and tax evasion. Paul Janszen has told of placing bets on behalf of Rose, and Janszen is in a halfway house for tax evasion on the illegal sale of steroids.

All of those have questionable credibility, but then people who can give evidence on big-time gambling or drugs are seldom your best citizens.