Investigator Says Evidence on Rose Found : Testimony Claims Manager Bet on Cincinnati Games

Major league baseball’s investigation of Cincinnati Red Manager Pete Rose has turned up substantial evidence that Rose bet heavily on baseball games, including those involving the Reds, according to testimony from special investigator John Dowd here Thursday in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court.

In a hearing, to be continued today, on Rose’s request for a temporary restraining order that would delay his scheduled hearing Monday before baseball Commissioner Bart Giamatti, Dowd revealed parts of a confidential 250-page report he had submitted to Giamatti after a four-month investigation.

According to Dowd, the report contains affidavits from nine independent witnesses claiming firsthand knowledge of Rose’s gambling, as well as nine who said they knew nothing of Rose’s gambling.

Dowd also testified that the reports contain records of phone calls between Rose and bookmakers, checks written by Rose to bookmakers, and three betting sheets that handwriting experts claim belong to Rose.

Rose maintains that Dowd’s report has already judged him guilty without due process, and is suing to end Giamatti’s involvement in the investigation. Rose wants a court of law to determine his future.

The hearing here was the first step in that lawsuit.

“If I was in Mr. Rose’s shoes, I wouldn’t like my report either,” Dowd testified.

Said Robert Stachler, one of Rose’s lawyers, in his opening statement: “We are not here to determine whether Pete Rose bet on baseball. The issue is whether he is entitled to a fair hearing with an impartial jury. Bartlett Giamatti is prejudiced, and cannot serve as an impartial judge.”

If presiding Judge Norbert A. Nadel rules in favor of a temporary restraining order, Rose’s lawyers have 15 days to seek a permanent injunction against Giamatti.

If he rules against Rose, the hearing with Giamatti will remain scheduled.

If Giamatti is allowed to hear the case, and concludes that Rose bet only on games in which he was not involved, Rose could be suspended for a year. If Giamatti finds that Rose also bet on the Reds, he could be suspended for life.

Thursday’s first official disclosure of gambling evidence prompted reports here that Marge Schott, the owner of the Reds, plans to fire Rose, baseball’s all-time hits leader, before the weekend is over. When the lawsuit was filed earlier this week, Giamatti’s office promised that no punitive action would be taken against Rose through 5 p.m. Sunday.

The Reds have a weekend series here against the Dodgers, beginning tonight.

“Do I like this? No,” testified Dowd, who has been working on this case since February. “Not a day goes by when I don’t feel enormous sadness with this matter.

“This is something I don’t know has ever been done. All we’ve tried to do was seek the truth.”

Rose’s lawyers hotly disputed that in the small, aging courtroom crowded with nearly 100 spectators, some sitting on marble window sills, many standing in the aisles. Outside, a man dressed as Uncle Sam carried a sign reading, “Free Mr. Baseball. Give the Kids a Hero.”

Dowd, who was Thursday’s final witness and will be cross-examined by Rose’s lawyers today, strongly indicated that the hero was tarnished.

His most serious evidence appeared to be the three betting sheets, which Dowd said contain a list of major league baseball and professional basketball games, all printed by Rose.

“Witnesses testified to us that these sheets came from Pete Rose’s house, and are in Rose’s handwriting,” Dowd said. “And handwriting experts concluded that they were written by Rose.”

Rose’s lawyers maintain that the sheets are phony, citing one entry that has Cincinnati playing at Montreal on April 9, 1987. The Reds did not play the Expos in Montreal that day. Rather, the teams played the previous day in Cincinnati.

“That raises a serious question about the sheets,” testified Robert Pitcairn, one of Rose’s attorneys who was also a witness.

“It was the only such mistake,” Dowd testified. “And we noted that mistake in the report.”

Dowd testified that the FBI has checked the sheets for fingerprints. One published report claims that the FBI has linked those fingerprints to Rose, but Dowd testified that he has yet to see those results, and is currently attempting to obtain them.

Dowd also spoke of three $9,000 checks written by Rose, allegedly to pay off gambling debts.

“We found the checks and showed them to Ron Peters (Rose’s alleged bookmaker and one of two leading witnesses listed in the report), along with several $9,000 checks that were not the real ones, and he picked out the three real checks immediately,” Dowd testified.

Dowd also spoke of phone records showing 1987 phone calls between Rose and Peters, and between alleged go-between Paul Janszen, baseball’s other leading witness. Many of these calls, according to Dowd, came directly from Riverfront Stadium, where all calls placed to or from the clubhouse must go through the switchboard.

“There was this enormous phone traffic over one three-month period, calls from Rose’s house, from hotels on the road, and even from Riverfront Stadium, calls going from Peters and Janszen to Rose, calls going out right before game time,” Dowd testified.

Dowd also said that in 1986 and ‘87, Peters did more than just phone Rose.

“We have a list of the complimentary tickets given from players to their guests, and Peters was quite often a guest of Rose,” Dowd testified.

Dowd also said that he met with Rose for two days in April, laid out all of his evidence and offered to let Rose and his lawyers respond. Rose’s lawyers have been claiming that Giamatti is giving them no time or outlet for response.

“I don’t know what else can help a lawyer more than for the other side to completely expose their position, which I did,” Dowd testified. “And even now, if they want to bring their witnesses in there Monday, I will help them. Whatever they want to do.”

Rose’s lawyers are seeking to prove that Dowd’s supposedly unbiased report concluded guilt, and that Giamatti had already given indications that he agreed with that finding.

They produced a letter, dated April 18, from Giamatti to Chief U.S. District Judge Carl Rubin, who was scheduled to sentence Peters on charges of tax evasion and drug trafficking. According to Stachler, the letter said Peters’ testimony had been “candid, forthright and truthful.”

Stachler said: “With that letter, Giamatti had already prejudged the case, already believing Peters’ testimony was true.”

Dowd responded by saying it was he, not Giamatti, who had written the letter.

Rose’s attorneys also called two celebrated legal-process witnesses to discredit Dowd’s report. Both claimed that the report, in essence, stated that Rose was a gambler and contained no research that would have countered that statement.

Sam Dash, former chief counsel to the U.S. Senate Watergate Committee, testified: “This is a report so full . . . if it was given to me by any of my Watergate investigators, I would fire them. This was not the report of a professional investigator, this was a prosecutor’s brief. This finds Rose guilty through mostly inadmissible evidence and hearsay.”

Testified Jonathan Palmer, former Ohio court of appeals judge: “My opinion is that the commissioner of baseball has prejudiced this case, and that he cannot hear the case consistent with his own rule . . . regarding fairness.”