THE PETE ROSE INVESTIGATION : Rose Bet on Reds, Report Charges : Baseball Investigation Alleges He Set Up a Gambling Network

Pete Rose bet $2,000 per game on the Cincinnati Reds and other baseball teams during the summer of 1987 and set up an extensive gambling network over a three-year period, according to a report prepared for the commissioner’s office and released Monday.

The 225-page report, compiled by investigator John M. Dowd was publicly released by Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Norbert A. Nadel under pressure from the Ohio Supreme Court, which said he had no reason to keep it sealed.

On Sunday, Nadel granted the Reds manager a temporary restraining order that blocked baseball Commissioner Bart Giamatti from holding a hearing Monday on the gambling allegation. Rose could be banned from baseball for life if he was found to bet on the Reds. Dowd’s report much evidence that he did.

Rose “admitted that he has bet on sports events since 1975,” including National Football League, National Basketball Assn. and college basketball games, the report said, but noted Rose denied under oath that he bet on major league baseball.

Dowd’s report disagreed.

“The testimony and the documentary evidence gathered in the course of the investigation demonstrates that Pete Rose bet on baseball, and in particular, on games of the Cincinnati Reds Baseball Club, during the 1985, 1986 and 1987 seasons,” the report said.

“The evidence revealed that in order to protect his stature as one of the most famous baseball players in major league history, Pete Rose employed middlemen to place bets for him with bookmakers and at the race track and to pay gambling losses and collect gambling winnings, thereby concealing his gambling activity,” Dowd wrote.

In addition, the report says that Rose owned half of a $47,646 pick-six ticket at Turfway Park on April 6, 1989. Thomas P. Gioiosa “falsely represented to the IRS that he was the sole winner,” the report said. Gioiosa has been indicted for that and Rose is under investigation by a federal grand jury in Cincinnati.

After the Reds beat the Dodgers, 5-3, Monday night, Rose was asked if he believed the report was balanced.

“I can give you an outline,” he said. “There’s 225 pages and there’s two paragraphs positive about me. It’s such a biased report it’s unbelievable. But we will face that because there’s not a thing we can do about it.”

The report said Rose actively bet on baseball during the first half of the 1987 season.

“Between May and July 1987, Rose bet . . . $2,000 per game on baseball, including Reds games,” the report said. No one has claimed Rose bet against the Reds.

During the first month of the 1987 season, “Rose lost $67,900 as a result of his bets with Val,” the report said. Val was identified only as a bookmaker in Staten Island, N.Y., and no last name was given.

But, the report said, Rose had been successful early in the 1987 season in bets with bookmaker Ronald Peters, Rose’s chief accuser.

David Morgan, an associate of Peters, recalled being told by Peters during the 1987 season that he was “getting murdered” by Rose on baseball.

“Morgan stated that Peters advised him that Rose had him ‘hooked’ for ‘about seventy-five thousand,’ ” the report said.

Peters “said he assigned Rose a code number, 14, his playing number, which Rose never used. Instead, when Rose called him directly, he would always state, ‘This is Pete.’ Peters recalled one occasion in which he received a call directly from Pete Rose to place a bet five minutes before game time.”

Dowd’s report said Rose told Mark Stowe, Reds’ assistant clubhouse manager, this spring that he was betting through Janszen. After Monday’s game, Stowe denied saying that.

“No. Absolutely, not,” Stowe said.

Rose is alleged to have been kept abreast on his bets from the dugout at Riverfront Stadium. Those charges came from David Bernstein, a friend of Paul Janszen, who has said he is a close friend of Rose.

“Bernstein explained that Janszen, from their seats behind home plate, would indicate with his fingers and a thumbs up or down how many games Rose was winning and how many he was losing,” the report said.

Janszen and his girlfriend, Danita Marcum, testified they placed bets on the Reds and other baseball games for Rose with Peters from mid-May 1987 to July 14, 1987.

“He bet on . . . ?” Dowd quotes himself asking Janszen.

“Baseball, only baseball,” Janszen answered.

“Including the Reds?” Dowd asked.

“Yes, sir, every game,” Janszen said.

Marcum said she and Janszen went to Rose’s house from September 1986 through December 1986 and said Rose and his friends would intently watch sports on television.

“If we were sitting at Pete Rose’s house, Pete would have a book, a ledger book, hard-bound, and then he would have a legal pad inside of it which he would put down his gambling wins and losses,” she was quoted as saying.

“I know we would go over there and we would sit and we’d be watching the games on TV. Or if we were over there during, like the early afternoon, Pete may be looking at the paper, or even late morning, and he would tell Paul who he wanted for that day.”

The report said Janszen testified he recalled Rose bet through Gioiosa on the 1986 National League playoffs between the New York Mets and Houston Astros.

“According to Janszen, Rose explained to Gioiosa, ‘It made them more exciting,’ ” the report said.

The report lists several telephone calls made between Rose and his associates.

“On July 1, 1987, the Reds played the Astros in Cincinnati at 7:35 p.m. and won 6-4. Telephone records indicate Janszen called Peters at 7:07 p.m. The call lasted one minute. . . . According to Peters’ records, Rose bet $2,000 each on the Reds, Pittsburgh, San Diego, Cleveland, Texas and Minnesota. He won three and lost three bets,” the report said.

Dowd also said that evidence supports the testimony of Peters, who claims he took perhaps more than $1 million in bets on behalf of Rose over a two-year period.

Dowd said a key exhibit involved three betting sheets that were determined by a former FBI agent to be in Rose’s handwriting. The sheets, which Janszen admitted he stole from Rose’s home, include three Reds game and handwriting that shows “5 dimes”--$5,000 in gambling parlance--bet on several games.

Rose was confronted with the evidence during a deposition, but denied any involvement.