No Apology for Rose Interview

NBC Sports reporter Jim Gray isn’t apologizing for the interview he did with Pete Rose before Game 2 of the World Series on Sunday night.

“I stand by it,” Gray said Monday. “It was the absolute right line of questioning.”

As for the interview ruining the moment for Rose, Gray said, “Pete ruined his own evening.”

Gray said it was Rose who set the tone of the interview, and said he is surprised by all the negative reaction.

“I did my job,” Gray said.

However, he admitted to having a bad feeling afterward. “It’s a shame the way it turned out,” he said.

Possibly not since Jim Rome goaded Jim Everett into coming at him across a table in 1994 has there been the kind of negative reaction to a sports interview.

“Gray Foul With Rose” read the Newsday headline. “NBC’s Gray Wrong,” screamed the New York Daily News.

In Los Angeles, a Channel 4 sports producer said his station hadn’t received so many complaint calls since a man was shown committing suicide live on TV on a freeway ramp on May 1, 1998.

“I know what’s going on, I don’t live in a fish bowl,” Gray said, “but that is news to me.”

The interview with Rose was done right after he had received the longest ovation of any member of the sport’s all-century team, announced before Game 2. Gray’s first question was about Rose’s gambling.

Gray said Rose had addressed similar questions in a news conference less than an hour before going on the air with NBC in a much less confrontational tone.

“I tried very hard to be very fair to Pete and I think I was very fair,” Gray said. “The fact that he didn’t like it doesn’t mean it wasn’t fair.”

Rose likened Gray’s approach to a “prosecutor’s brief.”

“You know, I’m surprised you’re bombarding me with this,” Rose told Gray on the air. “I’m here to do an interview with you on a great night, a great occasion. You’re bringing up something that happened 10 years ago.”