He told a Bloomberg News reporter that power hitters use cork because it helps the baseball travel farther. In 2001, after the Vanity Fair article, Rose denied ever using a corked bat in a game. “I just want the truth to come out.”Ī phone call to Rose and an email to a representative on Thursday have not been returned. “I know it’s not a can of worms because it’s already been opened,” he said referring to the Gazette story, parts of which he disputed. I don’t know if he used them on the field,” Greenberg said. “Rose told me he was using them for batting practice. And offered some elaboration on how it went down. “They can say whatever they want,” Greenberg told the Gazette, refusing to confirm or deny his involvement.īut in interviews weeks later with The Palm Beach Post, Greenberg, who is recovering from non-hodgkin’s lymphoma, clarified that he corked bats for Rose not at the ballpark but at his home. Rose’s alleged bat tampering during his brief Expos tenure was reported in May by the Montreal Gazette, in a story citing two sources, one unnamed, who claimed Greenberg corked bats for Rose in a room at Olympic Stadium. In 2001, Rose’s long-time friend, Tommy Gioiosa, told Vanity Fair that Rose corked his bats in 1985 while playing with the Reds and chasing Ty Cobb’s all-time hits record. He was banned from baseball in 1989 because of gambling, including betting on baseball.Īllegations that Rose corked his bats are not new. Nicknamed Charlie Hustle during a career spent mostly with the Cincinnati Reds, Rose set the Major League record for most career hits with 4,256 while playing from 1963 to 1987. “He’d call me up and say, ‘Corky, I need four.’ ” “He called me ‘Corky,’” Greenberg recalled, sitting on a plastic chair in the driveway of his Hammock Trace home, a faded Canadian flag above his head over the entrance to the garage. But he claims he corked “a couple dozen” of Rose’s Mizuno bats in 1984, when Greenberg worked as a private carpenter and Rose played for the hometown Expos. Greenberg wouldn’t identify the other players whose bats he says he corked in violation of baseball rules, only that they played in the 1990s. Greenberg said he used the drill decades ago not only to build cabinets and hang shelves for clients back home in Montreal, but also to cork baseball bats for “a couple of” Montreal Expos players, including Pete Rose. Reaching into a corner shelf, he finds it - a Black & Decker power drill, nicked and dented from years of mileage, loosely wrapped in its electrical cord.
On a quiet cul-de-sac south of Indiantown Road, Bryan Greenberg wades through a gauntlet of tools, bins and paint cans in his standing-room-only garage in search of a baseball relic. View Gallery: Man says he corked bats for Pete Rose in 1984
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