Box Score Is Mixed for Rose : Red Manager Wins in Shoving Case, Loses Court Appeal

Pete Rose was neither suspended nor fined for his part in a shoving incident with umpire Joe West in Cincinnati Tuesday night, but Thursday’s news wasn’t all good for the Reds’ manager.

A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected Rose’s bid to overturn a decision July 31 by U.S. District Judge John D. Holschuh to keep Rose’s lawsuit against Commissioner Bart Giamatti in federal court rather than state court.

Rose has claimed that Giamatti prejudged his investigation into the manager’s alleged gambling activities, a contention supported by Judge Norbert A. Nadel of the Hamilton County Common Pleas Court. Nadel issued a temporary restraining order June 25 that has prevented Giamatti from conducting a hearing that could result in Rose’s suspension for life if it is determined he bet on games involving the Reds.

Lawyers for Giamatti want the case heard in federal court, where the authority of the commissioner has always been supported and where judges are not subject to the pressures on elected state judges such as Nadel. Lawyers for Rose had wanted it returned to Nadel’s state court in his hometown of Cincinnati.

The appellate judges, in their four-page ruling, said the appeal Rose sought was not appropriate because Holschuh properly applied settled legal principles regarding federal-state jurisdiction.

Holschuh concluded that Rose’s lawsuit belongs in federal court because of the diversity of citizenship principle. Rose is based in Cincinnati and Giamatti in New York. When the litigants in a suit are from different states, Holschuh reasoned, the case falls under federal jurisdiction. The appeals court also said it was not inclined to give Rose’s appeal special treatment merely because of its high visibility.

“The rights of the parties do not change in proportion to their notoriety,” the appeals judges wrote.

Holschuh will set a date to hear Rose’s request for a preliminary injunction against Giamatti, which, if rejected, will free Giamatti to conduct the hearing with Rose.

Meanwhile, Red second baseman Ron Oester was fined $100 for throwing his bat after striking out to end Tuesday night’s game between the Reds and Chicago Cubs. But National League president Bill White, after meeting with the involved parties, declined to issue any suspensions over the post-game shoving incident or to acknowledge reports that he fined West for twice shoving Oester.

White’s decision drew an angry response from the Reds, who thought West should have been suspended. ‘He pushed (Oester) hard enough to make a hole for Herschel Walker to get through,” Rose said of the umpire. “I just don’t understand that. It’s unbelievable. What does an umpire have to do to warrant a suspension?

“If I’d have done that to an umpire, they would have kicked me out for the rest of the year. If a player did that, they would have kicked him out for a week.”

Rose was suspended for 30 days and fined $10,000 for shoving umpire Dave Pallone last season. He made contact with West Tuesday night, Rose said, only in an attempt to keep the umpire away from Oester. Rose’s involvement was not mentioned in crew chief Jerry Crawford’s report to White.

“That’s the only report I ain’t been in this year,” Rose said.

General Manager Murray Cook of the Reds held a news conference to complain about the lack of suspension for West and said he complained to White. “Frankly, we do feel quite strongly that the decision handed down was out of line,” Cook said. “We think disciplinary action needs to be taken in that kind of situation.”

West, who was suspended for three days and fined $300 in 1983 for pushing then-Atlanta Braves manager Joe Torre in a runway leading to the umpires’ dressing quarters in Atlanta, declined comment Thursday.