Pete Rose Gambling

On this date 31 years ago, Cincinnati Reds great Pete Rose’s gambling activities were exposed to the world. Let’s take a look at what happened. When Cincinnati Reds legend Pete Rose retired from the game as a player in 1986, his path to the Hall of Fame was pretty much in the books. Rose's friend, Michael Bertolini, of Brooklyn, was said to have set up the bets with a Staten Island bookie, allegedly Richard (Val) Troy. 'Pete Rose loves to gamble,' Bertolini told The News in June.

For 26 years, Pete Rose has kept to one story: He never bet on baseball while he was a player.

Yes, he admitted in 2004, after almost 15 years of denials, he had placed bets on baseball, but he insisted it was only as a manager.

But new documents obtained by Outside the Lines indicate Rose bet extensively on baseball -- and on the Cincinnati Reds -- as he racked up the last hits of a record-smashing career in 1986. The documents go beyond the evidence presented in the 1989 Dowd report that led to Rose's banishment and provide the first written record that Rose bet while he was still on the field.

'This does it. This closes the door,' said John Dowd, the former federal prosecutor who led MLB's investigation.

The documents are copies of pages from a notebook seized from the home of former Rose associate Michael Bertolini during a raid by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in October 1989, nearly two months after Rose was declared permanently ineligible by Major League Baseball. Their authenticity has been verified by two people who took part in the raid, which was part of a mail fraud investigation and unrelated to gambling. For 26 years, the notebook has remained under court-ordered seal and is currently stored in the National Archives' New York office, where officials have declined requests to release it publicly.

Rose, through his lawyer, Raymond Genco, issued a statement: 'Since we submitted the application earlier this year, we committed to MLB that we would not comment on specific matters relating to reinstatement. I need to maintain that. To be sure, I'm eager to sit down with [MLB commissioner Rob] Manfred to address my entire history -- the good and the bad -- and my long personal journey since baseball. That meeting likely will come sometime after the All-Star break. Therefore at this point, it's not appropriate to comment on any specifics.' Bertolini's lawyer, Nicholas De Feis, said his client is 'not interested in speaking to anyone about these issues.'

Dowd, who reviewed the documents at Outside the Lines' request, said his investigators had tried but failed to obtain Bertolini's records, believing they would be the final piece in their case that Rose was betting with mob-connected bookmakers in New York. Dowd and his team had sworn testimony from bookie Ron Peters that Rose bet on the Reds from 1984 through 1986, but not written documentation. Dowd also had testimony and a recorded phone conversation between Bertolini and another Rose associate, Paul Janszen, that established that Bertolini had placed bets for Rose. But Dowd never had the kind of documents that could cement that part of his case, especially in the eyes of fans who wanted to see Rose returned to Major League Baseball.

'We knew that [Bertolini] recorded the bets, and that he bet himself, but we never had his records. We tried to get them. He refused to give them to us,' Dowd said. 'This is the final piece of the puzzle on a New York betting operation with organized crime. And, of course, [Rose] betting while he was a player.'

The documents obtained by Outside the Lines, which reflect betting records from March through July 1986, show no evidence that Rose, who was a player-manager in 1986, bet against his team. They provide a vivid snapshot of how extensive Rose's betting life was in 1986:

• In the time covered in the notebook, from March through July, Rose bet on at least one MLB team on 30 different days. It's impossible to count the exact number of times he bet on baseball games because not every day's entries are legible.

• But on 21 of the days it's clear he bet on baseball, he gambled on the Reds, including on games in which he played.

• Most bets, regardless of sport, were about $2,000. The largest single bet was $5,500 on the Boston Celtics, a bet he lost.

• Rose bet heavily on college and professional basketball, losing $15,400 on one day in March. That came during his worst week of the four-month span, when he lost $25,500.

Dowd said he wished he'd had the Bertolini notebook in 1989, but he didn't need it to justify Rose's banishment. Under MLB Rule 21, '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.'

But Rose's supporters have based part of their case for his reinstatement on his claim that he never bet while he was a player or against his team, saying that sins he committed as a manager shouldn't diminish what he did as a player.

'The rule says, if you bet, it doesn't say for or against. It's another device by Pete to try to excuse what he did,' Dowd said. 'But when he bet, he was gone. He placed his financial interest ahead of the Reds, period.'

