John Dowd shocking revelation!!!!!!!!&

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?p...9&notFound=true

By John M. Dowd

Sunday, January 11, 2004; Page B03

Pete Rose's baseball career has Hall of Fame written all over it. He pounded out 4,256 base hits in his 24 seasons, more than any other player, and held 19 major league records when he retired. His lust for the game was equaled, perhaps, only by his passion for gambling on sports. Last week, he reversed more than 14 years of denials when he admitted in a new autobiography that he had placed bets on the team he was managing.

In the book, Rose renews his criticism of both the man who banished him from baseball, then-commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti, and the investigation that Giamatti ordered. Outlook asked John M. Dowd, a former Justice Department prosecutor hired by Giamatti to conduct the investigation, for his reaction to last week's events. Dowd is a criminal defense lawyer in Washington.

I knew Bart Giamatti for only six months. On Feb. 23, 1989, he retained me as the special counsel to investigate Pete Rose's gambling activities. I last saw Bart on Aug. 24, 1989, the day he threw Pete Rose out of baseball forever for betting on games of the Cincinnati Reds from 1985 to 1987, when Pete was the Reds manager. I talked to Bart every day during those six months. He treated me like a son. He called me Saint John.

When Bart hired me, he told me there would be no secrets. He directed me to keep Rose and his lawyers apprised of the progress of my inquiry. I did. Bart told me that whatever I found, the world would see. But that would come later. First, we engaged in a very private and intense round of discussions with Pete and his advisers, much of which has never been revealed in detail.

After a month of investigation, I had all the evidence now memorialized in my 225-page report. The evidence was overwhelming. He had violated one of baseball's most sacred rules -- rules meant to preserve the integrity of the game, rules intended to assure its fans that the competition on the field is free of taint. I shared all the facts with Rose's lawyers. Then Bart directed me to lay out the evidence directly to Rose in a deposition. Bart wanted Pete to see and hear all of the hard evidence. Bart instructed me not to confront Pete, but simply to present the evidence and get his responses to it. Pete lied and denied. It was a hard two days for Pete Rose.

Following that deposition, with the facts in hand, Bart directed me to find a resolution. I spent an entire month meeting with Pete's lawyers. Bart and I agreed on the fundamental points of such a resolution: Pete would have to reconfigure his life. He would have to stop betting. He would have to make a candid response to all of the hard evidence. He would have to explain his association with all of the characters in the betting operation. He would have to submit to, and complete, a full rehabilitation. During his rehabilitation, he would be removed from the game of baseball.

I had been advised by federal authorities that if Rose agreed to these terms, he would not be prosecuted for tax evasion but would have to pay all taxes, interest and penalties due. Upon successful completion of his rehabilitation, he would have been readmitted to the game of baseball and could receive all honors which come with achievement and good conduct. He would have been eligible, if chosen, for admission to the Hall of Fame.

I worked for a month with Pete's counsel. They tried but could not get Pete to admit the truth. They asked if I would meet with him alone and talk to him. They believed I could bring him around. Bart approved and I agreed to talk to Pete. But Pete's agent vetoed the meeting.

We were at complete loggerheads. Pete's criminal counsel wanted the resolution we were working on but his agent would not budge. Bart, then-deputy commissioner Fay Vincent and I met with Pete's agent. He told us that Pete was a legend and would not admit to any of the allegations. It was a short meeting.

I then tried to find some friends of Pete's -- Reds teammates -- we could call upon to reach out and help him in his obvious time of need. I was told Pete had no friends in baseball.

The rest is history -- a very public history. We wrote the report. It was given to Bart and to Pete. Bart ordered Pete to come to a hearing. Bart asked me to turn over my files to Rose's lawyers and to make available all 110 witness for interview. I did. Pete and his counsel did not interview or take the testimony of any of the witnesses. Pete refused to appear for a hearing or present any evidence on his own behalf.

Instead, Rose sued the commissioner, in violation of his own baseball contract. He lost in the courts and agreed to be banned forever from the game of baseball. Nine days after the announcement, we lost Bart forever when he died of a heart attack at the age of 51. But we did not lose his high standards and his love of the game.

Pete has now admitted that he bet on games while managing the Reds. That meets one of the conditions we discussed 14 years ago. But the question that remains is: Has he reconfigured his life?