They also had betting slips with his fingerprints on them.
It wasn't even arguable. Giamatti had him dead to rights.
Rose signed the ban. Apparently he must have assumed that Giamatti would keep his mouth shut, but said "Pete Rose bet on baseball".
That's when Pete started to lie.
And acted hurt and betrayed that Giamatti said this publicly.
And as has been said above, Rose was a true hero on the field, and those records will stand. But for those who say, "Well, he gambled as a manager. Doesn't negate his on-field acheivements." Don't forget that Rose was a PLAYER-manager at the end of his career.
Pete was known as a heavy gambler long before that. In his biographies from the 70s he even talks at length about how being a pro athlete requires a certain level of adrenaline and he got that "high" off the field by betting on horses, or football, or what have you. In one particular biography he even brags how "good" he was at playing the ponies. He's extremely knowledgeable at handicapping.
I find it very difficult to believe that he wasn't betting on baseball while still a player (or player-manager), but all of a sudden just "happened" to start when he became a manager full-time.
Sorry to be Debby Downer, but the man is essentially dead to me. Not the hero I loved so much as a kid.
Essentially that is what I'm saying.
The records of those hitting it out of the park while *Juicing it* should not.
As far as I know Maris or Mantle never juiced it, well Mantle maybe booze, but that is not a performance enhancer :)