Pete Rose reminds me of that impolitic gag about the husband’s lament for not murdering his wife, 35 years ago, because “I’d be out by now.”
In the mid 1980s, Rose, as did — and do — many self-destructive sports gamblers, figured everyone has a bet on everything. Thus, his around-the-batting-cage talk tended to be indiscreet.
He didn’t know me from Lumpy Rutherford, yet one night in Philadelphia he casually volunteered to me and some NBC guys that lousy free-throw shooting in the NCAA Tournament was killing him.
Instead of getting and letting it all out 25 years ago, he locked himself in a denial cage, likely hoping that the next — and then the next — revelation about his baseball gambling would remain a secret between him and those who could not contain word that they ran or booked bets for the great Pete Rose.