Heyman: Rob Manfred Will ‘Seriously Consider’ Reinstating Pete Rose

[StanMarsh51]

A lot of people in this thread have never done anything wrong in their life, apparently.

A lot of people in this thread probably didn't wilfully agree to be banned from something for life like Petey boy did...

 

[navamind]

Good stuff, best hitter in the history of the game, should be in the Hall of Fame.

people actually believe this.

 

[Erie Warrior]

Even if the ban is lifted, there is no guarantee he'll be voted in.

Personally, I think those that disgraced the game should not be allowed in. Pete would be included in that list.

 

[Erie Warrior]

Also, I do find it amusing that all these Giants fans, who think Juice Box Bonds should get in, are against Pete getting in.

 

[kramer1]

Pete Rose's Investigator: Never Let Him Back in Baseball
by James Pilcher, Enquirer, 3/22/2015

www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2015/03/21/rose-investigator-pete-belong-game/25112355/

Any player, umpire, or Club or League official or employee, who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has a duty to perform, shall be declared permanently ineligible.

- Major League Baseball Constitution, Rule 21, Section (d), subsection (2)


Q: Pete Rose, the Manager of the Cincinnati Reds, bet with you on Cincinnati Reds baseball games; is that correct?

A: That's correct.

- Admitted bookie Ron Peters to MLB special investigator John Dowd, April 5, 1989


Gambling and Baseball
Pete Rose and John Dowd 26 Years Later


Pete Rose is a lot of things to a lot of people. Charming anti-hero. Pariah who doesn't deserve to be. A guy who deserves another chance. A symbol of the way baseball used to be and should still be played. A traitor to the game. A gambling addict whose sickness cost him his life. Lost soul. Charlie Hustle. The hit king, who should be in the Hall of Fame.

But the man who led the investigation of Rose and sat face-to-face with him for two full days of interviews, says today that baseball's all-time hit leader should never be allowed back into the game.

To John Dowd, former special counsel to the commissioner of baseball, hired to probe those now infamous allegations, Rose is the supreme example of why betting on professional baseball is such a sin when done by those within the game itself.

"This (gambling) is just such a terrible business ... it really does infect the game," Dowd told the Enquirer in a lengthy interview last week. "Pete committed the capital crime of baseball.

"But this is bigger than just Pete Rose. There is a reason we haven't had another gambling case in 26 years. This case wasn't about Pete – this case was about protecting the integrity of the game. When we investigated (former Philadelphia Phillies star) Lenny Dykstra for gambling, he told us: 'Thank God for Pete Rose because now I know what the ultimate price was.'"

Rose officially re-applied for reinstatement to baseball last week, and newly appointed Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said he would meet privately with Rose and consider the request. But Manfred also specifically said that he would review the report Dowd submitted in 1989 on Rose's gambling, as well as baseball's constitution and the actual agreement Rose reached with then-commissioner Bart Giamatti.

Following Rose's lifetime ban in August 1989, the Enquirer retained a copy of the original Dowd report. The Enquirer also kept thousands of the supporting documents released following the announcement. These documents include betting slips with Rose's handwriting on them which show wagers on baseball and the Reds, extensive phone records which track the bets and depositions with bookies and convicted cocaine dealers.

We reviewed the 225-page Dowd report and other documents again last week, and this much is clear: Rose has a very high legal hurdle to clear for reinstatement, especially if he wants to argue against the merits of the report or against baseball's rule against gambling, or to question the legitimacy of his agreement with Giamatti.

"Commissioner Manfred is a good man and is going about this in the right way, but it is true that people nowadays really need to understand what happened and why it happened," said Dowd, who is now retired from private practice and lives in Virginia. "And I hope that the commissioner will concentrate on that.

"And that there hasn't been a gambling case since Pete."

 

[kramer1]

It Never Had To Be This Way
Rose Could Have Wiped the Slate Clean


Interviews with Dowd and others reveal this: Rose could have avoided his eventual conviction on tax evasion and his five months in prison – in addition to his lifetime ban from baseball – if he had only come clean in 1989.

It was fairly common knowledge back then that Giamatti was open to a suspension for Rose if the Reds manager would admit to gambling on baseball and enter treatment for his gambling addiction.

Yet, according to Dowd, it went further than that. Dowd now says he and Giamatti worked with federal prosecutors and even the FBI to work out a deal that any pending charges for tax evasion against Rose would be dropped if he came clean.

