George Kimball America at Large

Nearly two decades ago, as Pete Rose closed in on Ty Cobb's record 4,191 Major League baseball hits, my friend Tom Hauser was summoned to a meeting with Rose and his attorney, Reuven Katz, in Cincinnati.

Hauser is a lawyer-turned author who has written two dozen books, including three on Muhammad Ali and the best-seller Missing, which went on to become an enormously successful Hollywood film. Rose and Katz were interested in capitalising on the attention riveted on his pursuit of the then 57-year-old record with a book detailing the specifics of the assault.

Hauser recalled that during the meeting in question Rose talked mainly about himself - including the fact even then he had played in more winning games than any other athlete in the history of team sports. "I've walked off the field a winner more than 1,900 times," boasted Rose. "I'm the winningest professional athlete ever."

The luncheon went smoothly otherwise, and Hauser emerged with a handshake deal for a book that was never written, principally because the massive advance Rose had envisioned never materialised. A few days ago Hauser recalled that after Rose took his leave that day, Katz pulled him aside for a few words of warning. Realising that in his research Hauser would inevitably stumble across some skeletons in the Rose closet, Katz admitted to the writer that Rose was an inveterate gambler.

"He bets and loses a lot more than he should," said the lawyer. "Most of that is at the track, but not all of it. I don't want any of that in the book. This has to be about Pete as a baseball player breaking Ty Cobb's record."

Hauser decided since the proposed book would be narrow in focus and not a "definitive biography", the conditions were acceptable. Just before parting company with the attorney, though, he said he needed to ask one question.

"Does Pete bet on baseball?"

"Katz looked me right in the eye," recalled Hauser. "'I hope not,' he said."

In August of 1989 Rose was banished from baseball for gambling-related offences. Although the compromise ruling made no "formal finding" on the question of whether he had bet on baseball, either as a player or, later, as manager of the Cincinnati Reds, baseball commissioner A Bartlett Giamatti said he believed Rose had done exactly that. Nine days after adjudicating the Rose case, Giamatti died of a heart attack. His successors, Fay Vincent and current commissioner Bud Selig, kept Rose's ban in place despite 14 years' worth of plaintive denials by Rose, who steadfastly maintained his innocence.

Major League baseball rule 21 (d), which is posted in every clubhouse in America, states a manager or player betting on baseball is automatically disqualified for a year, but one who bets on a game in which he is involved "shall be declared permanently ineligible". Occupying a roster spot on the permanently ineligible list has also deprived Rose of eligibility for the Baseball Hall of Fame.

After 14 years of denial, Rose came somewhat clean in recent weeks with the publication of a biography entitled My Prison Without Bars, in which he admits having gambled on Reds' games while he was serving as manager of the team.

"But I never bet against my own team," Rose recalls telling Selig in a meeting preceding the publication of the new book. "And I never made any bets from the clubhouse."

At a glance, this would appear to be only the latest hustle from a man whose nomme de guerre was "Charlie Hustle". If Rose is telling the truth in this biography, it plainly means he was lying in his last biography, and there is evidence he isn't telling the whole truth this time either. Witnesses at his first disqualification inquiry recalled having "run" bets from the manager's clubhouse office to nearby payphones, for instance.

No one has ever suggested Rose knowingly dumped a game in which he was playing or managing, but there are more ways than one to influence the outcome of a bet. Half a century ago one of his managerial predecessors, Leo Durocher, was banned, and later reinstated, for gambling on games. The specifics were never made public, but years later I learned that one of Durocher's favoured ploys was an intriguing little scheme involving two-game "parlay" bets.

The way it was explained to me, Durocher would, through an intermediary, bet his exotic doubles based on both scheduled pitchers starting in their respective games, the second of which would be on his own team. If Parnell started and won for the Red Sox that afternoon, then Durocher's bet on the Dodgers with Erskine pitching that night would stand. If Parnell lost, Durocher would switch pitchers, negating the bet.

Frankly, I'm not sure Pete Rose was ever that clever.

Moreover, one suspects his latest admission stems not from contrition, but from greed. He had a million - his reported advance for My Prison Without Bars - reasons for finally acknowledging his transgressions, and there is the serious question, has he told the whole truth this time. Nonetheless, he now insists that having spilled the beans, he should be allowed to audition for another managerial job.

"For the last 14 years I've consistently heard the statement 'If Pete Rose came clean, all would be forgiven,'" wrote Rose in Prison. "Well, I've done what you've asked. The rest is up to the commissioner and the big umpire in the sky."

I've always agreed Rose should be in the Hall of Fame (Hey, OJ Simpson is in the football Hall of Fame), and I do have a vote on that question. But the man should never be allowed near a Major League park again - even if he pays his own way in.