'I Did Bet on Baseball'

By Bill Plaschke

Jan. 6, 2004 12 AM PT

Our credulity is being bowled over at home plate. Our intelligence is being dragged across the dirt on its belly.

You see what’s happening, right?

We’re being Charlie Hustled.

In finally admitting this week that he’d bet on the Cincinnati Reds while managing them, Pete Rose wants us to think he is sorry.

He’s not sorry, he’s greedy.

In trying to make up for 4,256 lies, Rose wants us to think he is pleading for admittance into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

He doesn’t care about the Hall of Fame, he wants to return to the dugout in Cincinnati.

This week’s mea culpa -- after 14-plus years of steadfast denials -- is not about doing the right thing, it’s about doing the Rose thing.

That’s the recurring exercise in which he contorts the truth, controls the spin, turns an ill-mannered jock into a martyr.

There was the Jim Gray interview in Atlanta during the 1999 World Series, after Rose had received a standing ovation for being part of the All-Century team. Walking off the field, Rose acted insulted when Gray asked him if he’d bet on baseball.

Soon, the world was insulted with Rose, ripping the messenger while refusing to wonder why, in all these years, the ballplayer had never offered an answer.

Then there were the autograph signings a couple of doors down from the Hall of Fame during induction weekend, Rose scribbling and bragging about the size of his crowds.

He is close enough to the museum to cause a distraction, but distant enough to evoke sympathy, and we buy every wince.

During a splendid 24-season career, Rose played several positions, none of them as well as he plays saint.

And now there’s this, finally, an admission that he did exactly what he was banned for doing, betting on the Reds when he managed there in 1987 and 1988.

He could have said this 14 years ago and had his own bronze plaque by now.

Baseball would have been healthier, its history would have been clearer, its integrity would have been stronger.

Instead, Rose spent all that time making money off the lie -- Come see the mistreated superstar, the outlaw Josey Rose!

He changed his story only when he realized the truth might pay better.

He didn’t make his latest peace in a free public forum, he did it in a newly released book, which he will promote on television.

He did not do it to help himself gain immortality in the Hall of Fame, but to help himself fatten his checkbook as the Reds’ manager.

A couple of years ago, I told Rose I thought that if he agreed to accept banishment from baseball operations, it might help his chances of regaining eligibility for Cooperstown.

He said it was not a trade he was willing to accept.

“I can’t make that deal,” he said at the time. “I want to manage again. You don’t think somebody would want me to manage again? Do you know what kind of money managers are making today?”

When Rose was fired by the Reds, he was making about $330,000 a year. Today, the top managers are making more than $3 million a year.

That’s a lot of parimutuel tickets. He said he needs that sort of money to support his lifestyle.

This is not about remorse, it’s about a job application.

He doesn’t apologize to his loyal fans, who believed him for these last 14 years.

He doesn’t apologize to investigator John Dowd, whose findings that Rose had bet on baseball made Dowd an object of public ridicule for 14 years.

Of course, there is one place where Rose probably will never have to apologize, and doesn’t he know it.

Eric Davis, who played for Rose when the manager bet on games, considers him a friend, and understands Rose’s hometown.

“If Cincinnati is the White House, then Pete Rose is the president,” Davis said Monday.

He recalled Rose’s last official appearance there. It was at a charity softball game to mark the closing of Cinergy Field in the fall of 2002.

Rose brought a bunch of his former teammates and filled the 40,000-seat place.

“Not that Pete is popular there, but I’ve never played in a softball game before a sellout crowd before,” Davis said. “Whatever it is, he’s got it.”

So, yes, the Reds probably would hire him tomorrow.

That’s why Commissioner Bud Selig cannot allow him to be hired by anyone.

Allow him to be voted into Cooperstown, but keep him away from teams.

Honor him for what he once was, not for what he has become.

“It would be hard to trust Pete to manage,” Davis said. “Now that he’s admitted gambling, every little thing in his managerial style is going to be questioned.

“ ‘How did he leave that guy in the game? Why did he bat for that guy?’ It would be too hard.”

Tom Lasorda, the Dodgers’ Hall of Fame former manager, wonders how you can allow Rose to go anywhere, including Cooperstown.

“Gambling on your games is the worst sin you can commit,” Lasorda said. “The rules are posted on every clubhouse door. If you bet on your team, you are banned for life.

“Pete broke a rule that cannot be challenged or arbitrated. He broke a rule and must suffer the consequences.”

Rose says he has suffered enough, titling his book “My Prison Without Bars.”

He is mistakenly counting on a rusty, warped truth to set him free.

THE BAN

On Aug. 24, 1989, baseball Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti, above,

announces that Pete Rose is permanently banned from baseball for gambling. Giamatti, answering questions, says he has concluded that Rose “bet on baseball.” Rose signed a document the previous day saying he is not admitting any guilt and may apply for reinstatement after

one year.

THE APPEAL

In September 1997, Rose

applies for reinstatement, but Commissioner Bud

Selig doesn’t rule on it,

saying he hasn’t seen a

reason to alter the ban.

SECRET MEETING

On Nov. 25, 2002, Rose

and Selig meet in

Milwaukee about the

reinstatement application.