Campy's Pete Rose Page
The Dowd Report: Maybe it ain't so....
A campanellos.com Investigative Report
By: Matt McGowan
“Nothing in this agreement shall be deemed an admission by Peter Edward Rose of the allegation that he bet on any major league baseball game” - Text from the agreement made between Pete Rose and A. Bartlett Giamatti in reference to Rose's lifetime ban from baseball
Let's face it, before you even started reading this, most of you probably at least believe Pete Rose bet on baseball games while he was the manager of the Cincinnati Reds. It seems most people do. (Kudos to those who don't.) Even many of Pete's staunchest supporters seem to believe he did, and worst of all, most believe that he did in fact bet on games he was directly involved in, the crucial act which in turn resulted in his banishment from the game. People everywhere cite the information contained in the Dowd Report as the main reason for believing the worst. Personally, I doubt most people have ever read the complete report (available at www.dowdreport.com), and those who have at least checked it out probably didn't get past the summary pages. (It is quite long!) If they had read the entire report, as I have, then I think they'd find some major flaws with regards to the evidence that ultimately ran Pete out of the game.
The findings of the Dowd Report revolve largely around the testimony of two men, Paul Janszen, a former friend of Pete's, and Ron Peters, a bookie that Mr. Janszen allegedly placed bets with for Rose. Each one of these individuals comes to the table with serious credibility issues, both being convicted felons, and each possibly having personal vendettas against Pete, or at least reasons to set him up. For example, after Pete threw Janszen out of his house (Paul Janszen lived with the Rose family for some time), Janszen claimed Rose owed him $32,000 from previous gambling losses, a claim Rose denied. But Janszen was adamant, and insisted that Pete had better give him the money, or else he would go to Major League Baseball and tell them Rose was betting on baseball games. This story is collaborated by several witnesses, none of which claimed any knowledge of Rose actually betting on baseball. Since he had nothing to hide, Pete was advised by his lawyers not to give in to this attempted extortion, so Janszen never got his money. Thus, the scandal was born. (More about Ron Peters later.)
According to John Dowd, the two most damning pieces of evidence in the case (apart from the testimony of the aforementioned felons) were the phone records connecting Rose, Janszen, and Peters, and the three betting slips said to belong to Rose. First, lets take a closer look at those betting slips. According to Dowd, the handwriting analysis completed during his investigation proved that they were written by Rose, and one of the slips even contained a single fingerprint belonging to Pete. But when Rose's attorneys sent the slips out for independent analysis, they came back with different results. One slip (which did not contain any bets on baseball games) was thought to be authentic. (This was difficult to prove for either side, because the FBI fingerprint analysis did so much damage to the slips.) But the handwriting on the two slips which do contain bets on baseball games was not consistent with the first slip, and thought to be possible forgeries.
But that wasn't all they found. One of the slips mistakenly listed a game being bet on April 9, 1987 as Cincinnati at Montreal. (Click here to see the alleged betting slip.) The problem is that these teams didn't even play that day, although they did play the day before in Cincinnati, not Montreal. (Don't believe me, click here! Want to double check? Click here!) Surely, Pete as manager of the Reds would have known this, don't you think? Furthermore, a independent gambling analyst testified that a seasoned gambler such as Rose would never need to mark the baseball games on the sheets with small "B's" as were marked in the margin on these slips. Especially not someone who was involved with baseball at the level Rose was. But wait, there's more! One of the games on this same sheet that is marked "B" for baseball is listed as "Philly at Atl", referring to Philadelphia at Atlanta. But according to The Baseball Archive, "The notation "Philly at Atl. L" refers to an NBA game played that night. All other references to this document agree that there are seven NBA games noted on this portion of the alleged betting slip and four MLB games. The MLB games are: "LA at Houst L", "Cin at Mont W" "Boston L", and "Cal W." The NBA games are: "Wash -2 L", "Clev +6½ W", "Chicago -1 W", "G. St -6½", "Philly at Atl. L", "Philly +8½ L", "NJ -2½ L", "San Ant E L", and "Dallas +2½ L." Why then, would a NBA game be marked with a "B" for baseball, and the Boston and California games (which actually were baseball games) weren't? This part of the case is extremely weak, and that's putting it lightly.
Next, we have the fingerprint belonging to Rose that was found on one of the sheets, ironically enough (or maybe not), thought to be a possible forgery. Independent fingerprint analysis showed that this fingerprint was not consistent with someone writing in a notebook (the "betting sheet" in question was actually no more than a sheet of notebook paper), as it was located in the center of the page. Instead, this fingerprint would be consistent with someone simply tearing a sheet of paper out of a notebook, which only proves that at one time or another, Pete did handle this piece of paper. But what exactly does that prove? Rose and Janszen lived together for quite some time. If the notebook was in Pete's house, couldn't Janszen simply have asked Pete for a piece of paper? Pete tears it out of a notebook and hands it over and BOOM, you have your fingerprint. Sound unreasonable? Remember, this critical piece of evidence was provided by a convicted felon who actually failed his first polygraph test administered by the Dowd team. However, this was a mere formality to John Dowd, as he simply found someone else to administer the test, which Janszen subsequently passed. One must wonder how many chances he would have received had he failed that test, too. Also, why did they accept that one? Why not just take the best two out of three?
