DOWD, JOHN M., 1941-.
John M. Dowd Reports to the Commissioner of Baseball, 1989

Restrictions on Access

Unrestricted access.

Terms Governing Use and Reproduction

All requests subject to limitations noted in departmental policies on reproduction.

Source

Gift of John M. Dowd, 65L, 2015.

Citation

[after identification of item(s)], John M. Dowd Reports to the Commissioner of Baseball, Emory Law Archives, Hugh F. MacMillan Law Library, Emory University.

Biographical Note

An American lawyer and native of Massachusetts, John M. Dowd earned his Juris Doctor from the Emory University School of Law in 1965. During the course of his career, Dowd has handled a variety of civil and criminal cases. In 1974, Dowd was a trial attorney in the Tax Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, serving as the chief of the Organized Crime Strike Force. During this time he supervised an internal investigation of the FBI.

Dowd has represented a number of government officials in court cases, including a U.S. District Judge, two U.S. Senators (John McCain and John Glenn), and the governor of Arizona, Fife Symington. He is well known for his role as Special Counsel to the Commissioner of Baseball during the investigation of Pete Rose. His 225-page "Dowd Report" was submitted to Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti in May 1989, detailing the transgressions of Pete Rose in gambling on baseball games while Rose was both a player and manager for the Cincinnati Reds. Three months after the report, Pete Rose agreed to permanent ineligibility from the sport of baseball in the United States.

John M. Dowd is currently a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld.

Publication Note

New York, New York: Office of the Commissioner, Major League Baseball, 350 Park Avenue, [1989]

Scope and Content Note

This collection contains 14 bound volumes of court documents from American lawyer John M. Dowd. These documents detail the Pete Rose investigation from 1989, in which Dowd was Special Counsel to the Commissioner of Baseball, A. Bartlett Giamatti. Ten volumes are titled "In the Matter of Peter Edward Rose;" these volumes of exhibits include transcripts of interviews with Rose, expert reports, bank and telephone records, and alleged betting records. These volumes were accompanied by the 225-page "Dowd Report" that John M. Dowd submitted to the Commissioner of Baseball.

The final four volumes, titled Rose v. Giamatti, et al. details the civil action filed by Rose against A. Bartlett Giamatti. In this case, Rose contended that he was denied the right to a fair hearing on the gambling allegations by an unbiased decision maker. After a temporary restraining order was filed against the Commissioner in state court in Cincinnati, Ohio, the defendants removed the action to the U.S. District Court, giving rise to the issue whether diversity of citizenship existed because of the presence of "Major League Baseball" and the Cincinnati Reds as defendants in the case. After federal jurisdiction over the action was upheld, Rose dismissed his lawsuit and settled with the Commissioner, resulting in his permanent ineligibility from the sport of baseball in the United States.