Rose Lays Blame for His Troubles in Book
NEW YORK - Only occasionally contrite but repeatedly the defiant, belligerent sparkplug fans love, Pete Rose blames his accusers and medical conditions for the problems that got him kicked out of baseball.
Rose spills his thoughts in a colorful autobiography, "Pete Rose: My Prison Without Bars," released Thursday by Rodale Inc. Rose, still banned 14 1/2 years later, also concedes for the first time that he bet on Cincinnati Reds games while he was manager.
The highly touted 322-page book, in which Rose admits he gambled on the Reds while managing the team in the late 1980s, contains no bombshells. It alternates between apologies for his wrongs and the aggressiveness Rose showed during a 24-season major league career.
Rose writes he has had Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Oppositional Defiant Behavior, which he says he got from his mother, and the book contains several quotes from a doctor about the effects. He repeats that he still loves to gamble legally at racetracks, and describes himself as "grumpy, short-tempered and cold-hearted."
He also talks about the emotional moment when he faced his family before going to prison and "humiliating body searches" in prison. He recounts anecdotes of his career such as taking an umpire to dinner after he was ejected from a game and makes a few puerile jokes.
He also compares his compulsive gambling to the behavior of former President Clinton, actors Robert Downey Jr. and Winona Ryder, and blames former Reds manager Jack McKeon and general manager Jim Bowden for not giving Pete Rose Jr. enough of a chance when he played for Cincinnati in 1997.
On Wednesday, Rose insisted he didn't plan to draw attention away from the elections of Dennis Eckersley and Paul Molitor to baseball's Hall of Fame this week.
"I never intended to diminish the exciting news for these deserving players," Rose said in a statement.
What Rose intended for his public confession has gone terribly awry, former teammate Mike Schmidt said.
"It doesn't look good, it's taken a turn for the worse," Schmidt told the AP. "It is a sad thing. ... I haven't heard anything good, but I hope the commissioner is reserving judgment. I've heard some of the worst references about Pete."
Rose repeatedly challenges the report on his gambling by John Dowd and the accusations made by his former associates before he accepted a lifetime ban in August 1989.
Rose said at the time of the investigation, he couldn't believe the way baseball treated him, calling baseball's evidence "flimsy."
"I spent 24 years building a baseball career that other players could only dream of," he wrote.
"And I put it all at risk over the thrill of `risk' itself. I spent thousands of hours in the batting cage. I took hundreds of grounders and fly balls each day in an effort to master my craft. I was known for a diligent work ethic that was unequaled among my peers. Nobody worked harder or took the game more seriously than Pete Rose — nobody. Yet after knowing (Paul) Janszen for only seven months, I trusted him to place bets on the game I loved. How could I be so disciplined in one aspect of my life and so reckless in the other? ...
"I was Pete Rose — baseball's all-time Hit King. I had more records than anybody on the damn planet. Nothing could possibly be wrong with someone who achieved that much success — nothing! ... I was Charlie Hustle — baseball legend. I would not go down without a fight."
Rose writes about the day he went to federal prison in 1990 after pleading guilty to tax charges and talked to his son, Tyler, then 6.
"I had no answer for the betrayed look in Tyler's eyes," Rose wrote. "My dad never let me down on any level and failing my own son was too tough to handle. So hell, I started to cry, too — rare for me because, like I said, I'm not a warm-and-fuzzy guy. ... As you can imagine, this was the lowest point in my life."
He says that in prison, he was given identification No. 01832-061.
"I never thought I'd be wearing anything other than No. 14 on my back," Rose wrote, adding that guards "couldn't help but gawk at the sight of Charlie Hustle in lockdown."
Rose pleaded guilty to two counts of filing false income taxes by failing to report income and was sentenced to five months in prison, three months in a halfway house and 1,000 hours of community service.
"I'm probably the only person in America to go to jail for underpaying his taxes by 4 percent," Rose wrote. Then he added, "The responsibility rested squarely on my shoulders. I just wasn't ready to accept it."
The book quotes Dr. David E. Comings of the City of Hope National Medical Center on ADHD and how it applies to Rose.
"ADHD kids are very strong-willed. They don't like anyone telling them what to do," Comings said. "Although they can't sit still or focus on subjects of little or no interest, their restless energy when focused can by dynamite. Pete Rose is not unlike Einstein, who flunked English but excelled in math."
