Its fair to say Pete Rose hasn’t lived the cleanest of lives, but these next allegations are worse than gambling or any other vice he may be living with.
John Dowd, the special counsel who led the MLB investigation that got Pete Rose banned from baseball.. claims Michael Bertolini, Rose’s gambling runner, told him he used to run girls for Rose during Spring Training.
Dowd said in the interview (via the Big Lead),
“Ah, no. I don’t. I’ve been asked that question whether he had any moral bearings at all and the answer is no. There’s a lot of other activity. … Michael Bertolini told us that not only did he run bets, but he ran young girls for him down in spring training. Ages 12-14. Isn’t that lovely? So that’s statutory rape every time you do that. So he’s just not the kind of person that I find very attractive. He’s a street guy.”
Now, obviously these are extremely heavy accusations to be throwing around. Rose, for one, seemed utterly amazed that he was even being asked about such a claim.
“Oh, my God!” the 73-year-old Cincinnati Reds and Philadelphia Phillies great said while driving from California to Las Vegas. “Where was my family all of this time in spring training? I never went to spring training without my family except for first year when I was a rookie. It’s shocking.
“What level are they going to reach to next? What’s Dowd going to talk about next? Something from 50 years ago when I was 24 years old? I don’t know why anybody would believe that. It’s unbelievable. That’s the best one so far.”
However Rose brings up a point that many were probably wondering themselves already. Why would Dowd randomly lie about events that had taken place about a half century ago?
Although, if you believe Dowd then I suppose the question then becomes: why would Dowd hold on to such a dark secret for so long?
There are a lot of questions to be answered, and you can bet this won’t be the last time you’ll be hearing about these allegations.
For now, lets just hope it’s eventually proven to be false; and this its just an old man looking for some attention.
