Tuesday, October 26, 1999
Dowd: 'I tip my hat to Jim Gray'
Vincent also comes out against Rose
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Inviting Pete Rose to the All-Century ceremony was “like inviting Willie Sutton to a banker's meeting,” the man who investigated the career hits leader said Monday.
John Dowd, the Washington lawyer hired 10 years ago by A. Bartlett Giamatti and Fay Vincent, also said Rose doesn't want to admit ties to mobsters, and applauded Jim Gray's controversial NBC interview with Rose that followed the All-Century presentation at Turner Field on Sunday night.
“I tip my hat to Jim Gray,” Dowd said. “I thought he had more guts than any guy I've ever seen.”
Vincent watched the interview at his home in Connecticut and thought Gray handled Rose well.
“He continues to say such absurd things as, "Show me the evidence.' Since Gray really knows the story, he knows the evidence is all over,” Vincent said.
Dowd, who compiled a 225-page report on Rose's gambling in 1989 along with seven volumes of evidence, said Rose lied when he claimed he has never seen any evidence.
“He got to see it all, and then he was given a copy of everything,” Dowd said.
Before submitting the report to baseball, he confronted Rose and his lawyers with the evidence during a meeting at a convent in Dayton, on April21-22, 1989, including evidence Rose bet on the Reds to win 52 times from April8 to July5, 1987. All that information was made public by an Ohio judge on June 26, 1989.
Dowd insisted Rose is incapable of admitting guilt.
“I don't think he wants to talk about his relationship with the mob,” Dowd said. “If he says he bet on baseball, the next question leads inexorably to his debt to the mob. How much it was? Have you paid it off? Were you in communication with them when you were manager of the Cincinnati Reds?”
Rule 21 of the Major League Rules says the penalty for gambling on one's own team is a lifetime ban and gives anyone banned the chance to apply for reinstatement after one year.
Giamatti died the following week, and Rose waited until September 1997 to apply. The current commissioner, Bud Selig, has repeatedly said he has no intention of altering the ban, while Rose says he thought Giamatti would have allowed him to come back.
“The idea that Bart would have reinstated Pete is ludicrous,” Vincent said Monday.
Dowd was angry that Selig invited Rose to participate in Sunday's ceremony along with the 17 other living members of the 30-man All-Century team.
“It was an embarrassing night,” Dowd said. “I thought about the other ballplayers on the field who all obeyed Rule 21. It was like inviting Willie Sutton to a banker's meeting. It was incredible.”
Robert DuPuy, baseball's executive vice president of administration and chief legal officer, distanced the sport from Dowd's views.
“We do not solicit his comments nor do we endorse them,” he said. “We would prefer that Mr. Dowd refrain from commenting on his representation of the office of the commissioner. He is no longer engaged by this office, and he has completed his work. We don't look for his guidance in this whatsoever.”
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