Rose says he hopes commissioner Bud Selig will grant his application for reinstatement.
"My actions, which I thought were benign, call the integrity of the game into question," Rose wrote. "And there's no excuse for that, but there's also no reason to punish me forever."
Rose blames former commissioner Fay Vincent for the 1991 rule that bars him from the Hall ballot and wants "to enjoy my Hall of Fame induction ceremony while I was still alive!"
Mercer's new show set for debut
TORONTO -- So much for Homeland Security.
CBC's resident satirist Rick Mercer thought it might be interesting to take a camera crew, jump into a van and head for the Canada-U.S. border at Niagara Falls on Tuesday to test the orange alert and the new border regulations.
Alas, U.S. Customs wasn't prepared to make it interesting.
"Piece of cake, tragically," says Mercer, who says they were waved right through, without even a raised eyebrow over the Afghan stamps in his passport. Mercer recently returned from Kabul where he entertained Canadian troops.
He says the border guards WERE interested in the contents of his production assistant's wallet, which contained nothing more official than a Newfoundland driver's licence and a video store card.
"Very intrigued with the driver's licence and 'Oh you have a Blockbuster.'"
While he did some interviews with truckers and people on both sides of the border, Mercer says they didn't roll tape during the crossing itself.
"You can't roll cameras as you go through U.S. Customs. Everyone in TV knows that. If you do that, you get sent to Syria, I think."
Mercer was hoping to catch something funny on tape for his new CBC comedy series, Rick Mercer's Monday Night Report which debuts, well, next Monday.
During the week, Mercer and crew will travel the country for material, then tape the show Friday nights in front of a studio audience at the CBC broadcast centre, with the edited product ready for airing Monday.
The comic says there will likely be something salvaged from the Niagara road trip, as well as bits on Paul Martin, mad cow and the aforementioned Kabul experience. In addition, Mercer promises to continue The Rant, the manic monologue he made famous on This Hour Has 22 Minutes.
"It's a political show because it's about what happened in Canada that week and what people are talking about," he says. "Canadians are political junkies and by and large they do talk about politics."
But he doesn't share the concern of some comics and political cartoonists that the new prime minister might not be funny enough.
"That's just opening night nerves, with a new cast member," Mercer says.
"They're like going 'Well, I hope he's going to be as good as the last guy'. It's like getting a new Darrin on Bewitched. It's like 'How's he gonna compete with the old one?' Well, it'll work, don't worry."
Mercer's new star vehicle debuts as part of CBC's Monday night troika of mid-season shows. He is followed by the return of Ken Finkleman's The Newsroom and then the new legal drama This is Wonderland with Cara Pifko.
While it sounds like a nerve-wracking high-wire act, Mercer says he's comfortable with jumping on a plane or getting in a car, not knowing what he's going to get.
"That's part of the excitement of creating television on the fly, crashing and burning.
"Who knows? The nature of the beast is the unknown. All I can say is, I will try my best to give you a funny show every weekend. It's not a soap box, it's a comedy show."
His earlier Talking to Americans routine became a huge hit as Mercer and crew just how little the average American knows about Canada. The routine lost much of its punch after Sept. 11. But Mercer says the street interviews he does in Canada will be different.
"Of course it has this connotation that I'll be out there pulling fast ones all the time and. . .it's actually quite impossible for me to do that in Canada anyway."
Actress Kate Hudson Gives Birth to First Child
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Goldie Hawn's daughter, actress Kate Hudson, gave birth on Wednesday to her first child, a son, with rock star husband, Chris Robinson, Hudson's spokesman announced.
The baby, weighing 8 pounds, 11 ounces, was born in Los Angeles and named Ryder Russell Robinson. according to publicist Brad Cafarelli.
It's the first child for either Hudson, 24, or Robinson, 37, formerly of the rock band the Black Crowes. They married on Dec. 31, 2000.
The birth of their son makes a grandmother of Hudson's Oscar-winning mom, Goldie Hawn, 58, who sprang to fame as the giggly blonde waif of the 1960s TV show "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In."
Hudson is Hawn's daughter by her first marriage to actor Bill Hudson.
Hudson herself earned an Oscar nomination in 2000 for her breakout supporting role as a rock groupie in "Almost Famous." More recently, she starred in such films as "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days," "Alex and Emma" and "Le Divorce."