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Pete Rose is Suing Trump's Russia Lawyer Because This is America Now

The former baseball player currently is suing John Dowd, Trump's lead Russia probe lawyer, for defamation. No, really.
David Kohl—USA TODAY Sports

Here is a real true sentence about life in these United States in 2017: the lead lawyer defending President Donald J. Trump against an independent federal probe into his political campaign's possible collusion with Russia, John Dowd, is himself being sued for defamation by none other than Pete Fucking Rose.

Read that once again. Let it sink it. This is not the Onion nor the regurgitated output of a news article-writing algorithm fed an unbalanced diet of Tom Clancy books, issues of 1988 Spy magazines, and transcripts of sports talk radio summer dead zone hot take debates. This is where We, The People are, right now, huffing the purest pharmaceutical-grade shit yet produced by the American Experiment.

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Of course, there are the particulars—the things that get you from A-to-Unbelievable. As you may well know, Trump and his campaign advisers are being investigated by a special prosecutor, former FBI Director Robert Mueller, over allegations and evidence that they may have colluded with Russian efforts to influence and interfere with the 2016 presidential election—not to mention that the president may have obstructed justice by firing former FBI Director James Comey. In response, Trump has hired Dowd, a veteran Washington, D.C. criminal defense lawyer, to take the lead in representing him in the Russia inquiry.

If Dowd's name sounds familiar, then congratulations: you're either someone accused of doing something wrong, or someone who follows professional baseball. In the late 1980s, Dowd led Major League Baseball's investigation into gambling allegations against Rose, ultimately authoring an eponymous, 225-page report that a) proved conclusively that Rose illegally bet on baseball games, including Cincinnati Reds games, while he was playing for and managing the club; b) resulted in Rose's expulsion from baseball 1989 and from consideration for the Hall of Fame.

Rose denied gambling for decades, until admitting in a 2004 book that actually, he did do it. Now here's where the defamation part comes in. Fast forward to 2015, when Dowd said on a Philadelphia radio station that Rose also may have been having sex with underage girls:

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"[Rose's former personal photographer and sports betting proxy] 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," Dowd said on WCHE 1520 AM in an interview on July 13, 2015, referring to a longtime Rose associate.

"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."

Three weeks before that interview, Dowd told sports radio talk host Jim Rome that Rose had Bertolini "running young women down in Florida for his satisfaction."

Bertolini's attorney issued a statement to the Cincinnati Enquirer, saying his client never made any such accusations against Rose. Rose also denied Dowd's allegations, and subsequently sued Dowd for defamation, claiming that the defense lawyer had long shown a bias against Rose in previous interviews; that he refused to recant the statutory rape statements when given the chance in private; and that Rose lost a $250,000 endorsement deal with Skechers footwear as a result of Dowd's comments.

Earlier this week, a federal judge in Philadelphia ruled that Rose failed to provide a plausible case that Dowd's statements intentionally interfered with a contractual relationship Rose had with the shoe company, but that Rose otherwise can move forward with suit.

So, again, this is where we are. Plymouth Rock and Gettysburg and Selma and Trinity and Apollo 11 and Chia Pets, all of it leading to Pete Fucking Rose somehow emerging as a side character in what could be the biggest and most significant political scandal in the history of the Republic. America may be too young to die, but we are quite possibly too stupid to live.