Officials Cast Doubt on Rose-y Interview by Leader of Band

Inquiring minds, pay close attention:

Doug Mays, a musician-photographer from Moss Point, Miss., claims that on Aug. 25, after booking his band, Doug Mays and the Key West Coconuts, into the federal prison in Marion, Ill., for a rock concert, he and wife Sammie, a reporter for the Mississippi Press in Pascagoula, smuggled in a tape recorder and a camera for a 15-minute interview and photo session with Pete Rose, who was watching a baseball game on television with other inmates.

Their story and photos will appear in the National Enquirer.

But Robert Carr, the prison’s chief psychologist, said: “Mr. Rose was not subjected to an interview, and there may have been a picture taken, but it wouldn’t have been with his approval. Mr. Rose has repeatedly said that he didn’t want to be interviewed.”

Add Rose: Mays told the Associated Press: “Pete Rose said, ‘Y’all Mississippians are hell.’ He kept laughing about how we sneaked past the guards. He was impressed.”

After the interview, the Mayses slipped back to the visitors’ patio, where the band played a 90-minute set for about 230 inmates. Rose sat in on the last 15 minutes of the show.

Said Mays: “He gave us the thumbs-up. And a smile.”

Last add Rose: Said prison psychologist Carr: “There was a band in here that evening, but our position is that the whole thing is a fabrication.

“(The Mayses) refer to themselves as con artists. Sometimes egos, especially among people who are employed by that publication, run rampant. I suspect money would have something to do with that.”

Trivia time: Name the American novelist who covered the Pottsville (Pa.) Maroons of the NFL early in his career.

Long green: Dolly Green, the philanthropist and thoroughbred owner who died Tuesday in Bel-Air, caused a stir when she paid $2.2 million for five yearlings at the 1986 Keeneland sale in Lexington, Ky.

Times sports editor Bill Dwyre, covering the Kentucky Derby that week, asked her where she got her money.

Green answered that it came from her father, oil magnate Burton Green, who founded Beverly Hills.

Said Dwyre: “How much of Beverly Hills did he own?”

Said Green: “Oh, all of it.”

The People’s Team: They’ll be partying in the parking lot tonight before Portland State plays host to Iowa Wesleyan. But there’s one hitch to this school-sponsored tailgate affair: It’s for kids only.

Last week, during the home opener against Slippery Rock (Pa.), Portland State’s marketing and promotion department revived a stunt it initiated last year. On a designated series, fans got to make the call, holding up cards reading, “Run” or “Pass.”

Add Portland State: Later this season, before each of the Vikings’ three road games broadcast on station KPDX, the Oregon station will run an ad with a coupon fans can use to vote for “heads” or “tails,” should Portland State win the coin toss. Shortly before each game, on camera, Coach Pokey Allen will be handed an envelope containing the fans’ selection.

Trivia answer: John O’Hara in the 1920s.

Quotebook: Boxing promoter Butch Lewis, on the sport’s multitude of divisions: “If all the different champions stripped down naked and ran through Times Square at noon, they wouldn’t get noticed. Well, they might get noticed, but nobody would say, ‘Man, there went the cruiserweight champion of the world.’ ”