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The following passage is from notes that I
took while John Dowd was speaking to my Sports Management class on
Monday, February 23. I am not going to research all of the points
that Dowd made to ensure historical accuracy, instead I am going to
reprint them here and take his word.
John Dowd was hired on February 23, 1989 by
National League President Bart Giamatti to investigate Pete Rose.
Fifteen years later, Dowd insists that being associated with
Giamatti is the single best aspect of his involvement in the Rose
case. Giamatti would soon replace Peter Ueberroth as the
Commissioner of Major League Baseball. Giamatti informed Dowd that
he had information that Rose bet on baseball games and asked him to
run an investigation in �any way he saw fit�. In addition, Dowd was
asked to constantly keep Rose�s lawyers apprised of the
investigation. Dowd agreed to this unusual concession after
receiving assurances that Rose�s legal team would not attempt to
obstruct the investigation in any way. In addition, Giamatti told
Dowd that he would need to write a report detailing the outcome of
the investigation no matter how it concluded.
Dowd set out to complete his investigation in
three ways: honestly, completely and fairly. For this reason, he
and his team would not write anything down as a fact unless it could
be collaborated three ways. This was a nuisance because the
evidence that Rose bet on the Reds could only be collaborated in two
ways and was not included in the final report. For six months, Dowd
worked on the Rose case while constantly keeping in contact with
Commissioner Giamatti.
The first action of Dowd was to read all of the
files in the Commissioner�s Office about past instances when Rule 21
(gambling) was violated including the Black Sox case. At this
point, the Commissioner�s Office was still powerful enough to ask
Rose for any records that the investigation wanted. One hundred and
ten witnesses were interviewed three times each, and one hundred of
these people had no connection to baseball. Dowd was also able to
reconstruct all of Rose�s bets through phone and bank records in
chronological order.
When calling out of the Manager�s Office in
Riverfront Stadium, Rose was forced to go through the operator each
time he placed a bet. There was a trial in the phone records as
Rose would call Paul Janszen who would then call the bookmaker. A
minute later, there would be records of a call back from the
bookmaker to Janszen and then from Janszen to Rose. While Rose
claimed that he bet on other sports but not on baseball, these
records continued through June and July when there were no other
sports in season. According to Dowd, future Commissioner Fay
Vincent loved to look through these phone records because it made
Rose�s problem so obvious.
In addition, Rose�s bank records were extremely
helpful because he was betting about $5000 to $7000 with three
different bookmakers per day. After racking up a debt, Rose would
then stiff his bookmakers and get fired. However, he was caught
owing money to the New York mafia which charged $6 interest to every
$5 owed � this made it absolutely impossibly to ever get caught up.
In fact, Rose owed organized crime about $500,000 by 1989.
Rose betrayed the trust of the Reds and the
fans as soon as he made his first bet. However, he also bet on Reds
games and gave hidden signals about his intentions to the
bookmakers. For example, Rose never once bet on the Reds to win a
game when Mario Soto or Bill Gullickson was pitching.
Ten people were found by the investigation that
witnessed Rose betting on the Reds. Plus, Janszen had betting
records that he said were from Rose himself. Dowd hired the finest
handwriting expert in the country who took a sample from Rose to
analyze and compare to the betting slips. As it was apparent that
the handwriting was similar, Rose began writing in enormous letters
in an attempt to throw off the expert. In addition, Dowd had a
different handwriting expert analyze Janszen�s script to ensure that
he had not written the betting slips. Finally, a thumbprint was
found on one of the betting slips that matched Rose�s. As a final
precaution, Janszen was put through, and passed, a polygraph test.
Dowd had a very easy case because he continued
to find more collaborating evidence. Dowd was constantly meeting
with Rose�s criminal lawyer during this time; thus, Rose�s claims
that he was unaware have been outright lies for the past fifteen
years. The criminal lawyer attempted to get Dowd to meet with Rose
in order for him to explain the gravity of the situation to Rose.
After receiving approval from Giamatti to meet with Rose, Dowd
discovered that another Rose lawyer vetoed the meeting because he
feared Rose would give an admission of guilt. If Rose finally
admitted he had a problem, hordes of specialists and experts could
be used to try to cure Rose of his gambling addiction, and the
lawyer wanted to avoid that situation.
