Giamatti Sets Hearing With Rose : Reds’ Manager Gets Chance to Answer Gambling Report

Pete Rose will have a hearing May 25 before baseball Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti to respond to a special investigator’s 225-page report on the Cincinnati manager’s alleged gambling activities.

“Pete Rose has testified but is owed, in my opinion, an opportunity to review the report and its accompanying materials, and thereafter to respond to me, if he wishes to do so,” Giamatti said today. “Therefore, I have set a hearing date for May 25 at 9 a.m. in my office.”

Giamatti refused to disclose any part of the report, prepared by Washington lawyer John Dowd.

“I intend to do my utmost to protect the confidentiality of all this material until such time as I decide on the ultimate disposition of the report.

“That decision will come after hearing from Mr. Rose and after I have reached a judgment,” he said.

Giamatti said the report was supported by “seven volumes of exhibits containing depositions, statements, documents, reports, transcripts and other materials.” Rose and his attorneys have been sent all of the material.

Roger Makley, a Dayton, Ohio, lawyer representing Rose, said: “All I can do is tell you that I and my colleagues will review the report and make what decisions we make after we have read the report.”

Asked whether Rose might ask for a postponement of the hearing if his lawyers feel they need more preparation time, Makley said: “You’re asking me to speculate, and I can’t speculate.”

Besides baseball’s investigation of charges that the Reds’ manager placed bets on baseball, a federal grand jury in Cincinnati is also conducting an inquiry.

“In terms of the time, effort and care we invested in the inquiry, I was very satisfied,” Dowd told the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Dowd, whose investigation lasted 10 weeks, would not comment on details of the report.

“This thing has been going on for some time, and I know that bothered a lot of people,” Dowd said. “I know it has been difficult for Pete Rose. But you can’t put enough effort and care into something like this.