Oakland Tribune: Rose sees no reason to quit gambling

Pete Rose doesn't want to give up gambling. He's also drawing the line on apologies.

Fourteen years after his gambling disorder was diagnosed, baseball's banished career hits leader is seeking reinstatement while continuing to wager. Rose insists in his latest autobiography and accompanying interviews this week that there's no reason to quit.

An expert doubts that Rose has cured himself.

"It certainly can happen," said Keith Whyte, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling. "It's probably a little more prevalent than the Immaculate Conception, but not a lot."

Major League Baseball is paying close attention as Rose makes rounds of interviews and appearances to promote his latest autobiography. In "My Prison Without Bars," Rose acknowledges publicly for the first time that he bet on Cincinnati Reds games when he was their manager.

The book doesn't mention the diagnosis that he has a significant gambling disorder, and attacks those who brought his misdeeds to light, resulting in his lifetime ban in 1989.

Asked Friday on "Good Morning America" whether he owes an apology to baseball investigator John Dowd and former commissioner Fay Vincent, Rose said emphatically that he did not. Dowd uncovered evidence that Rose had bet on baseball.

"I don't think it was fair, the way he came to his conclusions," Rose said. "The end result -- he was right. But I just didn't like the way he went about it."

Vincent didn't have a problem with that, saying: "He doesn't owe me an apology. He doesn't owe me anything."

Rose promised that he won't bet with bookmakers again but drew a distinction between illegal gambling and going to the track. In an interview with The Associated Press, he was asked whether he's willing to stay away from tracks and casinos if baseball made it a condition for reinstatement.

Don Zimmer was hired as an adviser by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in another step in a baseball career that has lasted more than a half century.

Zimmer, who turns 73 on Jan. 17, will be in uniform as a coach during spring training and for pregame practices at all regular- season home games.

Zimmer has been in baseball 55 years -- 33 as a major league coach or manager. He spent the last eight seasons as bench coach for New York Yankees manager Joe Torre.

Second baseman Marlon Anderson agreed to a$600,000, one-year contract with the St. Louis Cardinals, who also finalized their $4.2million, two-year deal with right-hander Julian Tavarez.

FIGURE SKATING

Rena Inoue and John Baldwin Jr. won their first pairs title at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Atlanta -- by default.

Not only are they on the world team, but also they're the national champs. But it's hardly the type of showing to put fear in the Chinese and Europeans in March.

And it wasn't just Inoue and Baldwin who were bad. Tiffany Scott and Philip Dulebohn, the defending national champions, bobbled and wobbled their way through the free skate so badly they dropped to third, and are likely off the world team. Katie Orscher and Garrett Lucash were second.

Olympic bronze medalist Tim Goebel withdrew from the championships, saying his aching body could no longer perform his soaring jumps.

Coming off a dismal performance in the short program in which he finished 10th, Goebel plans to take off the rest of the season to address what a team doctor said were major changes in the skater's anatomical structure.

COLLEGE ATHLETICS

Washington athletic director Barbara Hedges is retiring after a year in which she faced criticism about problems with the football, basketball and softball teams. She will retire Jan.16.

Hedges' announcement follows a year of turmoil in the athletic department -- the firing of football coach Rick Neuheisel, basketball recruiting violations and a drug scandal involving a physician with the softball team.

SOCCER

St. John's senior defender Chris Wingert was selected as the winner of the Hermann Trophy, awarded to college soccer's player of the year.

The Red Storm captain became the first player in Division I men's soccer to win the trophy and the National Soccer Coaches Association of America's scholar-athlete award in the same season.

TENNIS

Serena Williams pulled out of the Australian Open, delaying her comeback from a knee injury.

Williams hasn't played since beating sister Venus in the Wimbledon final in July. She was hoping to return this month to defend her title at the Australian Open.

Former U.S. Open runner-up Greg Rusedski insisted ATP trainers are responsible for his failed drug test, saying in a statement through lawyers that he tested positive for the banned steroid nandrolone because of supplements received from the trainers.