This website isn’t in the habit of recommending television viewing, but here is an exception. On Monday afternoon ESPN will debut an “Outside the Lines” focused on Pete Rose.
Yeah, I know, you’ve seen and heard enough of Pete Rose. I know I have. This, however, is different. This program is about a Rose betting book kept by his betting buddy Michael Bertolini. If you still harbor any doubts that Rose bet on baseball games, including some played by the team he was managing, the Cincinnati Reds, the Bertolini betting book will put them to rest.
The news that the Bertolini was about to be made public was not the only Rose development of the past week. John McHale, an official in the commissioner’s office, met with John Dowd to discuss his 1989 report that prompted Rose to accept lifetime banishment from baseball.
Rose has applied for reinstatement, and Commissioner Rob Manfred has said he will review the request, at the same time offering no indication that he is prepared to take any action in Rose’s favor. In fact, it is highly unlikely that Rose will find any solace in Manfred’s response to his application.
McHale, said a lawyer familiar with the Rose developments, is “doing work for Rob to help him get a handle on everything that happened and to prepare him for meeting with Rose and his lawyers in the near future.”
Another lawyer said McHale was not repeating the Dowd investigation as was done once before.
“He’s auditing it, not redoing it,” the second lawyer said. “They wanted to get a sense of Pete.”
According to the second lawyer, McHale learned something in his meeting with Dowd, though not about Rose. Dowd told McHale about the effort of then commissioner Bud Selig and his chief operating officer Bob DuPuy to have him disbarred.
“Dowd told him about Bud and DuPuy filing a complaint against him with the District of Columbia bar,” the lawyer related. “They filed a really important legal document that would’ve taken away Dowd’s career. He’s never forgiven DuPuy.”
In an interview last August about the June 1998 complaint, Dowd said Selig accused him of violating attorney-client privilege by talking publicly about his report. DuPuy’s complaint also cited Dowd’s public comments about cases involving Don Zimmer and Lenny Dykstra.
In his response to the complaint Dowd noted that Rose’s lawyers had made the report public in their lawsuit against the commissioner so he was not violating any confidentiality. He was no longer representing the commissioner, Dowd added, in the other cases he talked about.
The D.C. bar dismissed the complaint, saying:
“It is the burden of our office to find clear and convincing evidence of a violation ofthe Rules in order to institute a disciplinary proceeding against an attorney. ‘Clear and convincing’ evidence is more than a mere preponderance of the evidence, which would be sufficient in a civil proceeding. We do not find such evidence in our investigation and therefore we must dismiss the matter.”
It has been more than 25 years since Dowd submitted his report to Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti, but I clearly recall how impressive I found it. Dowd’s evidence left nothing open to debate, nailing Rose as severely as any evidence has ever proved someone’s guilt.
Fay Vincent, who became commissioner three weeks after Rose agreed to be banished for life, laughed the other day in recalling the reaction of one notable staunch supporter of Rose. It was Harry Caray, the inimitable baseball broadcaster.
“Harry Caray,” Vincent related, “said ‘Pete stood here and said he doesn’t bet on baseball. I believe him. Why should I believe you? Who are you?’”.
A key part of the evidence against Rose was the Bertolini book.
I am both delighted and bothered that ESPN has the book. I am delighted because I have long wanted the book to become public so that the Rose sycophants who for too long denied the truth will see it for themselves.
I am bothered because years ago, when I worked for The New York Times, I tried to get the book through the Freedom of Information Act, which I assume is what ESPN has done.
However, when I made my request it was rejected because, the government said, the betting book at the time belonged to Bertolini, a Brooklyn resident, who besides placing bets for Rose arranged lucrative autograph-signing shows for him.
I can only assume that ESPN will show the pattern of Rose’s baseball bets for the 1987 season as recorded by Bertolini. Even when he finally admitted he bet on baseball, Rose said he never bet on Reds games.
However, according to the Dowd report, Bertolini’s betting book showed he made 390 bets for Rose during a three-month period in ’87, and 52 were on Reds games. The book further showed that Rose stopped betting on games Bill Gullickson started.
The manager didn’t bet against Gullickson, but not betting on him just might have told the bookies something. If proof is needed that Rose didn’t trust Gullickson to win, he urged the front office to trade him, and indeed the Reds traded him to the Yankees for Dennis Rasmussen Aug. 26.
The book, according to Dowd, also showed that in those three months Rose bet $2,500 or more on 69 games and lost 64.
A-ROD ON FIRE; IS HE USING A NEW FUEL?
What to do with Alex Rodriguez. The Yankees keep hating him, and he keeps helping them win and he keeps achieving milestones. Where would the Yankees be without him? Probably battling the Red Sox for last place in the American League East.
I’m not going to tell the Yankees to pay Rodriguez his $6 million marketing bonus for matching Willie Mays’ career total of 660 home runs. It’s not my money, and it’s not my place to spend it for them.
No other player in history, however, has in less than a two-month period reached 3,000 hits, 2,000 runs batted in and No. 4 on the career home run list. OK, we don’t know how much of these achievements has been chemically aided, but he has presumably flushed the stuff down the toilet this season, and look what he has done as he approaches the age of 40 and after nearly two seasons away from the game.
Entering Sunday’s game, he was hitting .283 with 14 home runs, 40 runs batted in, a .386 on-base percentage and .529 slugging percentage.
He has reached 668 home runs, 2,009 runs batted in and 3,002 hits.
How should we judge these numbers? Do we dismiss them and say he has played much of his career on steroids? Do we discount the numbers and create a different set?
Probably the only thing we can say for sure is he won’t make the Hall of Fame. Barry Bonds hasn’t and Roger Clemens hasn’t. Unless voters change their thinking, Rodriguez won’t either.
But I’d still like to know how to judge him. He has made that task difficult, if not impossible.
Meanwhile, the commissioner’s office and the union have agreed to put off the deadline for Rodriguez and the union to decide if they will file a grievance over the Yankees’ refusal to pay Rodriguez the $6 million bonus. He hit his 660th home run May 1 and had 45 days (June 15) in which to file a grievance.
The Yankees, though, cannot stop A-Rod from getting a post-season share if the Yankees qualify for post-season shares.