Addicted to himself?
`By all accounts, Rose has a huge ego ... he may believe he is bigger than the game,' psychologist says

MICHAEL CLARKSON

Pete Rose's most serious addiction might not be gambling, but to being a beloved former baseball star — and many fans could be contributing to his malady by forgiving him.

That's the diagnosis from a distance by Long Island psychologist Dr. Richard Lustberg, who occasionally works with athletes and people with addictive behaviour.

"Does Pete Rose have a problem? Sure he does," says Lustberg, who has studied the Rose case over the years, but has never treated the former star player.

"Do we overlook it due to our own needs, desires and lack of knowledge? Sure we do."

Lustberg and some other psychologists believe that Rose might have several psychological issues, including addictions to gambling and narcissism (self love) and a penchant for denying he has those two disorders.

In 1990, after seeing a psychiatrist and going to prison for tax evasion, Rose said he had a "gambling sickness," but he has not elaborated on that recently.

"By all accounts, Rose has a huge ego ... he appears to believe baseball needs him as much as he needs it. He may believe he is bigger than the game," Lustberg told the Star yesterday.

Lustberg suspects that Rose came out with his autobiography, My Prison Without Bars, this week to get some attention when the Baseball Hall of Fame was announcing it will induct Paul Molitor and Dennis Eckersley while it continues to snub Rose for betting on baseball.

"Narcissists expect favourable treatment and that deludes (Rose) into believing that baseball will eventually cave to his need and public sentiment," Lustberg said. Many fans still support Rose because they related to him "as a fantastic player — a little guy who superseded his talent and gave them thrills on the ball field."

Rose finally admitted after 14 years of denial that he bet on baseball while he managed the Cincinnati Reds. He insists he never placed wagers from his office, but two of his reputed bet runners say that is not true.

"I don't think he told the whole truth because he still wants to look good," Lustberg said.

In his book, 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 ... but baseball had no fancy rehab for gamblers like they do for drug addicts."

Many pro teams have psychologists who help players, but sports leagues have habitually failed to address compulsive gambling as a sickness, according to Dr. Jon Grant, assistant professor of psychiatry at Brown University, who estimates that 3 to 4 per cent of adults can be classified as compulsive gamblers.

"One of the criteria for this disorder is repetitive lying to conceal the gambling, much the same way an alcoholic or drug addict tries to conceal their behaviours," Lustberg said.

"And that does not allow them to seek the treatment they need."

Although he has no evidence, Lustberg suspects that Rose's addictive personality might come from a home life which was empty and/or a gene which predisposed him to gambling. (Rose's father was a banker and a hard-driving semi-pro football player.)

"Gamblers try to fill that void to feel alive, and I think Rose did that more after he left baseball. They have a need to get high, and for adulation."

According to Philadelphia pastor Rev. Richard Miller, who worked for years as a clubhouse manager in Triple-A baseball, Rose might still be a child "in nothing more than a grown-up version of a little boy's game ... when you're young, you mostly lie to save face. When you grow up, the stakes are higher and lies are more about getting away with an injustice."

Rose might eventually be forgiven by many people in U.S. society "because we are a country driving hard and fast toward the embracing of the `me' over `we,'" Lustberg said. "Self-importance, admiration and arrogance are all in vogue."

WITH FILES FROM STAR WIRE SERVICES