Pete Rose’s highly anticipated book is filled with minute details about his life, from childhood to baseball to gambling. But he insists he can’t recall the critical first step in his slide from hero to outcast of his beloved sport.
“I can’t honestly remember the first time I bet on baseball,” he says in the 322-page autobiography entitled “My Prison Without Bars” (Rodale Press, $24.95).
What Rose does recall is the first time he talked about it openly. He was watching a 1986 Mets-Astros playoff game on his living room TV with guests when one of them asked about gambling on baseball: “Without even thinking about the consequences, I said, `Betting on the playoffs makes the games more exciting to watch.'”
With co-author Rick Hill, Rose describes his personal slippery slope that started with trips to the racetrack as a kid with his father and progressed to betting on horses, football and basketball as an adult with a number of bookmakers and go-betweens.
His downfall: “Betting on baseball while I was managing a major-league ballclub (the Cincinnati Reds) in the regular season.”
Rose admits losing control of his sports gambling, and lying when he was first confronted with allegations that he bet on baseball (joking with reporters, “If I were a betting man, I’d bet that I did not bet on baseball”). He also uses the book to argue that his punishment–a lifetime banishment imposed in 1989–has been too harsh.
While admitting he broke the letter of the law, Rose asserts he didn’t break “the `spirit’ of the law, which was designed to prevent corruption.”
The “law” is baseball’s Rule 21d, posted prominently in every major-league clubhouse, which calls for a lifetime suspension of anyone who bets on his team’s games.
After denying for 14 years that he committed that transgression, Rose admits it in writing in his book scheduled for release Thursday. The Tribune obtained a copy Tuesday from a Chicago-area bookstore.
Rose, a sure-fire Hall of Fame candidate as baseball’s career hits leader with 4,256, put that honor in jeopardy when he was banished from the game by then-Commissioner Bart Giamatti in 1989. Since his meeting with baseball Commissioner Bug Selig on Nov. 25, 2002, there has been speculation that Rose could be reinstated if he admitted he bet on baseball.
In “My Prison Without Bars,” Rose recounts that meeting.
When Selig asked for the truth, Rose responded, “Sir, my daddy taught me two things in life–how to play baseball and how to take responsibility for my actions. I learned the first one pretty well. The other, I’ve had some trouble with.
“Yes, sir, I did bet on baseball.”
When Selig asked how often, Rose said, “Four or five times a week. But I never bet against my own team and I never made any bets from the clubhouse.”
Selig then asked why he bet on baseball, and Rose said, “I didn’t think I’d get caught.” He added that he was “looking for an edge, some added excitement.”
Whether readers see Rose’s pages of self-examination and self-praise, laced with casual profanity, as contrition depends on how much one expects from this self-described “scrappy little kid from the wrong side of the tracks.”
At one point he says, “I’m sure that I’m supposed to act all sorry or sad or guilty now that I’ve accepted that I’ve done something wrong. But you see, I’m just not built that way. . . . I’m sorry it happened and I’m sorry for all the people, fans and family that it hurt. Let’s move on.
“For the last 14 years, I’ve consistently heard the statement, `If Pete Rose comes clean, all would be forgiven.’ Well, I’ve done what you’ve asked. The rest is up to the commissioner and the big umpire in the sky.”
Early in the book, Rose says he seeks no sympathy and doesn’t blame others for his problems. But he later cites several disreputable associates against whom he says he could not take legal action because doing so would have revealed his gambling problems.
“I’m not going to break down and beg your forgiveness like a TV preacher,” he writes, adding, “Truth is, I’ve hurt myself and my family far worse than I’ve hurt baseball or any of its fans. I lost a career that I loved, a million-dollar-a-year job, and the respect of my peers–all because of gambling.”
Nonetheless, he admits, “I still enjoy gambling at the racetrack, which has always been my favorite pastime. But I’ve learned to distinguish between the legal and illegal bets, which is what got me into trouble.”
There are questions beyond the immediate impact of the book and what effect it might have on Selig’s decision.
Prominent among them is how a favorable nod on reinstatement would affect Rose’s chances of getting another baseball job. He seems to want that, saying without being specific that it’s “a game I’d like to get back into. . . . if they’ll have me.”
Reinstatement would make Rose eligible for Hall of Fame induction. But he faces a December 2005 deadline for election by voting members of the Baseball Writers Association of America. After that his fate would be in the hands of the Hall’s Veterans Committee.
