Giamatti Has ‘Substantial Evidence’ of Rose’s Bets on Reds, Lawyer Says

Baseball Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti has “substantial and heavily corroborated evidence” that Pete Rose bet on his own team’s games, a lawyer for major league baseball told a judge today.

The statement by Louis Hoynes Jr. was baseball’s first assertion that it has evidence that could get the Cincinnati Reds manager banned from baseball for life.

The Associated Press has reported that the evidence includes an expert’s determination that Rose’s handwriting is on betting slips involving Reds games. In addition, a federal law enforcement official told the New York Times that Rose’s fingerprints are on the slips. (Story, Part III, Page 1.)

Rose’s lawyers today asked Common Pleas Judge Norbert Nadel for a temporary restraining order blocking Giamatti’s hearing Monday with Rose in New York to consider the gambling allegations. The lawyers charge that Giamatti is biased.

“There is evidence, substantial and heavily corroborated evidence, that Mr. Rose bet large sums of money on major league baseball games and on games of the Cincinnati Reds,” Hoynes said in arguing against the request.

Investigator John Dowd’s report to the commissioner includes three “Pete Rose Betting Sheets” supplied to investigators by Paul G. Janszen, who claimed to have run bets for Rose to bookmaker Ronald Peters. Janszen later became an FBI informant.

Focus on Investigation

Rose’s lawyers presented a strategy to treat the gambling allegations as a peripheral issue, focusing instead on the way Giamatti handled the investigation. One of the witnesses testifying on Rose’s behalf was Sam Dash, chief counsel for the Senate Watergate committee in 1973-74 and now a Georgetown University law professor.

The first witness called by Robert Stachler, an attorney for Rose, was another of Rose’s lawyers, Robert Pitcairn, who testified about his dealings with the commissioner’s office during the Rose investigation.

“Mr. Dowd specifically promised to me that he was not going to make any conclusions (about Rose’s guilt),” Pitcairn said. “I think it’s pretty clear that the commissioner has rejected any arguments that attack the credibility of Mr. Peters.”

Peters, a former tavern owner who was given a reduced two-year sentence on drug and tax charges last week, has said he booked thousands of dollars in bets by Rose.

“We were prevented from any real right to confront witnesses, cross-examine witnesses,” Pitcairn said. “Credibility is an important issue in this case.”

Dash, who was called into the case about one month ago, was strongly critical of the way the investigation had been conducted.

“No accused (person) I know of in this country has ever had to prove his own innocence,” he said. “I think it’s unprecedented. The accused is being asked to come before the commissioner and confront pieces of paper.”