Throughout his life, Rose had accumulated a
history of crimes that his lawyers had swept under the rug. He had
survived statutory rape and his lawyers were overconfident and felt
no need to schedule a meeting. Giamatti�s next step was to have
Dowd demonstrate all of the evidence to Rose and take his testimony
without a cross-examination. In order to ensure secrecy, a convent
was used to record this deposition. During this time, one of Rose�s
lawyers slept in the back of the convent while the other was
constantly eating from the buffet the nuns had created leaving Rose
alone. In fact, neither had bothered to brief Rose on all of the
evidence that had been accumulated during the first few months of
the investigation.
When the betting records were brought up and
shown to Rose, he turned a gray color and staggered through the rest
of the interview. Dowd�s next step was to try to find a teammate of
Rose�s that would be able to speak with him and convince him to
listen to the investigators. Unfortunately, Dowd learned that Rose
did not have a single friend in the game after asking people like
Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench and Sparky Anderson. Each of those people
said that they barely knew Pete because he spent all of his free
time at Gold�s Gyms with the cocaine crowd. As the investigation
concluded, Dowd wrote up his report and gave it to Giamatti.
After reading it several times over the
weekend, Giamatti approved the report and decided to bring Rose in
for a hearing. Rose�s lawyers made several demands after receiving
the reports and Dowd�s entire file was sent to them. In fact, all
one hundred and ten witnesses agreed to testify even if Dowd or
other Major League lawyers were present. Rose�s lawyers stalled to
set a date for the meeting, but finally set a date on the same day
that they sued the Commissioner�s Office. In every baseball
contract, a clause is included that states, �You will not sue the
Commissioner�. Thus, Pete Rose broke another rule.
After losing the suit in the courts, Rose�s
agent finally agreed to settle. Rose claims that there were
negotiations with Giamatti, but Dowd insists that Giamatti only held
one position. Throughout the entire discussion, Giamatti always was
supporting the permanent ban of Pete Rose from baseball for his
actions. Unfortunately, a week after the case was settled (and Rose
agreed to the ban), Giamatti died and was replaced by Fay Vincent.
For the next fourteen years, Rose constantly tried to drum up public
support, and he finally found an ally in the �present stooge� in the
Commissioner�s Office.
One of the lasting effects of the Rose case was
the way it eliminated some other gambling problems in baseball.
Lenny Dykstra, for example, had a gambling problem but only bet on
cards. When John Dowd went to speak with him on behalf of Major
League Baseball, Dykstra notified him that he had completely stopped
gambling solely because Pete Rose was caught. In fact, Gene Orza
tried to stop Dykstra from talking, but he was thrown out of the
room.
Dowd noted that it was no coincidence that Rose
never attempted to reapply to baseball while Vincent was
Commissioner. Instead, Rose waited until Bud Selig led baseball in
a weakened position from the past Commissioners. In 1998, Dowd
received a letter from Selig instructing him to never talk about the
Rose case again because of its confidentiality. Dowd was stunned
because the case had never been confidential, and refused to comply
with Selig�s request. Selig�s response was to attempt to take away
Dowd�s legal license by filing a bar complaint, but it was quickly
dismissed.
This was the evidence to Dowd that Selig was
attempting to find a way to return Pete Rose to baseball.
Immediately, Fay Vincent called Selig to tell him that he was making
a grave mistake, but he was ignored. Dowd�s theory is that Selig is
acting on behalf of George Steinbrenner who wants to ensure a place
for himself in the Hall of Fame despite having been banned from
baseball in the early 1990s [ed. note � I do not agree with this
theory at all].
However, Rose�s recently released book was an
example of exactly what not to do in his situation. Rose only
confessed to the accusations in the Dowd Report and nothing more
(for example, he never bet on the Reds). At this point, among the
many people that had supported Rose through the years, most of them,
including Selig have turned away. Right now, Rose only has two
people still sticking by him in baseball (according to Dowd). In
fact, Dowd insists that the reason Rose really wants into the Hall
of Fame is to raise more money to pay off his gambling debts. Dowd
noted that Rose�s achievements are already in Cooperstown, even if
he is not.
Dowd does not really feel vindicated after
Rose�s confession because he knew that he was right the whole time.
Instead, he is just relieved that the whole issue is now over so he
can move on with his life. His biggest pet peeve is hearing about
how unfair the investigation was and other myths that have been
spread by Pete Rose. Finally, Dowd said that he hoped to stay away
from the game because it is currently plagued by so many problems.
To him, baseball will not improve until it ends up in front of
Congress again like in 1921 and the Commissioner�s Office returns to
being an impartial judge.
Dowd really told an interesting story, and
seemed annoyed that Rose has denied knowledge of the investigation
to this day. He stressed the fairness of his investigation over all
other factors. Plus, he genuinely despised Bud Selig which makes
him a good guy in my book.
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