Sports ticker floating in Yankee Stadium visitor's clubhouse

At last, a clubhouse fit for Pete Rose.

While Major League Baseball says it's doing all it can to keep tabs on packages coming in and out of stadium clubhouses, always on the lookout for performance enhancers, there apparently is less interest in the betting odds being posted every afternoon on a scrolling ticker inside Yankee Stadium's visitors' clubhouse.

Hanging on a back wall, beyond the lockers and just above a tiny dining table where players chow down on a snack before the game, is a sports ticker with gambling lines, one after the other, on everything from the NBA's Eastern Conference finals, Sunday's Indy 500 and - perhaps most surprisingly - MLB games.

So, with the Orioles and Yanks set to take the field in a matter of hours, the digital ticker scrolling just above the players' heads reads, "Baltimore (-155) at New York (T9)."

It's not too late to get a bet in.

Later in the scroll comes a proposition bet pitting Derek Jeter against O's second baseman Brian Roberts. The ticker asks which of the two players would have the "Most Bases" in that night's game. Roberts walks by without noticing. "Who bets on that?" says Roberts.

You can also get the over/under line on wins for each team in the NFL. Who needs the sports book at Caesars Palace when you have the visitors' clubhouse at the Stadium?

Every major league team is required to post MLB's policies against betting on baseball and, according to clubhouse manager Lou Cucuzza, they are in his office. But in plain view is the ticker that the Yankees say has been there for 12 years.

The odds are part of a service provided by Tickercom, a digital media company that delivers the late-breaking news its customers crave, according to its Web site. Tickercom sends a generic feed of sports headlines and scores, but customers can receive news without the odds.

"(They) can get whatever they want," says a representative from Tickercom. "They can just have sports news and not have the odds. It depends on what the customer requested."

The standard feed, says the rep, comes with the odds.

Having MLB betting odds freely displayed in a clubhouse seems like a sharp contrast to baseball's aggressive anti-gambling stance of years past. Remember, then-commissioner Bowie Kuhn banned Hall of Famer Willie Mays from baseball for six years in 1979 because he worked as a greeter at an Atlantic City casino.

"I would look into it," says former MLB commissioner Fay Vincent. "I would want to know what (the Yankees') argument is for it. But I would want to know more about what it's showing. If it's 90% gambling odds, I would take it out.

"But if you can have it without the odds, I would do that."

An official from Major League Baseball said the league was not aware of the ticker and the odds displayed, but would look into the matter and see what can be done about having the betting lines removed.

Depending on the day, the information on the ticker ranges from mostly gambling wages, as observed on April 29, with the Tigers in town, to a mixture of breaking news headlines and up-to-date betting lines and prop bets on player matchups and individual performances, such as "will Vernon Wells have an RBI, Yes or No?"

And while Yankees spokesman Jason Zillo acknowledges that the ticker's presence sends a mixed message to players, there are no plans to take it down.

"Give me $1,500 on the Yanks and $1,500 on the Sox," Orioles first baseman Kevin Millar jokes into his cell phone within earshot of a reporter asking questions about the ticker. "We're in, boys! We're tanking tonight."

Vincent, however, isn't laughing. While commissioner, he upheld former commissioner Bart Giamatti's 1989 lifetime ban of then-Reds manager Pete Rose for gambling on baseball - a charge the game's hit king denied for years before publicly coming clean in 2003.

Calls to Rose's agent for this story were not returned.

"Gambling is corrupting sports," says Vincent, pointing to the recent NBA scandal involving referee Tim Donaghy, who pleaded guilty to betting on games he officiated. "Gambling has become a pervasive aspect of our lives and our culture and it shows up all across the sports world and it's a very big concern."

BY ERIC BARROW
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
Friday, May 23rd 2008, 12:57 AM - nydailynews.com