In addition, FBI agents worked behind the scenes to ensure that Rose's gambling debts with the New Jersey loan sharks and bookies that numbered in the hundreds of thousands would be forgiven, Dowd now says.

"We never got a chance to finalize the deal or figure anything out because Pete got in his own way and his lawyers shut us down," Dowd said. "And throughout the whole process, (Rose's attorney) Reuven Katz and all of them thought they could strong arm us and Bart, this Yale professor. But they found out that Bart had steel in his backbone."

However extensive the deal would have been, Rose's stubbornness and bravado cost him, according to those close to him at the time. In addition to being banned from baseball, Rose eventually was convicted of tax evasion for not claiming income he won on horse racing and earnings from autograph signings at memorabilia shows.

He served five months at a medium-security prison in the same Illinois town that produced former Cleveland Indians catcher Ray Fosse. (That's the catcher injured in an infamous home-plate collision with Rose during the 1970 All-Star Game at Riverfront Stadium.)

"I remember sitting down with him (Rose) at an autograph show as this was all going down," former Rose associate Tommy Gioiosa told the Enquirer last week. "Now remember, I'm already under indictment for my cocaine charge. I told him that – while I would never turn my back on him – he needed to take the heat for what he did and maybe he could get his life back.

"But the Pete Rose of that day and age wanted nothing to do with that. It was that ego and arrogance that made him such a great ball player and made him think that he would never get into trouble."

Katz was a well-known local lawyer who represented Rose as well as other entertainment and sports figures. Now retired, Katz declined to comment for this story when reached via email.

Rose declined to discuss specifics of his case or reinstatement with an Enquirer reporter when approached during an autograph signing session at a Las Vegas sporting goods and memorabilia store March 16. The Enquirer also reached out to Rose's business manager Joie Casey, who said he would discuss the story with Rose. But Casey did not then respond to the questions Saturday

He did say that he would like to be reinstated into baseball and get elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame, but added that it was not his choice.

"That would be nice," Rose said. "We'll see."

 

[kramer1]

Rose's Gambling Activities
Was It More Than Just Betting on His Own Team?


Rose wagered on up to 10 games a night at about $2,000 a game, according to the betting slips included in the documents that Dowd relied upon as well as witness testimony.

Yet Rose was involved in much more insidious activities than gambling on baseball, according to interviews and documents. Even deeper than a manager betting on his own team to win. And even darker than gambling itself.

Did Rose bet on his own team to lose? Dowd says he and his two investigators uncovered evidence that he did, "although that evidence didn't reach the standard to include in our report."

Dowd says he saw a pattern: Rose didn't bet on the Reds when pitchers Bill Gullickson or Mario Soto were starting.

"That part is true … Mario Soto was a hell of a pitcher," said Paul Janszen, baseball's key witness against Rose and the first to speak to Dowd and acknowledge Rose's gambling. "But he had been hurt and when he came back from that injury, Pete didn't have a lot of faith in him. As for Gullickson, he was just in one of those slumps that players get into."

But Janszen says he never made any bets against the Reds for Rose at any point.

Further testimony in the documents shows that when the Riverfront Stadium scoreboard was inoperative or down for repairs, Rose would communicate from the dugout during games using hand signals to get information on the night's results from around the league.

"That was just silliness … he gave me seats behind home plate and I could see him, and he would just shrug as if to say 'How am I doing?'" Janszen said. "And I would go and dial the 1-800 number and get the scores and come back and either give him a thumbs up or down. He was just bored because he wasn't on the field anymore."

Dowd says he stopped digging after gathering the proof necessary to substantiate the gambling allegations. But he says other evidence came to light that Rose was involved in buying cocaine as a way to support his gambling habit and pay off his debts.

Dowd's investigators interviewed Don Stenger, a convicted cocaine dealer, in April 1989. Stenger met Rose through Janszen and Gioiosa. Stenger's 1989 federal sentencing sheet on cocaine and tax evasion charges is included in the documents.

Stenger told investigators that he got cash to buy cocaine to later sell from Janszen, Gioiosa and others, not from Rose. He assumed Rose knew he was dealing drugs.

"Stenger stated that Rose was never involved in cocaine in any way and was never involved and never expressed any interest in financing any cocaine deals," the summary of that interview says.

