August 24th, 1989. That is the date Pete Rose was banned by then MLB commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti for life for gambling on the game of baseball and to this day, he is still banned. He did seek to get reinstated by commissioner in March of 2015 but that was denied in December of that year.
Now it is coming out that during the 1984 season, Rose corked his bats as a member of the Montreal Expos. Joe Jammer, an Expos groundskeeper for 11 years, made that allegation during a phone interview.
Here is an excerpt written by Danny Gallagher of the Montreal Gazette:
“Pete was too smart to deal with Expos equipment manager John Silverman (to cork his bats in the Expos’ clubhouse). So Bryan Greenberg, who worked in the visitors’ clubhouse, did it,” Jammer said. “He took me into a room, a door to the left, and underneath tarps there was this machine.”
Jammer recalled that he asked Greenberg: “What’s that machine for?”
Jammer said Greenberg replied: “That’s a machine for corking Pete Rose’s bats.”
When Jammer told Greenberg he wanted to take a bat with him, Greenberg wouldn’t allow him to.
“The guy (Greenberg) was saying Rose had been corking his bat for 20 years,” Jammer said. “The guy said that nobody checks him because he’s a singles hitter.”
In 2010, Deadspin posted an X-ray photo of a bat that Rose used during the 1985 season while chasing the all-time hits record that was said to be corked.
Jammer isn't the only one who came out and said that Rose corked his bats. Rose's long-time friend Tommy Gioiosa told Vanity Fair in 2001 that Rose corked his bat while playing for the Reds in 1985.