The timing for Rose, who played in 72 games in 1986, isn't great. In March of this year, he applied to Manfred for reinstatement. Dowd recently met with MLB CIO and executive vice president of administration John McHale Jr., who is leading Manfred's review of Rose's reinstatement request, to walk McHale through his investigation. On Monday morning, MLB officials declined to comment about the notebook.

In April, Rose repeated his denial, this time on Michael Kay's ESPN New York 98.7 FM radio show, that he bet on baseball while he was a player. 'Never bet as a player: That's a fact,' he said.

Outside the Lines tracked down two of the postal inspectors who conducted the raid on Bertolini's home in 1989 and asked them to review the documents. Both agents, former supervisor Craig Barney and former inspector Mary Flynn, said the records were indeed copies of the notebook they seized.

When the case began, it didn't look particularly enticing, Barney said. The postal inspector's office in Brooklyn, New York, had received a complaint that a man in Staten Island had failed to return goods to paying customers that he was supposed to have autographed. The man's name was Michael Bertolini, and the business he ran out of his home was called Hit King Marketing Inc.

'It was a mere 'failure to render [services]' complaint,' said Barney, who is now retired. 'We didn't know anything about Bertolini or his connection [to Rose].'

If the accusation was true, it would constitute mail fraud, but the agents had no probable cause to search Bertolini's house.

Barney sent an agent to drive by the address. There was a for sale sign out front, the agent told him. So Barney and Flynn, posing as a couple looking for a home, called a real estate agent and were given a guided tour of Bertolini's house. 'It was such a mess. There was stuff everywhere,' Barney said.

Pete Rose Gambling Evidence

Bats, balls, books and papers were scattered all over. It looked to them as if Bertolini had been signing memorabilia with the forged names of some of the most famous baseball players in history: Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Duke Snider, Mike Schmidt and Pete Rose. 'It reeked of fraud,' Barney said.

The two inspectors spotted an item that a complainant said had not been returned. That gave them probable cause to seek a search warrant.

On Oct. 13, a few days after the undercover house tour and after obtaining a search warrant, they searched Bertolini's home and found evidence that would lead to numerous convictions. But one item stood out: In a box of papers in the basement, Barney said, was a spiral notebook filled with handwritten entries.

It was immediately clear that the many notations of 'PETE' in the pages represented Pete Rose.

'There were numbers and dates and -- it was a book for sports betting,' Barney said. 'I was taken aback.'

Flynn, who said her first reaction was 'Holy mackerel,' said they asked Bertolini about the notebook.

'He wasn't forthcoming with much information,' she said, 'but he did acknowledge to me it was records of bets he made for Pete Rose.'

Bertolini offered his take on the raid during his sentencing hearing in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn six years later (he served 14 months for tax fraud and a concurrent assault sentence):

'I got a call at the place where I was working at the time from my brother, and he says, 'You should come home.' He said, 'There's a bunch of government people here, and they're here for you.' At the time, I think it was Mary Flynn of the postal inspector's office who got on the phone and said, 'We're here,' and she told me why and so forth. They took any records I had whatsoever, and they took different personal belongings and memorabilia from my home.'

Although the 1989 raid on Bertolini's house received immediate news coverage, nothing about a betting book became public for five years. After Bertolini pleaded guilty and received a federal prison sentence, Sports Illustrated, The New York Times, ESPN and other news organizations filed freedom of information requests with the U.S. Attorney's Office seeking access to the book. All were denied on the grounds that the notebook had been introduced as a grand jury exhibit and contained information 'concerning third parties who were not of investigative interest.'

Last year, Outside the Lines again applied unsuccessfully for access to the notebook but learned it had been transferred to the National Archives under a civil action titled 'United States v. One Executive Tools Spiral Notebook.' Two small boxes of other items confiscated in the postal raid on Bertolini's house went too, including autographed baseballs and baseball cards.

In April, Outside the Lines examined the Bertolini memorabilia kept in the National Archives' New York office, but the betting book -- held apart from everything else -- was off-limits. The U.S. Attorney's Office internal memorandum from 2000 that requested the spiral notebook's transfer said Bertolini's closed file has 'sufficient historical or other value to warrant its continued preservation by the United States Government.' The memorandum listed among its attachments a copy of the notebook, but a copy of the memorandum provided by the National Archives had no attachments and had a section redacted.

