Rose investigator Dowd: Don't lift lifetime ban

Since baseball’s all-time hit leader Pete Rose has applied for reinstatement to baseball, we’ve been treated to lots of media coverage of Rose in the past week.

Fittingly, since Rose was a long-time Reds star, Cincinnati.com has an excellent three-part series on Rose. The second part includes an interview with John Dowd, who was the man heading up the investigation that led to Rose’s permanent banishment from baseball. He believes it should remain that way.

“This (gambling) is just such a terrible business … it really does infect the game,” said Dowd.

“Pete committed the capital crime of baseball. But this is bigger than just Pete Rose. There is a reason we haven’t had another gambling case in 26 years. This case wasn’t about Pete — this case was about protecting the integrity of the game.”

Another part that was interesting — and contradicts the narrative that Rose only gambled on baseball because he was uber-competitive — was the following entry (again, via cincinnati.com):

“Pete needed money to invest and pay back his debts,” said [Tommy] Gioiosa, who served 38 months of a five-year federal sentence for conspiracy to distribute cocaine. Now 57, Gioiosa works as a nutrition supplement salesman in Ormond Beach, Fla.

When asked again about Rose and any connection to cocaine dealing, Gioiosa declined to answer yes or no.

“Let’s just say it was a dark time for everyone. Pete was not a drug dealer but he needed to do whatever it took to feed his (gambling) addiction.”

Gioiosa also says he doesn’t regret holding back on what he knew about Rose.

“If I had spilled my guts, Pete probably would have gone to prison for a long time,” Gioiosa said. “And baseball would have pounded a lot more nails into his coffin in terms of coming back than there are now.

“But Pete was sick with addiction. That drove all his actions … he wasn’t looking to be introduced to folks in New York connected to the mob to take on his large debts. That’s what his sickness forced him to do.”

That “spilled guts” part is pretty telling. It makes me go back to the fact that Rose accepted his permanent ban voluntarily instead of fighting it. It would appear there’s a lot more there that we don’t even know about. Maybe never will (frankly, I don’t care to know how bad it got).

Regardless, anyone interested in the Rose saga, the cincinnati.com series is very well done and worth the time. Here’s part 1, part 2 and part 3.

Should Pete Rose be allowed back in baseball? (USATSI)

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.