Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, July 20, 1990                   TAG: 9007200108
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

MANY IN GAME GO TO BAT FOR PETE

But some who didn't know him were less charitable.

On the day Rose received a five-month prison term and additional penalties for failing to report all his off-the-field earnings, the reaction was perhaps best stated by Dallas Green, Rose's manager on the Philadelphia Phillies' 1980 world championship team.

"I think we're all saddened by what happened to him," Green said.

"I remember Pete Rose the baseball player. When he put on a uniform there wasn't a player more dedicated. He played every inning with everything he had. All of us make decisions in life and we have to live with them. He made decisions that took him down the wrong path."

Said New York Mets manager Bud Harrelson, who fought with Rose during the 1973 National League playoffs: "I think he lucked out today considering what he could have gotten. Now he can just get the jail sentence behind him and get on with his life."

The sentence, which also includes three months in a halfway house, 1,000 hours of community service and a $50,000 fine, hardly came as a surprise. Rose was banned from baseball for life on Aug. 24, 1989, by Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti for gambling on sports.

For most baseball people, there wasn't much more to say about the fate of baseball's all-time hits leader, whose private life has become public in the past 18 months.

"The only thing I'll say about Pete Rose is that he's the greatest competitor I've ever managed," said Detroit manager Sparky Anderson, who managed Cincinnati's "Big Red Machine" that won consecutive world titles in 1975 and 1976 with a cast that included Rose.

"This in no way will ever change my feelings about him as a ballplayer. In my heart, he's a Hall of Famer."

Others were not so forgiving.

Ron Peters, the bookmaker who said Rose used him to place bets, declined to comment Thursday through spokesmen at the Terre Haute (Ind.) Federal Prison Camp.

But earlier, Peters told the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News he expected Rose to do time.

"I hope he leaves his cocky, arrogant attitude at home. It won't serve him well in prison," said Peters, who is serving two years after pleading guilty in April 1989 to drug trafficking and filing a false income tax. "But I'm sure he'll be treated the same as on the streets - some inmates won't like him and some will idolize him."

Joe Preseren, general manager of the Tulsa Drillers of the Class AA Texas League, suggested that despite Rose's credentials as a player, he should not be in the Hall of Fame.

"I think his off-field problems overshadow his on-field greatness," Preseren said.

The consensus among the Reds, Rose's former team as a manager and player, was that Rose was fortunate to get no more than five months.

"I'm happy he only got what he got," second baseman Ron Oester said. "It could have been a lot more. I'm sad - nobody wants to see Pete Rose go to prison.

"He's still a Hall of Famer in my book. He'll still be one of the greatest players ever."

Reds officials made no statements Thursday regarding the sentencing. When asked whether she had any reaction, owner Marge Schott simply shook her head.