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Michael Rothstein
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has released 130 pages of documents relating to Pete Rose, Major League Baseball’s career hits leader who was subsequently banned from the game and the Baseball Hall of Fame until earlier this year for betting on baseball.
The documents focus on Rose’s deceased bookie, Ronald Peters, and a mid-1980s investigation into narcotics and bookmaking operations that Peters ran. Some of the information in the released Rose file appears to have been covered in the 1989 Dowd report, commissioned by Major League Baseball.
Rose was banned from baseball in 1989 following an investigation that showed he bet on baseball. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred removed Rose from the permanently ineligible list in May, allowing him to be eligible for Hall of Fame induction. There is no specific mention of Rose betting on baseball — something he eventually acknowledged having done — in the documents released by the FBI.
Rose died on Sept. 30, 2024, at age 83. After an individual dies, the FBI publicly releases records it maintains on individuals, often with redactions. Many names in the Rose file have been redacted. It is not clear whether there will be further releases of Rose-related files. In this release, 125 additional pages were deleted as duplicates or for reasons such as interagency or intra-agency memos, personnel or medical files, an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy or the revealing of the identity of a confidential source.
Among the documents was a 1987 memo requesting an FBI investigation. The memo cited a cooperating witness who said that “at one time Rose owed Peters $90,000 in sports wagering losses.” In the same memo, police officers in Franklin, Ohio, are said to have seen Rose often enter Peters’ establishment, called Jonathan’s, “through its private entrance.” The same memo alleged Rose was “a silent partner in a bar that Peters operated in Cincinnati before [Peters] moved to Franklin.”
A November 1987 interview with a person whose name was redacted said Rose would bet on 10 football games a weekend in 1986, usually around $1,000 to $2,000 per game, and that at one point Rose owed Peters $80,000. The individual also “believes that Rose bet only on football, basketball, and horse racing; he never saw Rose place a bet on a baseball game.” The report also said the individual believed another person “stole $3,500 of Rose’s money” and that person then left town.
The same person also told the FBI that Rose “sometimes places bets with an individual known to [redacted] only as [redacted] in New York when Peters will not accept Rose’s bets.” In an interview summary with a redacted individual in March 1988, the individual said someone called in bets for Rose but that “if I had called in bets for Pete, or if I knew if [redacted] did, I wouldn’t tell you. I don’t want to implicate a ballplayer.”
A summary of a July 1987 interview with a redacted individual said that person was in a business partnership with Rose until Rose’s “gambling debts created a financial problem for him.” The individual ended the partnership with Rose but remained in touch with both him and Peters, the summary said.
Some of the documents had been released to ESPN in an earlier request for documents relating to Peters, but Rose’s name was redacted at the time.
The vast majority of the file centered around the FBI requesting subpoenas for phone records and surveillance recordings related to Peters. It is unclear whether any of those subpoena requests also tied to Rose or his involvement with Peters.