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Stars and Bars

Baseball legend Pete Rose titled his 2004 autobiography "My Prison Without Bars," referring to the 1989 ban from Major League Baseball as a result of betting on baseball games while managing the Cincinnati Reds. Back in the summer of 1990, however, Rose did spend time in prison – the kind with bars.

The would-be Hall of Famer was found guilty of filing false returns, returns which underreported income he received from selling autographs and memorabilia in 1985 and 1987. According to the Dowd Report, which first exposed his gambling to MLB, Rose demanded cash for his autograph show appearances because "cash money did not have to be claimed."

In addition to five months in prison, Rose also served three months at a halfway house, performed 1,000 hours of community service and paid more than $366,000 in back taxes, interest and penalties. He was released from the Marion, Ill. Federal prison in January of 1991.

Strikes Two and Three

Eleven years later – around the same time that commissioner Bud Selig publicly acknowledged that he was considering Rose's new application for reinstatement – Rose was hit with federal and California state tax liens amounting to $151,690, stemming from his failure to pay what he owed on his 1998 return (Rose owns a condo in Los Angeles). His accountants said that this was not a matter of tax evasion; Rose just couldn't afford to pay his taxes.

The tax bill had the press wondering if all this tax trouble might be affecting his chances for reinstatement (Selig wound up passing on Rose's application for reinstatement) when, in January of 2004, Rose reversed 15 years of denial in a second autobiography, "My Prison Without Bars."

"I'm not going to lie to you folks and say that I have everything worked out," Rose wrote in the book's epilogue. "It's a daily battle but I'm fighting every step of the way."

The battles keep coming: In August of 2004, the IRS filed a Federal tax lien in Broward County, Fla., alleging that Rose owed $973,693 in back taxes from 1997 to 2002. It is reported that Rose has been making monthly payments on the debts while the IRS has put a lien on his home.

Meanwhile, Rose's 24-year playing career was honored with a 2,000 square foot exhibit in the main lobby of the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame and Museum, and last fall PeteRose.com began selling signed baseballs that say "I'm sorry I bet on baseball" at $350 a pop.