Janszen testified in 1989 that Rose knew about the cocaine buy. He now says that while Rose never dealt cocaine directly, he did provide cash to buy it.

"What you have to understand is that Pete did not want to get into the drug business, but that the opportunity just presented itself," Janszen told the Enquirer last week. "Stenger was short on cash and was on his way to Florida to buy more.

"And Pete said 'Hey, what kind of return can you get?' Stenger said you could double your money in a month or two weeks. And he had a couple hundred thousand dollars lying around – he got it out of a bag he had stashed in the drop ceiling in his basement."

Gioiosa disclosed Rose's involvement in an article in Vanity Fair published in 2001, saying in that article that Stenger and Rose had indeed discussed the possible cocaine deal. Gioiosa also said then that he and Stenger later picked up cash from Rose's house from a housekeeper there, and Stenger later returned with another bag of cash.

In that article, Stenger denied the allegations.

The Enquirer asked Gioiosa directly about the alleged cocaine connection. Gioiosa, a former junior college player and a friend of Rose's son, Pete Jr., was the only Rose friend who did not testify against him – either to Dowd or to law enforcement.

"Pete needed money to invest and pay back his debts," said Gioiosa, who served 38 months of a five-year federal sentence for conspiracy to distribute cocaine. Now 57, Gioiosa works as a nutrition supplement salesman in Ormond Beach, Fla.

When asked again about Rose and any connection to cocaine dealing, Gioiosa declined to answer yes or no.

"Let's just say it was a dark time for everyone. Pete was not a drug dealer but he needed to do whatever it took to feed his (gambling) addiction."

Gioiosa also says he doesn't regret holding back on what he knew about Rose.

"If I had spilled my guts, Pete probably would have gone to prison for a long time," Gioiosa said. "And baseball would have pounded a lot more nails into his coffin in terms of coming back than there are now.

"But Pete was sick with addiction. That drove all his actions ... he wasn't looking to be introduced to folks in New York connected to the mob to take on his large debts. That's what his sickness forced him to do."

Dowd said his report clearly shows that Rose bet while he was player-manager for the Reds in 1986. Rose has continually denied betting on baseball as a player, even though he acknowledged in 2007 during an ESPN radio interview that he bet on the Reds "every night" as a manager.

The documents also indicate that at one point, Rose owed at least $250,000 to a loan shark in New Jersey with ties to organized crime families in New York, with Dowd now saying those debts could have been as high as $500,000. One document from that time states that a bookie who had talked to Dowd, a private detective and the head of MLB security, mysteriously suffered a broken arm soon after that interview – "while throwing a baseball" – and that he had probably been "discouraged" from speaking further.

Janszen says that Rose indeed was betting in 1986 when he was player-manager. He also says he was "shocked" to find out that Rose was not only laying bets with local bookies using him as the middleman, but also with bigger players on the East Coast at the same time.

"Double-booking bets, that was just insanity," Janszen said. "But that just shows how this was a sickness for him and is to this day.

"And the problem with Pete is that unlike other addicts, he had a support system in terms of making money and all these fans that he has never hit true rock bottom."

To Dowd, it was what Rose's gambling had done to the game of baseball that was at the heart of why the investigation and subsequent ban was so important.

"To be honest, it doesn't really matter whether he bet for or against the Reds, or as a player or just a manager," Dowd said. "What matters is that, by the end, he owed a half a million to some pretty unsavory people, who were actually in the clubhouse from time to time.

"Imagine a half a million mortgage over your head every time you walked out on the field to go to work and wondering how you were going to pay that off, especially to those kinds of people," Dowd said. "That's how insidious this had become."

 

[kramer1]

The Decision
Rule 21(d)(2) and the Giamatti Agreement


The other legal reviews Manfred has pledged to undertake include Rule 21 of baseball's constitution, specifically Section (d), Subsection (2).

That rule was written in the wake of the Chicago "Black Sox" scandal of 1919. Professional gamblers paid off a number of players from the Chicago White Sox to throw games and allow the Cincinnati Reds to take the 1919 World Series. (That included all-time great "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, although supporters say that while he took the money, he played his best in the series.)

Horrified at what had become of the nation's pastime, the owners of the teams at the time appointed former federal judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis as the sport's first commissioner. He immediately banned the players involved and created the rule that stands now. In fact, a sign with the rule is posted in every minor and major league clubhouse in the nation.