'I wish I had been able to use it [the book] all those years he was denying he bet on baseball,' said Flynn, the former postal inspector. 'He's a liar.'

To Dowd, one of the most compelling elements of the newly uncovered evidence is that it supports the charge that Rose was betting with mob-connected bookies through Bertolini. Dowd's investigation had established that Rose was hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt at the time he was banished from the game.

Pete Rose Gambling Addiction

'Bertolini nails down the connection to organized crime on Long Island and New York. And that is a very powerful problem,' Dowd said. '[Ohio bookie] Ron Peters is a golf pro, so he's got other occupations. But the boys in New York are about breaking arms and knees.

'The implications for baseball are terrible. [The mob] had a mortgage on Pete while he was a player and manager.'

Freelance researcher Liam Quinn contributed to this report.

The Banning of Pete Rose refers to a 1989 agreement between CommissionerA. Bartlett Giamatti and Pete Rose whereby Rose agreed to be banned from baseball for life in return for baseball not making a formal determination about whether or not he had bet on baseball.

Pete Rose Gambling Story

Rose was one of the greatest hitters in baseball history. He still holds the record for most hits in a career, after passing Ty Cobb's record of 4,189 hits in 1985; he went on to total 4,256 hits in his career. Not only did he break that record, but Cobb is the only other player who has over 4,000 career hits. Given his career accomplishments, he would have been a cinch to be elected to the Hall of Fame, but the ban made him ineligible for Cooperstown.

The events which led to the ban occurred during the 1986 season, when Rose was player-manager of the Cincinnati Reds. In 1988, allegations surfaced that Rose at the time was betting heavily on sports results, including on major league baseball games, and possibly on his own team. It is explicitly prohibited for players or anyone employed by a major league team to place a bet on a major league game and especially on a game in which he is playing ('has a duty to perform' is the language used). This rule, known as Rule 21, is displayed in every major league clubhouse and its violation results in a lifetime ban from the sport. It was put in place when Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis endeavored to clean up baseball in the wake of the Black Sox Scandal of 1919.

When the allegations surfaced, Giamatti, who was in his final weeks as National League President, instructed Special Counsel John Dowd to investigate. He produced a detailed report, known as the Dowd Report, which detailed the allegations and the evidence available and concluded that it was clear that Rose had bet on major league games and on games in which the Reds were playing. Dowd was unable to find incontrovertible evidence of this, but the report paints a very ugly picture of a gambling addict who associated with various disreputable types and placed bets during baseball season on what were in all probability baseball games.

At first Rose denied all allegations and even filed suit against Major League Baseball. The saga was played out all over newspapers and was doing significant damage to baseball's image. When presented with the Dowd Report, Giamatti decided to cut a deal with Rose to try to end the matter: Rose agreed to withdraw his suit and accepted a lifetime ban, while MLB did not make a finding regarding Rose's guilt. Rose was also allowed to ask for reinstatement at a later date. After the deal, the Hall of Fame passed a rule that a banned player would be ineligible for election, and as a result, Rose's name never appeared on a Hall of Fame ballot (he would normally have been eligible for election in 1991).

Immediately after the agreement was concluded, Giamatti answered a reporter's question about his opinion of what Rose did and he stated that he was personally convinced that he had bet on baseball games. Rose was outraged about this apparent breach of the agreement, but as Giamatti died of a heart attack only a few days later, he never got to clarify his position. Giamatti's untimely death made him a sort of secular saint, and had the effect of giving a sacred aura to his decision.

If Rose was hoping that he would be able to obtain reinstatement after a couple of years, as others had done in the past, he was sadly mistaken. Giamatti's successors have all refused to re-open the decision. Public opinion was largely in Rose's favor at first, but as the years passed, he began to confess to ever more serious offenses, while his personal behavior, including a stint in prison for tax evasion, did not help his image. All other evidence that has since become public has corroborated Dowd's findings, making it very difficult for Rose to keep up his claim that he was an innocent man who had been wronged. His supporters' line of defense is now that either what he did was not that serious ('he never bet on the Reds to lose'), or that he has served enough time and should be cleared three decades after the events. Those who defend the ban explain that the rule that was broken is a cardinal one of which all players are aware, and that others who have trespassed in a similar manner, notably Joe Jackson and those who took part in the Black Sox scandal, remain banned as well.

See also[edit]

Pete Rose Gambling Debts