About time. It was stupid of him to deny it for so long and make such a big deal about the denials. If he'd come clean intitally, he'd be in the Hall by now. _______________ Rose admits betting on baseball in book - - - - - - - - - - - - By Ronald Blum Jan. 5, 2004 | NEW YORK (AP) -- After 14 years of denials, Pete Rose has finally come clean and admitted he bet on baseball while manager of the Cincinnati Reds. The career hits leader says in his soon-to-be-released autobiography that he hopes the acknowledgment will help end his ban from baseball, which could lead to his induction into the Hall of Fame. Rose says he was a big-time gambler who started betting regularly on baseball in 1987 but never against the Reds, according to excerpts from the book released to Sports Illustrated for its issue that hits newsstands Wednesday. "Yes, sir, I did bet on baseball," Rose told commissioner Bud Selig during a meeting in November 2002 about Rose's lifetime ban. "How often?" Selig asked. "Four or five times a week," Rose replied. "But I never bet against my own team, and I never made any bets from the clubhouse." "Why?" Selig asked. "I didn't think I'd get caught." Rose repeated his admission in an interview on ABC News' "Primetime Thursday," parts of which aired Monday on "Good Morning America." "It's time to clean the slate, it's time to take responsibility," Rose says in the interview. "I'm 14 years late. "I just never had the opportunity to tell anybody that was going to help me. ... I couldn't get a response from baseball for 12 years. It's like I died and, and they knew I died and they didn't want to bring me back. They were just going to let me rot." In "My Prison Without Bars," to be released Thursday, Rose writes that he regrets lying for all those years and says, "I wish I could take it all back." "I've consistently heard the statement: 'If Pete Rose came 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." Rose agreed to the lifetime ban in August 1989 and applied for reinstatement in 1997, but Selig hasn't ruled on the request. After meeting with Selig, Rose came away thinking he would be reinstated "within a reasonable period." Other baseball officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the following month that Selig wanted Rose to admit he bet on baseball as part of any reinstatement agreement. "We haven't seen the book. Until we read the book, there's nothing to comment on," Selig told The Associated Press on Sunday night. As long as Rose is banned from baseball, he is ineligible for the Hall of Fame ballot. His last chance to appear on the writers' ballot is December 2005. After that, if he's reinstated, he could be voted in by the veterans' committee. "The application remains pending, and the commissioner will take all of this into account," Bob DuPuy, baseball's chief operating officer, said Monday. Rose wrote that if he "had been an alcoholic or a drug addict, baseball would have suspended me for six weeks and paid for my rehabilitation." "I should have had the opportunity to get help, but baseball had no fancy rehab for gamblers like they do for drug addicts," Rose wrote. "If I had admitted my guilt, it would have been the same as putting my head on the chopping block -- lifetime ban. Death penalty. I spent my entire life on the baseball fields of America, and I was not going to give up my profession without first seeing some hard evidence. ... Right or wrong, the punishment didn't fit the crime -- so I denied the crime." In the book, Rose admits placing bets with Ronald Peters through Thomas Gioiosa and Paul Janszen -- the three were the primary witnesses in the 1989 investigation by baseball lawyer John Dowd that led to the agreement in which Rose accepted a lifetime ban. Dowd concluded Rose bet on baseball from 1985-87 and detailed 412 baseball wagers between April 8-July 5, 1987, including 52 on Cincinnati to win. "During the times I gambled as a manager, I never took an unfair advantage," Rose wrote. "I never bet more or less based on injuries or inside information. I never allowed my wagers to influence my baseball decisions. So in my mind, I wasn't corrupt." Former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent said Sunday: "I think John Dowd is owed a big apology by Rose. "John is the hero. He did a great job. Now Rose admits John was correct," Vincent said. In his 1989 autobiography, "Pete Rose: My Story," Rose denied gambling. That book was written with Roger Kahn. "I feel he has embarrassed me," Kahn said Monday. "I must have asked Pete 20 times, `Did you bet on baseball?' He would look at me, blink his eyes and say, `I didn't bet baseball. I have too much respect for the game.' " Rose wrote that after breaking Ty Cobb's career hits record in 1985, and as he dealt with retirement as a player the following year, his betting became more of a problem. He details losing several hundreds of thousands of dollars. "I didn't realize it at the time, but I was pushing toward disaster," he wrote. "A part of me was still looking for ways to recapture the high I got from winning batting titles and World Series. If I couldn't get the high from playing baseball, then I needed a substitute to keep from feeling depressed. I was driven, in gambling as well as in baseball. Enough was never enough. I had huge appetites, and I was always hungry." Asked during the ABC News interview what fans think about him, Rose said: "I think the powers that be in baseball understand that, 'Hey, maybe the fans like this guy. Maybe the fans want, want us to give him a second chance."'
He will never be in the Hall of Fame. I don't know if he should be or shouldn't be, I don't feel as strongly against him being in as I used to. But if Shoeless Joe never got in, it doesn't look to good for Pete. And his attitude since being banned definitly doesn't help him.
DUH He's the fool to think the rest of us are fools. Now he wants us to buy his book that reveals a blinding flash of the obvious. He doesn't deserve the Hall of Fame....arrogance!! D R
Like he said - if he'd been using drugs he had even helped to fight his addiction and only handed a short suspension. What he did was no worse - in fact I see drug use as 10 times worse. Let the penalty fit the crime. He should never have been banned in the first place.
I think he should definitely be in the hall of fame, but it should also state on his plaque that "Pete was banned from baseball for betting on the game, which he later admitted to"
Here in Sacramento, some sports talk radio guys were able to get the book before it hit the shelves. They were reading some excerpts from the book and it was pretty funny. I'll try my best to summarize it here: 1) Pete says his dad taught him two things: play hard and accept responsibility. He's always had trouble with the second one 2) Pete bet 4 or 5 times a week but always bet on his team to win. He figured this would make the games even more interesting and intense. 3) The commish (Bud Selig) asked him if he bet and he said yes. But he regrets it now. According to Pete, he seemed to accept this answer and even had a look of pity in his eyes. 4) To end the book, Pete talks about a song his daughter sings for him. The song is Amazing Grace: "Amazing grace! How sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found; Was blind, but now I see."
It's good to see that he's making money off of this. If you're going to admit to do something wrong, at least make people pay you for it.
Read this article on it: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57332-2004Jan5.html Way to rip Pete a newly deserved cornhole.