In the former Reds clubhouse in Riverfront Stadium, the sign hung near the players' mailboxes, and close to the clubhouse phone, in a hallway that separated a group of lockers. This was a location where Rose would have seen it every day. Currently it hangs in a frame as one enters the Reds clubhouse at Great American Ball Park.

The rule includes no provision for appeal or reinstatement, apart from a standard grievance process through the contract with the players' union that is addressed elsewhere (and that would not cover non-players such as managers).

"And to me, being put on the permanently ineligible list means you are there for life," said Dowd.

Manfred also said he wants to review the agreement Giamatti and Rose reached in 1989. That five-page document states the specifics of the investigation and outlined Rose's chances to respond. It also clearly states that "the Commissioner will not make any formal findings or determinations on any matter including without limitation the allegation that Peter Edward Rose bet on any Major League Baseball game."

Given that Giamatti explicitly said at the press conference announcing the deal that he felt Rose had indeed bet on baseball, Rose may have a slender opening all these years later, according to one legal expert.

"Major League Baseball made a promise not to issue any formal findings, but you could make the argument on paper that baseball has nonetheless issued formal findings throughout the years, between what Giamatti said as well as Dowd's statements that Rose was guilty as charged," said Jeffrey Standen, dean of the Chase School of Law at Northern Kentucky University. Standen published a paper in 2010 that argued for Rose's reinstatement.

"Basically, Rose got nothing in return for this deal and MLB abrogated its promise to him," Standen said.

26 Years Later
Dowd Report Stands Test of Time


As for the Dowd report itself, it came as a result of a three-month investigation into Rose's gambling, culminating in the 225-page report and supporting documentation. Dowd and his two detectives interviewed 110 witnesses and collected thousands of pages of documents all while battling lawyers and banks.

"That report was rock solid; there are no holes there," said noted Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz, who argued on behalf of Major League Baseball in a mock trial televised by ESPN in 2003. Dershowitz said he spent several weeks going over the report and documentation to prepare for the mock trial, which he wound up losing as the mock jury voted 8-4 to reinstate Rose.

"Even though that was the result, I can say that the legal evidence in this case is overwhelming and there is no way to argue the merits and facts of the case if you are Pete Rose," Dershowitz said. "If I were him, he needs to basically ask for compassion. Reading all that documentation, there is no way to get around what he did and how it impacted the game."

Yet as influential as they were, Dowd's findings were never fully published until 1999, when the University of Mississippi law school printed all 225 pages in its law journal.

"I remember reading that anytime a sportswriter wrote a column saying Pete got a raw deal, that John Dowd would mail him a Xerox copy of the report ... and, lo and behold, a week later, there would be a column retracting the previous position," said University of Mississippi law professor Ronald Rychlak, who wrote the introduction for that issue. "That's why we published it. And I remember trying to be balanced and fair when I wrote what I did, but you can't come away from reading that report and not have a strong position."

Those who went through the investigation process agree. Gioiosa acknowledges that Dowd "certainly did his homework."

"All Mr. Dowd did was lay out the facts, and they were pretty much all right," he said.

Janszen says that he was initially leery of Dowd and his investigators, but the process produced "the truth and all the facts."

"The title of that report should be integrity," Janszen said. "It is as accurate now as it was then. You could not find better men than the ones who did this. And people need to know the truth of what went on."

Dowd says that not only was the report the subject of follow-up investigations by major news outlets such as Sports Illustrated and The New York Times, but by subsequent MLB commissioner Bud Selig. In fact, Selig was strongly considering reinstating Rose in the early 2000s.

The efforts to reinstate Rose included public and private lobbying by Hall of Famers and former teammates such as Phillies great Mike Schmidt and Reds standout Joe Morgan on Rose's behalf, as well as a face-to-face meeting between Rose and Selig in 2003.

But Dowd says Selig used his law firm to once again to vet the veracity of the initial 1989 report as part of that review. Selig, who retired as commissioner earlier this year after 23 years, declined comment through his office in Milwaukee.

"They have all been hoping for some crack in the dam, but there aren't any," Dowd said. The report is "something I'm proud of."

Selig in the end decided not to reinstate Rose. At the time, a story published by The Enquirer indicated that a bank had just foreclosed on Rose's California condominium, highlighting Rose's ongoing financial troubles. And Selig was apparently unhappy that Rose had showed up in Cooperstown during Hall of Fame induction week to sell his new book.

