[911SC Pilot]

NEW YORK -- After nearly 15 years of denials, Pete Rose has finally come clean and admitted he bet on baseball while manager of the Cincinnati Reds.


The career hits leader, says in his soon-to-be-released autobiography that he hopes the acknowledgment will help end his ban from the game, which could lead to his induction into the Hall of Fame.


Rose says he was a big-time gambler who started betting regularly on baseball in 1987 but never against the Reds, according to excerpts from the book released to Sports Illustrated for this week's issue that hits news stands Wednesday. Rose's book will be released Thursday.


"Yes, sir, I did bet on baseball," Rose tells commissioner Bud Selig during a meeting in November 2002 about Rose's lifetime ban.


"How often?" Selig asks.


"Four or five times a week," Rose replies. "But I never bet against my own team, and I never made any bets from the clubhouse."


"Why?" Selig asks.


"I didn't think I'd get caught."


Rose repeated his admission in an interview on ABC News' "Primetime Thursday," parts of which aired Monday on "Good Morning America."


"It's time to clean the slate, it's time to take responsibility," Rose says in the interview. "I'm 14 years late.


"I just never had the opportunity to tell anybody that was going to help me. ... I couldn't get a response from baseball for 12 years. It's like I died and, and they knew I died and they didn't want to bring me back. They were just going to let me rot."


In "My Prison Without Bars," Rose writes that he regrets lying for all those years and says, "I wish I could take it all back."


"I've consistently heard the statement: 'If Pete Rose came clean, all would be forgiven.' Well, I've done what you've asked. The rest is up to the commissioner and the big umpire in the sky."


Rose agreed to the lifetime ban in August 1989. He applied for reinstatement in 1997, but Selig hasn't ruled on the request.


After meeting with Selig, Rose came away thinking he would be reinstated "within a reasonable period." Other baseball officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the following month that Selig wanted Rose to admit he bet on baseball as part of any reinstatement agreement.


"We haven't seen the book. Until we read the book, there's nothing to comment on," Selig told AP on Sunday night.


As long as Rose is banned from baseball, he is ineligible for the Hall of Fame ballot. His last chance to appear on the writers' ballot is December 2005. After that, if he's reinstated, he could be voted in by the veterans' committee.


"The application remains pending, and the commissioner will take all of this into account," Bob DuPuy, baseball's chief operating officer, said Monday.


Rose wrote that if he "had been an alcoholic or a drug addict, baseball would have suspended me for six weeks and paid for my rehabilitation."


"I should have had the opportunity to get help, but baseball had no fancy rehab for gamblers like they do for drug addicts," Rose writes. "If I had admitted my guilt, it would have been the same as putting my head on the chopping block -- lifetime ban. Death penalty. I spent my entire life on the baseball fields of America, and I was not going to give up my profession without first seeing some hard evidence. ... Right or wrong, the punishment didn't fit the crime -- so I denied the crime."


In the book, Rose admits placing bets with Ronald Peters through Thomas Gioiosa and Paul Janszen -- the three were the primary witnesses in the 1989 investigation by baseball lawyer John Dowd that led to the agreement in which Rose accepted a lifetime ban.


Dowd concluded Rose bet on baseball between 1985 and 1987 and detailed 412 baseball wagers between April 8 and July 5, 1987, including 52 on Cincinnati to win.


"During the times I gambled as a manager, I never took an unfair advantage," Rose writes. "I never bet more or less based on injuries or inside information. I never allowed my wagers to influence my baseball decisions. So in my mind, I wasn't corrupt."


Former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent said Sunday: "I think John Dowd is owed a big apology by Rose.


"John is the hero. He did a great job. Now Rose admits John was correct," Vincent said.


Rose wrote that after breaking Ty Cobb's career hits record in 1985, and as he dealt with retirement as a player the following year, his betting became more of a problem. He details losing hundreds of thousands of dollars.


"I didn't realize it at the time, but I was pushing toward disaster," he writes. "A part of me was still looking for ways to recapture the high I got from winning batting titles and World Series. If I couldn't get the high from playing baseball, then I needed a substitute to keep from feeling depressed. I was driven, in gambling as well as in baseball. Enough was never enough. I had huge appetites, and I was always hungry."


Asked during the ABC News interview what fans think about him, Rose said: "I think the powers that be in baseball understand that, 'Hey, maybe the fans like this guy. Maybe the fans want, want us to give him a second chance.'"