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I've read Bill James's article on the Dowd Report and he shows that the "evidence" is mostly interpretation. What he suggests may have happened is that Rose lied about betting on other sports and therefore Dowd chose to believe the most anti-Rose interpretation of everything, even if it meant believing admitted bookies and drug dealers.

The so-called betting slip includes a combination of games that was not played at any point in the NL season in quesiton. A handwriting expert said it was in Rose's handwriting, but a handwriting expert also said that the Hitler Diaries were genuine.

Whet they should have done is to do what the newsletter Strategic Investment did on the Foster "suicide note": They got 3 police handwriting experts, one in New York, one in LA, and one in Boston, each working independently and without knowledge of the others. (BTW, they all concluded that the suicide note was NOT in Foster's handwriting.)

Then there was a string of phone calls from Rose's home phone to a bookie in New York from about 7 to about 11 on a night when the Reds were playing. The calls were placed by Rose's friend Paul Janszen. According to Janszen's girlfriend, when Rose got home, he and Janszen had a shouting match and Janszen and his girlfriend stormed out. Now interestingly, about 12 midnight a string of calls to the same bookie starts from Janszen's home phone.

Could these have been Rose's bets? They could have, but they could just as easily have been Janszen's own bets.

James's theory is that Janszen, Ron Peters, and others ran out of credit with their bookies, so they started laying bets using the name of their famous friend Pete Rose because he would never be denied credit by the bookies.

Maybe, maybe not. But there is certainly room for reasonable doubt as to whether Rose bet on baseball.

Now, I have family in Cincinnati and I have seen Pete Rose in commercials when he was playing. Unless he's had some acting lessons, he is a TERRIBLE actor. And yet he has maintained over these years that "I did not bet on baseball and I did not bet on the Cincinnati Reds." And he has done so with reasonable plausibility. Can a bad actor do this if it was not true? And why (if Baseball Prospectus, which is a very respected site, is correct) didn't baseball insist on and get a confession to betting on baseball? Does baseball know that there is plenty of room for doubt on this case?

Had I been commissioner, I would have sat Rose down for two years, one for consorting with gamblers (one year, Durocher precedent) and one for his betting on other sports. Then I would have had a more thorough, perhaps separate investigation done on the charge of betting on baseball.

Whet they should have done is to do what the newsletter Strategic Investment did on the Foster "suicide note": They got 3 police handwriting experts, one in New York, one in LA, and one in Boston, each working independently and without knowledge of the others. (BTW, they all concluded that the suicide note was NOT in Foster's handwriting.)

Completely off topic, but you brought it up...

I'd love to see a link to this information, if you have it. I was at the little after-party/seminar following the MFJ and one part of the forum was evidence provided from some very compelling folks regarding the Vince Foster situation. I've looked into this to a certain extent, though it's been a few years, and all the inconsistencies and impossibilities are quite overwhelming, but I haven't seen this report of the handwriting analysis. Do you have a link?