Mock jury would open Hall doors for Pete Rose

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) -- A jury sitting in mock judgment of Pete Rose decided Thursday night that baseball's career hits leader should be eligible for the Hall of Fame, even though most of the jurors think he bet on baseball.

The 8-4 vote was a victory for defense attorney Johnnie Cochran over Alan Dershowitz, taking a rare turn as a prosecutor for the ESPN-produced event. The lawyers were allies on O.J. Simpson's defense team.

Polled after the verdict, 11 of the 12 jurors said they believed that Rose bet on baseball.

"I hope it isn't too late," Dershowitz said after the verdict. "All you have to do is get him to 'fess up, and everybody will want him."

After a three-hour trial at Harvard Law School, the jury agreed with Cochran's claim that Rose was punished enough by being kept out of the Hall for 14 years. Some said Rose should be judged on a playing career in which he amassed a record 4,256 hits, and not on his behavior as manager.

"You would not keep Vincent Van Gogh out of the Louvre because he had a drug and alcohol problem, would you?" Cochran said in his closing argument. "You wouldn't do that. His work speaks for itself. Pete Rose's work speaks for itself."

Cochran also argued that it was unfair that rules for Hall induction were changed two years after Rose agreed to a lifetime ban.

Rose wasn't present Thursday, though former players Dave Parker, Steve Garvey and Bill Lee did take the witness stand. Jim Palmer and Hank Aaron testified by videotape.

Court TV host and former Texas judge Catherine Crier presided over the mock trial.

Rose agreed to the lifetime ban in 1989, ending baseball's investigation of his finances and gambling. The commissioner's Dowd Report included evidence from gambling records of bookmakers and betting sheets with Rose's fingerprints that contained wagers by Rose on his Cincinnati Reds while he was managing the team -- a violation of baseball's cardinal rule.

Several of the players who testified knew that rule by number -- 21D -- reinforcing Dershowitz's claim that it is well-known to everyone in the game. It's posted in every major- and minor-league clubhouse, and players are lectured on it each spring.

Rose has admitted having a gambling problem, but he has always denied that he bet on baseball.

Cochran argued that baseball duped Rose into accepting the lifetime ban.

"If you started taking people out of the Hall of Fame who had character defects, they wouldn't have a Hall of Fame. It would be a hall of shame," Cochran said. "Enough is enough."

Dershowitz spent little time trying to prove that Rose bet on baseball. Instead, he focused on Rose's refusal to admit it and apologize.

In a nod to Cochran's famous defense of Simpson, Dershowitz told the jury, "If you bet on the game, there's no Hall of Fame."