Nearly 30 years ago, Pete Rose's colorful career as baseball's all-time hit king ended in disgrace when he accepted a lifetime ban for betting on the sport β one he loved so much that he once said he would "walk through hell in a gasoline suit to play.
Now, an allegation of sex with a minor from during his time as a player could unravel an already compromised legacy that the former Cincinnati Reds slugger and manager has tried to resuscitate over the decades.
Any outside possibility that the year-old would be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame β which has time and time again rejected him because of the scandal β is likely now terminal, observers say. The allegations were made public in sworn testimony submitted Monday as part of a federal defamation lawsuit Rose filed against John Dowd, the high-profile Washington attorney whose investigation eventually led to Rose's ouster from Major League Baseball.
Rose's suit, filed in July in U. District Court in Eastern Pennsylvania, claims that he was defamed when Dowd said in a interview with a Philadelphia radio station that he committed statutory rape of young girls during spring training. Dowd on the radio show said that memorabilia dealer Michael Bertolini, who was also Rose's bookmaker, once told him he "not only ran bets but ran young girls to Rose down at spring training, ages 12 to So that's statutory rape every time you do that," Dowd said.
Rose denied those allegations in his complaint. Bertolini could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday. Dowd's response to the complaint, filed Monday, included the testimony from a woman identified as Jane Doe. She said that when she was 14 or 15 in , she received a call from Rose, who at the time was about 32 years old, married to his first wife, and a father of two.
