Betting Slips Linked to Rose, Reports Say

Betting slips on Cincinnati Reds’ games have Pete Rose’s fingerprints, as well as being in the manager’s handwriting, it was revealed Wednesday in separate reports.

Baseball officials have a handwriting expert’s analysis showing Rose wrote out gambling slips on games involving the Reds, the Associated Press learned.

The New York Times reported in today’s editions that FBI sources say the slips have Rose’s fingerprints on them as well as being in his handwriting.

The betting slips could give baseball officials evidence to support allegations that Rose bet on his own team, an offense that would result in an automatic lifetime ban from the game.

The revelations came on the day Rose’s attorneys said they want to cross-examine baseball Commissioner Bart Giamatti at next Monday’s hearing in New York.

As part of their lawsuit filed Monday in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court against Giamatti, Rose’s lawyers also have asked an Ohio judge to order the commissioner to appear in Cincinnati for a deposition and want him to produce voluminous evidence related to baseball’s investigation.

Rose, who is seeking to block the hearing scheduled for Monday, has maintained he never bet on baseball. His lawyers also have said that baseball’s report on gambling allegations, written by John M. Dowd, was based on hearsay and the word of convicted criminals.

Rose, speaking after the Reds lost a doubleheader to the Braves in Atlanta Wednesday, was informed of the reports on the handwriting and fingerprints.

“That’s not true,” he said. “I’m not commenting on anything like that. Any other baseball questions? I thought it was in the courts right now. I’ll say it again, I’m not going to talk about it.”

The New York Times quoted a federal law enforcement official as saying the FBI obtained the sheets last year from Paul G. Janszen, whom it was investigating on suspicion of cocaine distribution.

“Rose is claiming the sheets are forgeries,” the official, who asked not to be identified, told the newspaper. “He says he didn’t write them, but we’re as confident as we could be that he did.”

Baseball officials are attempting to obtain information on the fingerprints from the FBI, a lawyer familiar with the commissioner’s investigation told the AP.

Janszen gave the original sheets to federal authorities when they were investigating him last year, a source said, but made a copies and later supplied them to baseball’s investigators.

Rich Levin, a spokesman for Giamatti, said the commissioner had no comment on the reports.

Judge Norbert Nadel will consider Rose’s request for a temporary restraining order today in Cincinnati.

The betting slips are revealed as part of Rose’s suit, and currently are in the possession of federal authorities who have investigated Rose for possible tax evasion.

The law enforcement official told the New York Times the betting sheets are used by bettors as reminders of the wagers they have made. He told the newspaper that the sheets include such information as the dates and games involved, the teams Rose bet on, the odds and the amounts he bet.

Rose’s attorneys allege that Janszen, who claims to have run bets for Rose, stole three pieces of paper from the home of the Reds’ manager. The papers are described as the “Pete Rose Betting Sheets” in Dowd’s report.

Baseball investigators asked for samples of Rose’s handwriting to see if the handwriting on the slips could be verified as his.

In a letter May 18 from Dowd to Roger J. Makley, one of Rose’s lawyers, Dowd confirmed that a handwriting expert “was permitted to examine the handwriting of Pete Rose on the three original pages of betting sheets in the possession of the FBI which were furnished by Paul Janszen.”

Baseball officials declined to discuss the handwriting analysis. The suit does not reveal the outcome of the analysis.

Rose’s lawyers indicate in their filing that they wanted their expert to examine the sheets.

Rose’s suit attacks the reliability of one of the betting slips. The suit says the first of the three sheets “purports to set forth a bet made on an April 9, 1987 game where Cincinnati played at Montreal.”

“Incredibly, Dowd places significant emphasis on this sheet of paper even though April 9 was an off-day for the Reds, and while they played Montreal the previous day, the game was in Cincinnati and not in Montreal,” the suit said.

Rose’s lawyers make no mention of the other slips. Lawyer Reuven J. Katz declined to answer questions about the betting slips or the handwriting analysis.

In their suit, Rose’s lawyers complain that baseball’s investigators “threatened” in a letter March 14 to inform the commissioner that the manager was refusing to cooperate unless he provided handwriting samples. Rose first wanted to know the credentials of the expert and see what his handwriting sample would be compared against, the lawsuit said.

According to papers filed by baseball and obtained Wednesday by the Cincinnati Post, Giamatti’s lawyers are asking the court to allow the commissioner to do his job.

“The commissioner is simply doing the job with which he has been entrusted--investigating and acting a upon charges of conduct,” the written response said. “It would be detrimental to the best interests to the game.

“The temporary restraining order would prevent the commissioner from proceeding to determine those matters within his primary and exclusive jurisdiction and seriously undermine the public’s confidence in the Commissioner’s Office and the institution of Major League Baseball.”

The suit alleges that Giamatti has made up his mind about Rose, and that Dowd’s investigation was conducted in an unfair and prejudiced manner. The lawsuit calls Dowd’s 225-page report on the allegations a “hatchet-job.”

Major League baseball’s written response said: “Above all, the commissioner has been scrupulously fair in the investigation of Mr. Rose. He retains an open mind as the hearing approaches and there is no legal bases in which to under mind the authority of the commissioner . . . “