Pete Rose Won’t Fight Release of Betting Slips : Lawyer Says Reds Manager Didn’t Write Wager Sheets; Team Asks to Be Dismissed From Suit

An attorney for Pete Rose said today he will not object if a federal judge orders the FBI to release betting sheets allegedly written by Rose as well as the Cincinnati Reds manager’s fingerprint records.

Lawyers for baseball Commissioner Bart Giamatti asked U.S. District Judge John Holschuh to release the records Thursday. Federal privacy laws require Holschuh to order their release, the motion said.

The FBI in Cincinnati has the documents, and the bureau has no objection to their release, the motion said.

Rose has said he did not bet on the Reds or write the betting slips.

Wants Originals Released

Robert Stachler, Rose’s attorney, said he wants the originals released.

“We won’t object. We’ve been trying to get them all along,” Stachler said in a telephone interview from his Cincinnati office.

Paul Janszen, a former friend of Rose who says he ran bets for the Reds manager, has said he took the sheets from Rose’s home. A handwriting expert hired by baseball concluded they that are in Rose’s handwriting.

The commissioner wants the sheets to see if Rose’s fingerprints are on the originals.

Also on Thursday, the Reds asked the judge to dismiss the club as co-defendant in Rose’s suit against Giamatti. It was the club’s first formal response to Rose’s two-month search for an injunction against Giamatti, who wants to hold a disciplinary hearing concerning Rose’s gambling.

Rose’s suit contends that Giamatti is biased and cannot guarantee him a fair hearing.

The motion by the Reds relied in part on a paragraph in Rose’s complaint that said he “alleges no wrongful conduct” by the club.

Reds attorney Robert C. Martin said given that and the tradition of allowing baseball to handle its own affairs, no court has jurisdiction.

“It’s just our feeling that . . . major league baseball has done a good job policing itself for the last 70 years, and I believe it should still be allowed to do so,” Martin said today.

Giamatti wants to start disciplinary proceedings Thursday. Rose wants a second postponement of the hearing because Stachler is trying to get a federal appeals court to take the case away from Holschuh and return it to a state court in Cincinnati.

Holschuh has set a hearing Monday to determine whether protection against disciplinary action should be extended. A restraining order that prohibits Rose from being fired or from being disciplined by baseball expires Monday.

If Holschuh insists on Monday’s hearing, Rose would have until 5 p.m. today to seek an emergency stay from the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.

Position Reiterated

Stachler today filed a motion reiterating his position that Giamatti should not conduct the disciplinary hearing. The filing was in response to a motion filed Wednesday by baseball’s attorneys, who asked Holschuh to permit Giamatti to proceed with the hearing.

“Logic and fairness dictate that Pete Rose should be protected from the harm which will inexorably follow a hearing by this commissioner, and further that (Rose) be afforded a meaningful opportunity for review of the issue of federal jurisdiction,” Stachler said in the motion.