For years, Pete Rose denied betting on baseball. Then he changed his story, and claimed to only have bet on baseball as a manager. Now, new evidence obtained by ESPN’s Outside the Lines seemingly disproves that line of thinking and proves that Rose bet on baseball while he was playing.
OTL obtained pages from a notebook that was taken from an associate of Rose’s during a raid in October of 1989, and has been under court-ordered seal for 26 years. The notebook pages were reviewed by ex-federal prosecutor John Dowd, who led the investigation into Rose’s gambling on behalf of MLB.
The documents showed that Rose bet on at least one MLB team on 30 different days, including placing bets on the Reds (to win) on 21 of those days. Rose played in several of the games in which he placed bets on.
The entire OTL piece is definitely worth a read, and one has to wonder if this is the final nail in the coffin for Rose’s potential reinstatement into Major League Baseball.
[ESPN]