Which brings us around to the phone records. This is where Dowd claims to have his "smoking gun." Of course, there are no actual transcripts of these calls, yet Dowd claims that a careful examination of these phone records shows a distinct pattern of calls between Rose, Janszen, and Peters correlating with dates of bets recorded by Janszen in a notebook that he kept. Well, if this is the "smoking gun", then Dowd has some serious explaining to do. A close inspection of these phone records by Rose's lawyers (source: Fox Sports Net interview) shows that out of the 35 dates matching telephone records to the Janszen betting book, the pattern of calls between Rose, Janszen and Peters only occurs 8 times. This is hardly what I'd call a distinct pattern. Remember, Janszen lived with Rose during this time period. It is perfectly feasible that Rose would call him at least 8 times from the ballpark within 35 days. (Perhaps he wanted to see if his buddy wanted him to leave tickets at the gate.) In fact, the only distinct pattern proved by these records was a pattern of calls between Janszen and Peters, suggesting that Paul Janszen was in fact betting on his own and not for Pete.
Still, there is yet another piece of evidence concerning this investigation that wasn't brought out in the Dowd Report. This one directly involved John Dowd and the Commissioner of Baseball at the time, A. Bartlett Giamatti. It appears Dowd, with the consent of MLB, offered Ron Peters a little deal in exchange for his testimony. You see, Peters had an upcoming trial on a separate matter (drug charges and tax evasion, specifically), and in exchange for his testimony against Rose, Dowd offered to draft a letter to the judge in the upcoming case praising Peters for his "honest and truthful testimony" and overall cooperation in the Rose investigation, even going so far as to ask the judge for leniency in his sentencing. The letter was then signed by Giamatti. (Interestingly enough, the judge in the case responded to the letter by saying that he felt there was a personal "vendetta" here against Rose by Giamatti, and thus he would disregard MLB's recommendation. For his candor, he was forced to remove himself from the Peters case.) The most disturbing part of this is that the letter was actually drafted before the scheduled hearing by MLB with Rose to hear his side of the story and allow him to present his evidence, much of which would have totally refuted Peters' claims. This little piece of forgotten evidence suggests that the Commissioner's Office already had it's mind made up on this case long before they ever heard from Rose. Rose's lawyers were ready to take the case to court.
All this leads many people to ask, "Why did Pete Rose instead accept a lifetime banishment from baseball?" But the answer to that question is just as complicated as the case itself. No one can doubt that this man loved the game of baseball. It would be equally silly to ignore the fact that the man was all about money as well. He knew he had no fair chance against MLB, yet having the case resolved in the courts could literally take years and years and cost him millions. He didn't want to go that route, and neither did MLB. He still had an obvious gambling problem, and the large betting Pete did on football and basketball games, the gambling associations he kept, as well as the federal charges of tax evasion, could not go unpunished by baseball. So both sides started to pursue a deal. Since they could not agree on a set amount of years for a suspension, Rose agreed to accept the lifetime ban on two conditions:
1. There could be no official finding by the Office of the Commissioner that he bet on baseball, and; 2. He would be eligible to apply for reinstatement after one year.
But Giamatti couldn't even make it past the first day without violating the agreement. During the press conference announcing the settlement, Giamatti was asked by a reporter if he believed that Pete did in fact commit this crucial act. To this, Giamatti replied, "In the absence of a hearing and therefore in the absence of evidence to the contrary … I am confronted by the factual record of Mr. Dowd. On the basis of that, yes, I have concluded he bet on baseball." Rose was stunned by this blatant violation of their agreement (there was to be no finding in the case, and Giamatti had no business giving his "opinion" while acting in an official capacity as commissioner, just as he had no business calling the Dowd Report "factual" after hearing only one side of the story) and his lawyers once again wanted to take the case to court. But as fate would have it, they never got the chance. Giamatti died 8 days later of a heart attack.
The first condition of the agreement had been ignored, and now there was nothing Pete could do about it, except get his life together and wait to re-apply. Then, as if to add insult to injury, in 1991 (a full two years after he agreed to the ban) MLB passed a rule stating that any player on the ineligible list could not be elected to the Hall of Fame. This seemed to be personally designed to keep Rose out, because even though in the past, players who were ruled ineligible were traditionally kept off the ballot, many felt Rose (since he had never actually been charged with anything) might be the first to break that trend. Pete finally applied for reinstatement in 1997, but never received a response from current baseball commissioner Bud Selig. Inquires were made again in 1999 and 2001by Rose's attorney's, but those too have gone unanswered. It seems the second part of the agreement is being ignored by baseball, as well. As baseball author Roger Kahn once said, "After seeing all the evidence, I don't know if Pete Rose bet on baseball. I do know, however, that he was railroaded out of the game.”
We here at Campanello's wish to encourage baseball fans everywhere to let MLB know how you feel. The address is:
feedback@majorleaguebaseball.com
Thank you!
Click here for "Umpires who gamble: A secret investigation unveiled" highlighting MLB's "major league hypocrisy" on the issue of gambling
What others are saying about the Dowd Report
Sam Dash, formerly the chief counsel to the congressional committee that investigated Watergate, considered the case against Rose to be shockingly flimsy: “If John Dowd turned in a report like that to me,” he said. “I'd fire him.”
Baseball author Roger Kahn says, “Persuasive in spots, the Dowd report overall is an unconvincing mix of allegation and distortion.
Baseball author Bill James predicted if Rose's lawyers ever took the case to court, they would “mop the floor” with baseball.
“I feel very strongly that Pete Rose got a raw deal from baseball,” James wrote in his 1994 book, The Politics Of Glory. “John Dowd's investigation of Rose's behavior, which claimed to be fair and impartial, was a mockery of those words. Dowd leapt to the conclusion that Rose was guilty, and twisted and bent the facts to support that conclusion ...
“Pete Rose was banned from baseball on the basis of rumor, hearsay, slander, gossip and irrelevant information which was fed to the public to make Rose look as bad as possible. Put it in a court of law, and 80 percent of it is going to boil off before the bailiff ever gets his seat warm.”
(Quotes from The Cincinnati Enquirer.)
Click here for an editorial opinion on the subject by former President Jimmy Carter