"I'm not particularly proud of the result as this is an incredibly tragic story," Dowd said. "But at least it stands as an example for all of baseball, and hopefully for all time."

 

[calsnowskier]

Also, I do find it amusing that all these Giants fans, who think Juice Box Bonds should get in, are against Pete getting in.

I find it amusing that some of these guys have no concept about the difference between breaking rules and not breaking rules.

 

[Erie Warrior]

I find it amusing that some of these guys have no concept about the difference between breaking rules and not breaking rules.

 

[Cedrique]

Steroids have been banned in baseball since 1991. They just couldn't really enforce it until the players union agreed to testing. (also they didn't really seem motivated to do anything about it ).

 

[R.J. MacReady]

He gambled on baseball, got caught, lied for years, then came clean not because it was the right thing to do but to rid himself of an obstacle to reinstatement and ultimately the hall.

The problem with Rose is that the underlying cause of his mistake is still with him this very day.

That cause is a lack of integrity.

 

[kramer1]

He gambled on baseball, got caught, lied for years, then came clean not because it was the right thing to do but to rid himself of an obstacle to reinstatement and ultimately the hall.

The problem with Rose is that the underlying cause of his mistake is still with him this very day.

That cause is a lack of integrity.

I think it's just stupidity

 

[StanMarsh51]

I think it's just stupidity

You might be able to call his betting actions 'stupidity,' but lying about it for nearly 20 years? That's certainly an integrity issue.

 

[williewilliejuan]

He gambled on baseball, got caught, lied for years, then came clean not because it was the right thing to do but to rid himself of an obstacle to reinstatement and ultimately the hall.

The problem with Rose is that the underlying cause of his mistake is still with him this very day.

That cause is a lack of integrity.

He came clean to sell books.

 

[kramer1]

You might be able to call his betting actions 'stupidity,' but lying about it for nearly 20 years? That's certainly an integrity issue.

I was referring to his not coming clean and agreeing to get help. If he had done that he never would have been banned. I think he may have listened to his lawyers too much and certainly his ego got in the way. All that coupled with a hardcore addiction...and here we are. I feel bad for the guy. He's a great baseball mind and the game has lost a legend. It's sad. The whole thing is just sad.

 

[kramer1]

He came clean to sell books.

Nobody can argue Pete's business savvy.

 

[calsnowskier]

Steroids have been banned in baseball since 1991. They just couldn't really enforce it until the players union agreed to testing. (also they didn't really seem motivated to do anything about it ).

Nope.

Vincent wrote an unpublished memo basically saying "we won't monitor, but don't do it." This was never discussed with the players union, and no punishments were ever outlined anyway. Just because Vincent wanted it to be so, does not make it so.

 

[DragonfromTO]

Nope.

Vincent wrote an unpublished memo basically saying "we won't monitor, but don't do it." This was never discussed with the players union, and no punishments were ever outlined anyway. Just because Vincent wanted it to be so, does not make it so.

I'm pretty sure I posted this already in a different Rose thread, but here's what Fay Vincent himself said about what his memo did and didn't cover


Vincent: I don’t remember much about the circumstances and I don’t remember who really pushed for it. But, I can speculate that it came out of an awareness that for people who were not in the union – not protected by the Union agreement – that steroids might be a problem. I think that we had become to realize that there were a variety of other compounds floating around that were dangerous. We’d heard rumors about Jose Canseco. I think we thought that steroids and the like were basically a “football problem”, but we did think that they were dangerous. And so for at least coaches and managers and everybody else in baseball we thought we ought to go on record and say that this is bad stuff and we don’t want it getting a toe-hold in baseball...

...I’m sure that what the General Managers are saying is correct that nobody paid too much attention to it because it was aimed at people who probably weren’t big steroid users anyway. I mean the clubhouse man, and the coaches would hardly be taking steroids. But that’s all we could do.



Interview - Fay Vincent - Former Commissioner

 

[Cedrique]

Nope.

Vincent wrote an unpublished memo basically saying "we won't monitor, but don't do it." This was never discussed with the players union, and no punishments were ever outlined anyway. Just because Vincent wanted it to be so, does not make it so.

Well for something that was completely ok up until they cleared it with the union, a lot of guys have gone to great lengths to say they did not do it. How many times has Bonds' buddy gone to prison for refusing to testify now?